Véréna Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab's new documentary "Leviathan" at Northwest Film Forum: April 5 - 11 & 26 - May 2

Next month Leviathan surfaces at Northwest Film Forum! No, no, not the mythical beast of Biblical Lore, nor the Great White Whale of Melville. This beast is instead the brutal, sensorial, visceral ONSLAUGHT that is the creation of Paravel and Castaing-Taylor of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab and the Visual and Environmental Studies department's "Leviathan". And if you think a documentary on the subject of Deep Sea Fishing isn't going to be the most audio-visual engaging experience you have in the theater this year, well, you'll have a chance to be proven wrong, wrong, wrong, in a few short weeks. Their previous, environmental, ambient, gorgeously duration-oriented "Sweetgrass" certainly doesn't prepare you for this. Nor does A.O. Scott's review for the New York Times, which I feel only touches on it's one-of-a-kind sensory approach. It's instead the Dennis Lim piece of earlier this year that suggests the true physical, auditory, visual, conceptual experience of this singular work. Trust me. You will never again see a documentary on this subject (or most any other) that will leave this indelible an impression on your mind, senses or imagination. There's a reason the poster features a Gothic Doom Metal font and all the images seem as though they're sourced from Dante's Divine Comedy.

Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (both fowards and backwards) & Rodney Ascher's new documentary "Room 237" at SIFF Cinema: April 5 - 11

Not only is Stanley Kubrick's (superior) adaptation of Steven King's "The Shining" back in theaters in a new print (and yes, in 1980 I was among the generation of children that had it absolutely wreck my 9 year old head, thank you). But smartly timed with the documentary of all things theory, conspiracy, insights and speculation on it's potentially coded symbolism, imagery and synchronicity spelling out everything from the Holocaust, to the slaughter of American Indians and the claim that the film is a kind of apology by Kubrick for the putative role he played in helping to 'fake' the Apollo 11 lunar landing. (Yep, you read that right). Rodney Ascher's "Room 237" screens at SIFF for one week back-to-back with the film itself. There's more. For the true dedicated Kubrick-o-phile, here's your one chance to see some of this film's layered mystery revealed, in the single screening of "The Shining" forwards and backwards. And in honor of IFC's distribution of all the coded meaning reexamined and the metaphorical can of worms growing in Room 237 of the Timberline Lodge being re-opened, the New York Times featured this fun, insightful, debunking piece, in interview with Kubrick's assistant Leon Vitali on the shooting of the film.
"It’s Back. But What Does It Mean?".

Shane Carruth's "Upstream Color" & Park Chan-Wook's "Stoker" advance screening Premiers at SIFF Cinema: March 12 - 14 | Director in Attendance: March 14

Two major advance screening premiers this month at SIFF! The past decade has seen Korean cinema take Western Society's love of shock and thrills, imbued it with meaning, almost grotesque humor, stylistic flourishes, a frenetic sense of risk, propelled through a often labyrinth of inventive narrative hooks and thrown it back at us. Seemingly upping Hollywood at it's own game and delivering some seriously joyous, brooding, psychotic, perverse, playful, absurd thrills. So it's with paradoxically hesitant anticipation that I went into Park Chan-Wook's new film "Stoker" last night. Anticipation for all the reasons listed above, hesitation for him now on Hollywood ground, directing films in English with a cast including Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode. Nonetheless I had hope of him delivering a psychotic fusion of Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("I'm a Cyborg but that's OK") and Alfred Hitchcock ("Old Boy") as a american psycho-drama. Well, good thing I went in with a degree of trepidation, attuned to how this setting and cast could go amiss. As the psychological thrills simmered throughout, yet never reached the cohesion of a boiling point. Seemingly a case of 'lost in translation' it's eccentric cast of sociopaths and the ultra-privileged elicit neither your sympathy, or even quite the dynamics of a love them/hate them dichotomy of the despicable. Here's hoping Mr. Park makes a quick return to more fertile (Korean) cinema ground again soon!
The second, and more anticipated premier, is the long, long awaited follow-up to Shane Carruth's brilliant bit of low budget, smaller cast, sci-fi of 2004, "Primer". His newest, "Upstream Color" screened already at SXSW last weekend to near-hysterics online. Filling a void left by Soderbergh, Aronofsky, Fincher and many of the other promising genre-directors of the 2000's, who went on to make solid, but more formula-based films with larger budgets and celebrity casts. Carruth has the very real potential to be their equivocal for this decade. "Upstream Color"'s Sundance screening garnering no small amount of critical praise from The Village Voice, The LA Times and yet more attention in the pages of the New York Times for it's inclusion in MoMA's prestigious New Directors/New Films series, along with a Lion's share of the contents of Film Comment's 'Best Undistributed Films of 2012' survey of last year. I'm not going to say much more about Carruth's film in advance of SIFF's preview screening as seeing it 'blind' is the best way to appreciate it's particularly moving, bucolic and at once nightmarish vision. Even with reading the above New York Times interview (and I recommend you don't) you'd not be prepared for the fusion of cinema forms on display so disparate as the visual aesthetic of Terrence Malick and the corporeal, psychological drama/trauma of early David Cronenberg. How's that for a unexpected junction?! I'll even go as far as to say the hyperbole you've heard issue from the festival screenings along the lines of "the most original new sci-fi film of this decade", isn't unfounded. Witness Carruth's newest yourself when it returns for SIFF's theatrical run next month.

"Tokyo 1955 - 1970: A New Avant-Garde" & "Gutai: Splendid Playground" at MoMA & Guggenheim Museum NY: Nov 18 - Feb 25 & Feb 15 - May 8

The reasons are innumerable why Tokyo 1955 - 1970: A New Avant-Garde is likely going to be the best exhibit I see this year. Especially if considered in combination with the first-ever US retrospective of the related, Gutai: Splendid Playground at the Guggenheim. Big claim, I know, particularly so early in the 2013... but with the 40 Film Retrospective of New Wave, Experimental and post-War cinema and a series of ongoing installation/performance pieces in the MoMA lobby during the duration of the show, like Eiko & Koma "Caravan Project", in addition to the scope and rarity of the work in the exhibit. I think it's safe to say it's claim to that title is pretty much cinched. It's breadth encompassing artists and movements like Jikken Kobo which included in it's ranks composers Toru Takemitsu, Toshi Ichiyanagi and Joji Yuasa along with innovative post-War author Kobo Abe and his often collaborator, seminal Japanese New Wave director Hiroshi Teshigahara (who's brilliant existentialism cinema was finally given a proper and much overdue western release by Criterion and Masters of Cinema this decade. As a collaborative trio between the author and director, with the above mentioned Toru Takemitsu supplying the scores). Among other notable characters like movement co-founder Tetsuji Takechi and the once Pinku Eiga director turned political artist, Koji Wakamatsu (who in the past year was barred from the United States and unable to attend the New York premier of what were then his two most recent films, had a 30 film! retrospective at Cinémathèque Française, released two more new films "The Millennial Rapture" and "11/25: The Day He Chose His Own Fate" and sadly was killed by an errant cab driver in Tokyo). Overlapping with, and likely to even outshine the MoMA, there's the Guggenheim Gutai-focused exhibit and it's brilliant multimedia artist Atsuko Tanaka, 'mail' artist Shozo Shimamoto, painter and author of the Gutai Manifesto Jiro Yoshihara, the extraordinary visual and installation work of Motonaga Sadamasa, and another personal favorite, 'bodily painter' Kazuo Shiraga. Many of the major players in these movements overlapping with that of the Art Theatre Guild who's work figures largely in MoMA's film retrospective. And all of that only touching on the surface of what's on display, the scope and greater significance of the exhibit simply beyond what I'm able to convey here. For that I'm going to direct you to the the most coherent encapsulations I've read, Holland Cotter's "A Feisty Phoenix From the Nuclear Ashes" and Roberta Smith's "The Seriousness of Fun in Postwar Japan" for the New York Times.

Miguel Gomes' "Tabu", Abbas Kiarostami's "Like Someone in Love" & Hong Sang-Soo's "In Another Country" at NWFF, Grand Illusion Cinema & Landmark Theatres: Feb 8 - 21

What was one of greatest pieces of new cinema I saw last year is finally in theaters! By turns nostalgic, political, haunting, humorous, romantic, lush and equal parts emotional as it is cerebral, Miguel Gomes' "Tabu" comes to the Northwest Film Forum at the end of next week. Beyond the string of adjectives above what more can be said about this visual ode to memories (or dreams? or films? or dreams of films?) of Colonialism and times past? I think it's placement on these Films of the Year lists is both telling and very, very much deserved. As lovers of modern film and it's evolving language of past and future, you owe it to yourself to catch this one. But again, don't trust my take, read the merited encomium from Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian and Dennis Lim for the New York Times.

And more quality cinema the following week with the return of Abbas Kiarostami and his newest (well, ok, screened as far back as Cannes 2012, so it's been awhile) "Like Someone In Love" finally landing at the Landmark Theatres simultaneous with New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center "A Close-Up of Abbas Kiarostami" retrospective of the Iranian master-filmmaker. Spanning four decades of the director's work and everything from recognized masterpieces like "Taste of Cherry", "Ten", "Where Is the Friend's Home?" to rarely (or unscreened in the west) early works like "Solution No. 1", "Fellow Citizen" to more recent film essays such as "Five: Dedicated to Ozu" and narrative films like 2009's Cannes Best Actress-winning "Certified Copy". The 24 film short and feature length series spanning documentary, meta-fiction, drama and the blurring of all lines between, an exhibition of Kiarostami is a true director of the Postmodern era. The retrospective celebrating his contribution to modern cinema and acting as a showcase for his most recent fusion of those personal obsessions we've come to know how art for; "Like Someone in Love" treading that tenuous ground of undefined 'authority' on events depicted, much like that of "Certified Copy", but this time it's the viewer who's given insight into the inverted identity and roles acted out as the character's lives. Oh yes, it also showcases one of his other major obsessions; beautiful women, in transit, shot from the interior of automobiles in vibrant, teeming, kaleidoscopic urban settings.

Also in the way of new things international cinema, coinciding with the above we also get the newest from Korean master of everyday tales populated by lives filled to the brim with wayward miserablism, Hong Sang-Soo. And if that doesn't sound like an endorsement, well, know that I'm usually divided on his work, but the artistry, humor and humanism of his films almost always wins me over by the end. So thank you Grand Illusion for bringing "In Another Country". This is coinciding with the return screening (after a short run at NWFF) of the excellent "We Don't Care About Music Anyway" documentary on the Onkyo, Noise and Improv Japanese urban music cultures. Another bold music document from the very fringes of sound can be seen the following week as The Grand illusion screens Norway's monolithic masters of atmospheric Free-Improv Supersilent, and their live concert film, "7" for two nights only.

:::: FILMS OF 2012 ::::

TOP FILMS OF 2012 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
--------------------------------------------------------
Léos Carax  "Holy Motors"  (France)
Andrey Zvyagintsev  "Elena"  (Russia)
Michael Haneke  "Amour"  (Austria)
Mark Cousins "The Story Of Film"  (United Kingdom)
Carlos Reygadas  "Post Tenebras Lux"  (Mexico)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan "Once Upon A Time In Anatolia" (Turkey)
Miguel Gomes  "Tabu"  (Portugal)
Jafar Panahi "This Is Not A Film" (Iran)
Michael Glawogger  "Whore's Glory"  (Germany)
Peter Strickland  "Berberian Sound Studio"  (United Kingdom)
Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne "The Kid With A Bike"  (France)
Patrick Keiller  "Robinson In Ruins"  (United Kingdom)
Grant Gee  "Patience (After Sebald)"  (United Kingdom)
Bertrand Bonello  "House of Tolerance"  (France)
Kleber Mendonça Filho  "Neighboring Sounds"  (Brazil)
Matthew Akers  "Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present"  (United States)
Asghar Farhadi "A Separation" (Iran)
Julia Loktev "The Loneliest Planet" (United States)
Mohammad Rasoulof  "Good Bye"  (Iran)
Alexander Sokurov "Faust" (Russia)
Hirokazu Kore-eda  "I Wish"  (Japan)

The past 12 months yielded great discoveries outside the expected sources and return artists creating works from beyond their established territory. A year of finding new record labels, imprints and film distributors. Authors of choice producing some of their finest writing to-date. Connections made between some of the new Century's most enjoyable novels-to-screenplay. Directors engaged with favorite sound artists to generate previously inconceivable soundtracks to exquisite pieces of cinema. 2012 was a good one. Probably the most powerful cinema experience had in the theater this year, a odyssey spanning 15 hours, 11 decades and over 1000 films, Mark Cousin's "Story of Film", inspired a personal reexamination of the films of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Jean Renoir, Chris Marker, Roberto Rossellini, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Noriaki Tsuchimoto, Shohei Imamura, Abbas Kiarostami, Douglas Sirk, Howard Hawks and even David Lynch. After a 13 year hiatus Léos Carax returned with his ode to the dream of cinema, past, present and future. "Holy Motors" proved to be neither a eulogy or swan-song, but instead a passionate, chameleonic, poetically surreal love letter to the medium and it's ongoing evolution. Curious things happened when both traditional American and Science Fiction storytelling couldn't secure studio funding; they went for a small spectrum of outside the industry financiers and/or secured the backing of a independently financed imprint. So good thing! As without these alternatives we'd not have seen P.T. Anderson's first great film (in my reckoning), "The Master" and the Tykwer/Wachowski adaptation of David Mitchell's aeons-spanning narrative puzzle, "Cloud Atlas". For all the former's Scientology skirting, it beautifully encapsulated the era and post-War America's monetary, philosophical, guru-fixation. And looked gorgeous in the few cinemas capable of screening 70mm, while doing it! The latter, which aspired to the same great heights as it fell, vacillated moment by moment between the two, striking phenomenal heights and almost instantaneously plumbing (to borrow a skater term), 'face plant' lows. It was also a year of the charged and political; Michael Glawogger presenting his Globalization Trilogy at Northwest Film Forum and his "[If you're going to make films of this nature] You can't be a f*cking crybaby." quote making my year. Jafar Panahi did the illegal and beautiful in "This Is Not A Film", as did Ai WeiWei, with the University of Washington hosting the second-only screening of his documentary work stateside. Tarkovsky's conception of The Zone haunted film essay making this year with the final installment in Keiller's Robinson trilogy, "Robinson in Ruins" as well as Grant Gee's exploration of W.G. Sebald's meditation on memory, loss and space, in "Patience (After Sebald)". Further resonances of Tarkovsky and Bergman could be both seen and felt in Andrei Zvyagintsev's "Elena" and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's most elaborate, exquisitely refined work to date, "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia".

As it has for the past decade, Scarecrow Video played an invaluable role as a vector for moving pictures from around the globe, an especially considerable resource for those of us enabled by all-zone/region Blu-Ray players. This year's Seattle International Film Festival hosted a better turnout than the past couple year's selections, though still not on par with previous decades where SIFF often dominated the field by screening a majority of the year's highlights over the course of the festival. Thankfully, the SIFF Cinema and Film Center picked up much of the slack by screening quality cinema year-round (right alongside a calendar packed with postmodern Retromania and ironic jokey quote-alongs). So I'll celebrate the former... and assume the latter pays the bills? With indie cinemas closing around the nation, it was that much more important to support the local theater opportunities such as the Landmark Theatre chain, the Grand Illusion Cinema and what's proven itself to be the paramount indie screen in Seattle, Northwest Film Forum. Many of the best films seen this year, when they did come to the theater, had runs that lasted no more than a week. Others were never to to appear again outside of an initial festival screening. Again proving the wisdom of getting out there, seeing the city and prioritizing the art/music/film that we're fortunate to have in our urban cultural crossroads.

Lastly, the unseen films by directors of note that never made it over here distributed stateside. Many of them not even making a less-desirable appearance as an online release. These lists just keep growing longer every year, indicative of missed markets, untapped audiences, unseen art. By way of example, Haneke's Palme d'Or winning "Amour" is only currently open in New York, Gomes' "Tabu" is screening at Northwest Film Forum in early 2013, Reygadas' "Post Tenebras Lux" doesn't open until May, Strickland's "Berberian Sound Studio" showed in the Vancouver International Film Festival in October and not on the west coast since. So that said, I suspect a number of these would have made the list, if I had opportunity to see them:

Ulrich Seidl "Paradise: Love"/"Paradise: Hope"/"Paradise: Faith" (Austria)
Kōji Wakamatsu  "Millennial Rapture"  (Japan)
Wong Kar-Wai  "The Grandmaster"  (China)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa  "Penance"  (Japan)
Cristian Mungiu  "Beyond The Hills"  (Romania)
Olivier Assayas  "Something In The Air"  (France)
Funahashi Atsushi  "Nuclear Nation"  (Japan)
Lou Ye  "Mystery"  (China)
Naomi Kawasi  "Chiri"  (Japan)
Wang Bing  "Three Sisters"  (China)
Joshua Oppenheimer  "Act Of Killing" (Denmark)
Verena Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor  "Leviathan"  (United Kingdom)
Jem Alan Cohen  "Museum Hours"  (Austria)
Abbas Kiarostami  "Like Someone In Love"  (Iran/France/Japan)
Sergey Loznitsa  "In The Fog"  (Russia)
Raúl Ruiz  "Night Across The Street"  (Chile)
Rafi Pitts  "Sanam"  (Iran/Germany)
Katsuya Tomita  "Saudade"  (Japan)
Lav Diaz  "Century Of Birthing"  (Philipines)
Amir Naderi  "Cut"  (Japan)
Nobuhiro Yamashita  "My Back Page"  (Japan)
Rodney Ascher  "Room 237"  (United States)
Ben Wheatley  "Sightseers"  (United Kingdom)

:::: ALBUMS OF 2012 ::::

TOP ALBUMS OF 2012 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
----------------------------------------------------------
The Caretaker  "Patience (After Sebald) - Soundtrack"  (HAFTW)
Demdike Stare  "Elemental"  (Modern Love)
Cut Hands  "Black Mamba"  (Very Friendly)
Thomas Köner  "Novaya Zemlya" (Touch)
V/A  "Air Texture Volume II"  (Air Texture)
Emptyset  "Collapsed"  (Raster-Noton)
KTL  "V"  (Mego)
SWANS  "The Seer"  (Young God) 
Charlatan  "Isolatarium"  (Type)
Splashgirl  "Field Day Rituals"  (Hubro)
Gultskra Artikler  "Abtu Anet"  (Miasmah) 
V/A "After The Affair" (Blackest Ever Black)
Jacob Ullmann "Fremde Zeit • Addendum"  (Edition RZ)
Vox Clamantis & Jaan-Eik Tulve "Filia Sion"  (ECM)
Broadcast  "Berberian Sound Studio" & Andrew Liles  "The Equestrian Vortex"  (Warp & Death Waltz)
Stian Westerhus  "The Matriarch And The Wrong Kind Of Flowers" (Rune Grammofon)
V/A "John Cage Shock Vol.1-3" (EM Records)
Godspeed You! Black Emperor  "'Alleujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!"  (Constellation)
V/A  "Touch: 30 Years And Counting"  (Touch)
Oren Ambarchi  "Sagittarian Domain"  (Mego)
Kevin Drumm  "Relief" (Mego)
Corrupted  "Garten Der Unbewusstheit" (Nostalgia Blackrain)
Pinkcourtesyphone  "Elegant & Detached" (Room40)
Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi & Jim O'Rourke "Imikuzushi" (Black Truffle)
Peter Brötzmann, Masahiko Satoh & Takeo Moriyama "Yatagarasu" (Not To)

Another extraordinary year of sonic adventurers, live sounds heard and albums released! This year's list is graced by a media encapsulation of some of it's highlights, brought to you by the Made Like A Tree podcast series: my Best of 2012 Mix overlapping significantly with the list above. Though I'm decidedly not a nostalgia-miner, the present in some ways couldn't compete with the past half-Century of Early Electronic Music that found it's way back into the world this year. A stunning, stunning crop of archival releases by not only the most significant names of that era, but some of the most undervalued; that of the female pioneers. Probably the single most momentous announcement of 2012 in my mind, was that of SUNN O)))'s Stephen O'Malley establishing his Recollections GRM reissue imprint. In the 9 months since it's initiation releasing the mathematically powerful expression of geometry and sound found in Iannis Xenakis' "GRM Works 1957-1962", early electronic's  organic aural engineer, Bernard Parmegiani and one of his many masterpieces, "L'Œil écoute/Dedans-Dehors", GRM Studio founder Pierre Schaeffer's classic  "Le Trièdre Fertile" and the studio's cinematic/sexual funnyman, Luc Ferrari and his "Presque Rien". Which makes a bit of an awkward bridge to the equally significant, substantially less-heard and distinctly their own work of the women pioneers that have seen light in the past 12 months. Modern Love's Young Americans imprint released gorgeous vinyl box sets of BBC Radiophonic Workshop founder Daphne Oram as "Oramics" and “The Oram Tapes: Vol.1”. American composer Pauline Oliveros' work was enshrined by the massive 12 CD (yes, twelve) "Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961 - 1970" set issued by Important Records. Laurie Spiegel's "The Expanding Universe" reissued with the now classic (legendary) essay "1970s Computer Music from Bell Labs". France's sound sculptor of the sublime and austere, Eliane Radigue now with not only an unreleased gem, "Feedback Works 1969-1970", but more works simultaneously in print than any other decade in my lifetime, again largely thanks to the work of Important Records. If there was ever a doubt to the innvations made, and massive debt owed to this era's sonic explorers, the past year in reissues and archival releases has gone some way to rectify that.

Not just a time for archival bounty, it was year of adventurous new sounds. Scandinavia the home to five? six? decades of some of the finest Free Jazz the world has seen/heard continues to crank it out. Much loved up north, Germany's brutalist practitioner Peter Brötzmann celebrated his 71st birthday with both a astounding documentary of his work and ethics, "Soldier of the Road" (curiously sharing much with another defining German voice in 20th Century art, that of "Gerhard Richter Painting") and a set of exceptional albums and touring and two lengthy interviews in the pages of The Wire. Metal was huge, Corrupted released their final album and SUNN O))) performed an immense set, their first in some years. Krautrock legends Faust reappeared after a 18 year hiatus from touring the west coast, delivering two days of theatrical, joyous, DaDa insanity. Speaking of legendary and Kraut, Can produced their distilled refinement of over 30 hours of unreleased recordings spanning the years 1968-1977, as "The Lost Tapes".  Modern Classical fared better than it has in something like a decade. There was the American Mavericks series in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, the "[untitled]: 1962" night at the Seattle Symphony with the International Contemporary Ensemble, a sprawling year-long series of events celebrating the John Cage Centennial, including Seattle Modern Orchestra's mini-festival and the immersive 5 hour realization of Gavin Bryars' "The Sinking of the Titanic" on the anniversary of the historic event. Lastly, Canadian pianist/composer Lubomyr Melnyk delivered a performance seemingly exceeding both acoustic possibility and physical endurance, a night redolent with melodic phenomena, it's no wonder he's since found a home on the UK's Erased Tapes label. The quality of some of the showcases heard/seen in the year's festivals was unparalleled, when Unsound Krakow brings The End to New York City in this coming year, you can bet I'm going to be there. Substrata had another year of surprises and reaffirmations of ambient and experimental music being far from static. Decibel produced a festival that far outshone the last few year's, with two showcases, the Raster-Noton and Modern Love on par with those of Mutek Montreal's now legendary nights. Jon Wozencroft's Touch imprint celebrated it's 30th extraordinary year of issuing the finest in sonic abstraction, theory and visual art, with showcases around the world. And speaking of global and far-flung, Otomo Yoshihide appeared on the west coast for the first time in nearly a decade, performing alongside his post-Onkyo compatriots, Akio Suzuki and Gozo Yoshimasu in the Aki Onda curated, Issue Project Room hosted, Voices & Echoes series.

Made Like A Tree Podcast & Best of 2012 Mix

This interview with myself and its accompanying Best of 2012 mix have been brought to you by Jeremy M. Grant and his Made Like A Tree podcast series. This quarterly curated assembly of transmissions from the musical fringe finds me in the company of such cultural luminaries as Touch artist Mark Van Hoen, the man behind Seefeel and Scala, and Type and Mexican Summer artist Jefre Cantu-Ledesma of the duo Tarentel. As well as other such cultural vanguards as transgender author, theorist and musician Terre Thaemlitz, psychedelic dub producer Sun Araw, and metal-doom-drone purveyor Burial Hex. There's also another Type Records adventurer, Marc Richter aka Black to Comm, Kranky's abstract folk and ambient expressionist, Benoît Pioulard, and Echocord's Mikkel Meldgaard aka Mikkel Metal. In the way of institutions that host the publishing, release and sale of music on the edge, the series also presents Los Angeles' ground zero for all things esoteric, adventurous and cutting edge Mount Analog, Dr. Troy of Medical Records, and The Wire's Philip Sherburne.

Q: Let's lead off with the softball stuff. In 500 words or less, how has 2012 been to you and those around you?

A: Challenging. It's definitely been a year of change and transition. Attempting to find new avenues and vehicles for both artistic creation and the development of cultural communities. The digital world has so much to offer. But expertise, true expertise, is lost amidst the  the deluge of ubiquitous comments fields on Reddit and the inundation of "informed gentlemen" with social media accounts. Curiously, this overabundance of novice opinion online has made the institution of the magazine and newspaper (both print and digital) more valuable than ever. It's these vehicles who have maintain a through-line of integrity and quality reportage in arts/news/culture coverage over the span of years, that I've found have become an increasingly valuable commodity for parsing out the global happenings online.

So finding a home doing work with those remaining institutions, or better yet, creating ones of our own have been the best part of this shift. Sadly there are fewer readers, since much of even the arts consuming public are doing other things with their time online, (read: meme aspirant image macros and photos of their own face). The end result of this slimming down on readership will have a qualitative effect I feel. A consolidation of sorts. Hopefully as we evolve through this transition, it will open to a plateau wherein the best of the best publishers, writers, and content creators are those left standing.

Q: You used to work for a local record shop in Seattle as their electronic and experimental music buyer. What have you been doing since, and how advantageous were these engagements (if any still remain) for you this year?

A: This relates in a sense to the previous question. The physical record store as a community environment will never be matched by the digital, virtual context. Yet, it's time and relevance to most of the consuming public though has come and gone. The largest percentage of listeners as consumers are just as happy and find it more convenient of course to have streaming product. It's also rare that most listeners have invested in home playback systems to take advantage of the sonic richness of a physical LP, or even CD for that matter. For the remainder of us so lucky as to live in a metropolitan area that has local retail which caters to non-commercial cultural interests, be it music, film, visual art or the printed word, I feel time to represent with our patronage. Now more than ever. As once these small, locally owned and run labors of love are gone, they'll be gone for good I fear.

I personally don't want to live in a city where it's character and even commercial opportunities differ less and less from that of the suburbs. So to answer your question, my year has been spent doing cultural writing online, copy writing for utterly mundane commercial interests to pay the bills, and spending my time and money on and at local businesses and cultural venues. Films in the theater, music in live settings, visual art at galleries and museums, retail at those few remaining businesses that sell the cultural products that are valuable to me. In-part it's participation in these things that define the urban center as a city. Sitting in front of a screen, and not going out, you can do just as well in a sprawling suburb of Kansas City or Orlando. Why live in a cultured metropolitan center like Seattle if that's how you aspire to spend your free time? 

Q: How was the 2012 year in music?

A: As a listener? As a person in the profession? Scattered, seemingly less cohesive, not necessarily in a negative sense, it just necessitated doing more work to find all the gems around the fringes. As a consequence of the protracted recession and everyone tightening their belts (especially in the arts) many of us have kind of retreated into our cultural cul-de-sacs as a means of ensuring we spend what time and monies we have on the art that's most significant to us. As a product, music sharing among friends with differing, divergent interests and tastes has become significantly more valuable. So community and dialog win out. In the end that's what it's really all about, so these financially spare times have kind of helped in that sense. As a listener it's been really phenomenal, especially live music. As a profession more difficult for the reasons we've already discussed.

Q: Where in the world were the more interesting movements been happening in music culture and production in 2012?

A: Oh man, where to begin? Again, the online world has given us this massive window into the global cultural happenings. Narrowing that down into something intelligible, and prioritization is the real work. Unsound festival Krakow continues to be phenomenal, the best curation of all post-20th century genres out there in one week long festival. Jon Wozencroft's Touch label just celebrated their 30th anniversary with a series of showcases around world. Modern classical had a great year with the American Mavericks series in San Francisco, Chicago and New York. Stephen O'Malley of SUNN O))) established an imprint for the rerelease of the holy grails of early electronic music, Recollections GRM. The undervalued ladies of early electronic music also had a explosive year of reintroductions to the world; archival releases by Daphne Oram, Pauline Oliveros, Delia Derbyshire, Laurie Spiegel and more releases by Eliane Radigue simultaneously available in print than any decade in my lifetime.

Japan has been issuing phenomenal adventurers as diverse as Kouhei Matsunaga's post-Warp Records dance project NHK, and the what's come after the ultra-minimalist IMJ, Onkyo and improv scenes. Germany is home to some real stunners; Raster-Noton as relevant and of-the-times as they were in 1998? No question! Scandinavia has been home to not only the best jazz of the past three(?) four(?) decades but metal is huge there as you know and now some of the finest abstract, electro-acoustic and electronic music is issuing from Northern Europe. Production wise, it's these crossroads where I'm finding the greatest richness of new sounds. Genre and scene bleeding together to created hybrids, mutations of form. Albums like Raime's "Quarter Turns Over A Living Line" as much speaking the language of early Autechre as it does the sound of Godspeed! You Black Emperor's home the Constellation label. KTL being as much metal as it is neoclassical and electronic music, is another example.

Q: You're very important to Seattle's music culture. You've had varying involvement in a variety of offerings and initiatives both this year and in years past. As a listener and employee of music, how has it been remaining here?

A: "Very"? Hyperbole I say. Ha. Seriously though; the post September 11th cultural landscape and it's effect on touring artists making appearances here in the Northwest has been impactful. I've found I've done more travel to attend festivals and other cities to unsure I'm not denied being able to witness the most important of the arts to me. This entails music shows, art exhibits and even films. It's nutty, but I'll travel to see a film in the theater. It's occasionally significant enough to necessitate that level of participation. And if I can't do it in my city, I'll do it in another. That said, Seattle is still a very much a high value cultural environment. Less than other decades in some ways, but again is it too easy to blame the recession and those who exploited the real estate vacuum it produced? Namely the tech industry? Look how fast land values are escalating now. Look at the tax cuts the city has offered that industry to entice them here. These are definitely at least contributing factors I'd say.

Keeping cultural venues open and paying the rent has unquestionably figured in no small way to these changes. Festivals here have stepped up their game seemingly in response. With a few high-density, larger capacity days, they've been able to unsure paying the bills and luring artists that it otherwise wouldn't be practical to perform here. Not to be too self promoting; but Rafael Anton Irisarri's Substrata Festival that I have a small hand in has been a world class showcase of ambient, neoclassical, experimental and electronic sounds for a couple years now. Decibel Festival was really on top of their game this year. Their curation was on par with the best North America has to offer. Comparable with some of Mutek Montreal's now legendary years. Two showcases made the whole weeklong event for me; the Modern Love label showcase and the following night's Raster-Noton. It's almost transparent how influential those nights were, I think it's pretty clearly reflected in my mix.

Q: What, for you, are the city's most valuable musical exports?

A: Well, metal plays a huge role here for me. All things related to SUNN O)))'s various offshoots and enterprises (though they're now spread out across the world), Earth and Great Falls have put on phenomenal shows. I'm expecting interesting things in the coming year from both Sublime Frequencies and Medical Records. I mentioned Substrata Festival's Rafael Irisarri, he's a big one, and I found myself compelled again and again on hearing Shabazz Palaces' newest. Which is a nice surprise, as my hip hop listening of this past decade has almost exclusively been of UK origin, grime and all things related online sessions; KISS and Rinse FM, Ruff Sqwad's reappearance... well there I go again. You ask me about local exports and I'm talking about the UK.

Q: 2012 is now closing up... any regrets?

A: Few. Making the knowledge connect with the realization of happenings and events is a learning curve with seemingly no ceiling. Translating that into viable arts events and ensuring the interested and potentially interested new audience knows is an ongoing, evolving organism. I'll say this; more travel needed to happen in 2012. There weren't enough cities seen, fantastic cultures experienced, creative/productive new peoples met, arts witnessed. That's going to be rectified in 2013. In light of evening thinking about regret, how about moving beyond it.

Q: What comes next for you in the new year?

A: Figuring some alchemical process by which the above resolution becomes a Möbius loop, or perpetual motion engine, forming my life.

1. Thomas Köner - Novaya Zemlya 3 - Novaya Zemlya [Touch]
2. Kreng - Monkey (Part 1) - Works for Abattoir Fermé 2007 - 2011 [Miasmah]
3. Oren Ambarchi - Sagittarian Domain - Sagittarian Domain [Editions Mego]
4. Brian McBride - At A Loss - V/A Air Texture Volume II [Air Texture]
5. Sylvain Chauveau & Stephan Mathieu - Chosen One - Palimpsest [Schwebung]
6. KTL - Phill 2 w/ Johann Johannsson - V [Editions Mego]
7. Raime - The Last Foundry - Quarter Turns Over A Living Line [Blackest Ever Black]
8. Demdike Stare - Kommunion (Alternate Version) - Elemental [Modern Love]
9. Cut Hands - No Spare No Soul - Black Mamba [Very Friendly]
10. Cloaks - Rust On Metal (Justin Broadrick Mix) - Versions Grain [3by3]
11. Emptyset - Armature - Collapsed [Raster-Noton]
12. Shackleton - Music For The Quiet Hour Part 1 - Music For The Quiet Hour [Woe To The Septic Heart]
13. Vladislav Delay - Kulkee - Kuopio [Raster-Noton]
14. Sun Araw & M. Geddes Gengras Meet The Congos - Food, Clothing and Shelter - Icon Give Thank [RVNG]
15. Gultskra Artikler - Berezka - Abtu Anet [Miasmah]
16. Christoph Heemann - The Rings of Saturn Part 7 - The Rings of Saturn: Complete Edition [Robot]
17. Pinkcourtesyphone - Petraglyph (for Ranier) - Elegant & Detached [Room40]
18. The Caretaker - The Night Is Over And The Dawn Is About To Break - Patience [After Sebald] OST [History Always Favors The Winners]

Michael Haneke's "Amour" at Landmark Theatres: Dec 21 - Mar 14

Finally opening at the Landmarks! Michael Haneke's Cannes Palme d'Or winning newest, "Amour" arrives in theaters some 7 months after it's premier. This film being notable for not only winning the most prestigious award in Global Cinema, but that win making Haneke one of history's few multiple-winners, putting him in the exclusive company of Shohei Imamura, Alf Sjöberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Bille August, Emir Kusturica and the Dardenne Brothers. The September issue of Film Comment featuring a particularly powerful plumbing of the creative urge, life, history and the will to live, with the film's lead Jean-Louis Trintignant, and another interview with him the following month for the New York Times. The interviews describing not only the rigor that Haneke has become known for, but also a deeper empathy and consideration of the character's tribulations, even of the subject matter itself. If these two articles aren't sufficient catalysts in inspiring you to brave the film (ha), there's always the critical outpouring it's met with in the pages of the New York Times from Manohla Dargis & A.O. Scott, Catherine Wheatley for Sight & Sound, Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian UK, James Quandt in the pages of Artforum and Robert Koehler for Film Comment. Just to name a few of the many won over by the depth, power and sincerity of it's casting a unflinching gaze on a subject from which many of us would prefer to avert our eyes and mind.

Thrones, House of Low Culture, Mamiffer, Dead in the Dirt, Earth & SUNN O))) - West Coast Tours: Dec 1 & 14 - 20

The west coast finally plays host to a couple of quality tours from the fringes of Doom, Drone and Experimental Metal! Beginning tonight at the Highline with a night of heavy sounds from Earth and Melvins bassist Joe Preston, as Thrones along with Hydra Head Records main man, Aaron Turner and his Mamiffer and House of Low Culture projects - the latter including SUNN O)))'s Stephen O'Malley and Luke Scarola of Old Man Gloom. Opening the night's bill, are Seattle's own dynamically heavy three-piece, Great Falls. If like me you've been bemoaning the lack of quality Metal tours coming through this city in the past year, well, December - often the most culturally desolate month of the year - is going to deliver. Deliver in even bigger ways come the 16th when the genre's premier practitioners, the aforementioned SUNN O))) play the Neptune Theatre along with Dylan Carlson's seminal low-end heavy rockers, Earth. O'Malley has been in overdrive this past year with solo and collaborative works, touring internationally and of great historical, cultural import, establishing his Recollections GRM imprint. Having already released some of the most significant works of Early Electronic Music from the French studio INA-GRM such those by it's founder Pierre Schaeffer and Italian visionary Bernard Parmegiani. That in the midst of this all O'Malley still tours/performs with his main collaborative vehicle, amazes. It's been a good few years since I saw them last, so this is going to be overdue tectonic onslaught, for which I've accumulated pretty massive anticipation. That 2007 Halloween Northwest show/tour wherein they played a secret 'enhanced' performance in Olympia, has yet to be matched. That period also contains what for me, are their greatest recorded works to date, "Black One" and the oddly magisterial "Monoliths & Dimensions" explored to the core of their depths in this 2009 interview for The Wire featuring Mayhem's vocal leviathan Attila Csihar, electronic/noise contributions from John Wiese, Seattle electric violin maestro Eyvind Kang and Australia's foremost experimental guitarist, Oren Ambarchi.
Photo credit: Frédéric Minne