Sunday 9 March 2008

Having just refreshed the video offerings previously inhabited by ultra-obscuro Canadian proto-punk geniuses Simply Saucer, Parisian electro-punk upstarts Metal Urbain and the experimental DIY punk of the Nikki Sudden led Swell Maps, you now get to see this lot.


VIDEO BAR:

'Contact' (Brigitte Bardot).
1967 Serge Gainsbourg penned (and Michel Colombier arranged) sub-Barbarella space-love minimalism from the delectable La Bardot.
The future never looked as sexy as it did in the Sixties.

'New Age' (Chrome).
Cheapo attempt to do some kind of Clockwork Orange futureshock thing I know, but it was from the mid 80s and this is the only thing I could find from the truly great and completely overlooked post-punk proto industrial/techno band.
1979's 'Half Machine Lip Moves' LP remains their magnum opus and rivals anything contemporary progressive new wavers PIL, Gang Of Four, Cabaret Voltaire or The Pop Group produced at the time.

'Bronx Warriors Drum Solo'.
I remember excitedly sitting down to watch this film at the dawn of the video era in the early 80's and believing I was about to see the ultimate in ultra-violence (essentially some hack whose Eureka Moment was evidently welding together 'The Warriors' and 'Escape From New York'.
Which sounds a pretty fine idea to me on paper.
Sadly it was nowhere near that good and like so many of the so-called video nasties (Driller Killer, Maniac Cop, Exterminator, etc), were just essentially cheap knock-offs of better and more commercially successful genre-defining movies like the ones mentioned above.
But for whatever reason, perhaps because it was such a shameless rip-off, there's still something I really dig about it.
And then there's this drum solo.
I don't know what the fuck is going on here - some guy sitting out by the docks keeping a steady beat on his drum kit whilst a body lies face down in the Hudson with a sword arcing out of its back as Trash and his crew assemble with revenge in mind.
Or something.


LINKS:

'Metal Fingers In My Body' (Add N To (X)).
Analogue electroclash weirdness by the sadly defunct Londoners inhabiting an orbit outside that of more accessible (and better known) groups such as Stereolab and Broadcast while seemingly more directly influenced by the likes of Silver Apples and Suicide.
Some fine sub-Ballardian imagery on show here - human-robot 69 in particular.

'Rollerball' Clip.
The 70s produced so many memorable futureshock movies (The Apes series, Omega Man, Soylent Green, Silent Running, Dark Star, etc, with Rollerball being another.
This clip, when the degenerate rich entertain themselves by destroying nature for no other benefit than their amusement, was a moment I found eerily discomfiting when first watching the movie as a child.
Now I just think it looks cool.

'Beneath The Planet Of The Apes' Clip.
Another classic (and underrated) futureshock movie. This clip alone surpasses anything the first movie produced - a cult of disfigured mutant humans living underneath the ruins of post-apocalyptic New York where they worship the H-Bomb as God.
Genius.

'Le Planete Sauvage' Trailer.
An animated film I've never seen and only know from the fabulous soundtrack album by former Gainsbourg arranger Alain Goraguer and featuring moody Gallic beats sampled by the likes of MadLib amongst others.