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:: Monday, February 19, 2007 ::

DVD Reviews - Semiconductor and Ra

Semiconductor – Worlds in Flux (Fat Cat)



"A DVD-Video of Short Films, Art-Works, Music Videos and Live Cinema Documentation" by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt. I have to admit to being initially sceptical about this, worried that it was just going to be a load of typical club visuals presented on a DVD.

In places it is much more than that, with films of sunspots (untreated documentary data with a choice of 10 different soundtracks) and some brilliant art pieces with dissolving images of Paris, ravaged by mysterious meteorological events. Likewise the treated footage of the Northumberland coast and Earthquake devastated buildings are gripping "fictional documentaries." Their love of architecture is also clear and buildings have been subtly treated in such a way that you wonder how much of it is actually real.

However, the live cinema pieces are exactly what I was worried about. They really don't work outside of the live performance environment. Despite it being apparent that they were impressive at the time (several of them date back to 2002) it is obvious that the technology has already moved on and what was perhaps cutting edge five years ago is now something you see all over the place. The 200 Nanowebbers video for Double Adapter is the best of the bunch here, although it's not entirely clear how live this one actually was.

The highly abstract electronic music used though-out counters the feeling that this is club material, as there is almost nothing danceable here. There is some impressive noodling, some of it also live, but like extreme guitar workouts it's the sort of musical fetishism that is probably only appreciated by practitioners.

In conclusion, there are some intriguing moments I could happily watch and re-watch here, and would love to see performed in a larger, sensory immersing environment, but these are interspersed with some dated and more limited material that distracts from the whole.

Worlds in Flux is released on Feb 26th on Fat Cat.

Ra – Wxfdswxc2 (Sublight)



This limited initial run of this brilliant new album from Raoul Sinier, who I would call the greatest export of French hip-hop influenced electronica, includes a bonus DVD of his video work. Ra's musical work and video work are both just as impressive and together form something greater than the sum of the parts. Although the parts are all worthy on their own. The detail and effort that goes into both is staggering, evidenced by the fact that even the credits on this disk is a short film in itself.

His videos for ddamage are also presented here – compete with animated David Lynch, um, cameo – for completeness, along with a little easter-egg (a plus symbol appears at the bottom of the menu after viewing the stills gallery) of his "day job" material, in the form of odds and sods of ads and flash web design.

The album is more abstract than his pervious Raoul Loves You and perhaps even darker and more brooding. The music alone is perhaps not as instantly accessible as some of his previous work but together with the video it all makes sense.

It seems a shame that for such a visual artist the packaging is so sparse, but considering what a bargain the two disk set is already that is perhaps asking slightly too much. Having said that, I would shell out extra for a book of some of his material.

Brilliant album / video combo. Get it now while you still can!

Wxfdswxc2 is out now on Sublight

Labels: DVD, Electronica, Music, Ra, Review, Semiconductor, Visuals

:: Dan 19.2.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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