Displacement - Quarantine Hotel

DISPLACEMENT _ Quarantine Hotel: The full score for Jay's documentary is done!  The last piece, which will play for the final section of the film, was composed and recorded just earlier on this morning before I left for Jay's office. I had the illunination after watching Jóhann Jóhannsson's documentary The End of Summer yesterday night. It realised I didn't need to look any further as everything was already there in front of my eyes: those long and slow sonic landscapes of strings and synths that I would regularly record for so many projects could just be used alone to express this state of uncertainty we go through during this years' pandemic. I played it to Jay who immeditately loved it.   

We're still working on the editing, and the process is a very enjoyable one for me. There isn't much going on in terms of narrative. Jay's camera just follows Teresa Ma, the owner (and the film commissioner) and her staff going through long days of work after she decides to turn her hotel into quarantine hotel. As exciting as boiled cabbage... But somehow, combination of the slow, ambient score (some, featuring Goh Nakamura's atmospheric guitar from the Be Water sessions - rien ne se perd, tout se retrouve!) with the images gives an otherworldly impression. Jay welcomed my idea of setting up a near-science-fiction atmosphere with the music, as the current situation, if we think of it, is indeed very much one from a science fiction film. 

The film is taking shape now! I really enjoy doing the editing. CC, the hired editor - the third one, for this project, said that she on the contrary found editing a tedious process and was surprised to witness such enthusiasm from me. She also got the chance to see a more playful Jay at work...

Rain in 2020

Lee Yong Chao's film will be the third documentary I work on this year - if one excludes the ill-fated Be Water, Yong Chao is a director whose work I have followed for many years. I got the chance to see three of them at the theatre, albeit at festivals, as such films seldom get any theatrical release.  Even with minimal means - sometime with just an iPhone, he never fails to capture beautiful, striking and meaingful images. It's in his eyes, in his blood. His photographic work is also stunning. Not only are the photos charged with depth and many stories, they also carry a melancholy tone I relate to.
Rain in 2020 focuses on his family in Myanmar during the rainy season this year, 2020 being what it is. Yong Chao follows his younger brother and his two lively sons. Through them, he reflects on the state of the country, the incompetence and false hopes of the government, and the life of hardship of Burmese people.

I won't have much time to compose the music - just one month, as Yong Chao wishes to send the film for submission to the Berlin Festival. "But even if you think it will be impossible to complete the score in time, I still want you to do the music for it", he added. He had just finalised two long-feature documentaries, the other being given to Thomas, who is his usual collaborator. Thomas was very happy I could finally work with Yong Chao. I was relieved their working partnership wasn't an exclusive one. 

I have already began writing and recording some musical sketches. One movement is even already finished. But as ideas for Yong Chao's film keep coming to me, I also have to complete the music for Jay's documentary, as the commissioner expects a first cut by mid-October...

Chạy, chay, cháy, chảy, chày, chãy

Or how one single sign or accent can change everything...

A friend of mine from Malaysia was listening to the soundtrack of Ròm and got curious about Wowy's song. He googled the meaning of the title.

"Is it about being vegeterian?"

I burst out laughing.

It's "Chạy" not "Chay"! 

Träume

My dreams are getting very interesting... or weirder and weirder.

Two days ago, there was Woody Allen who was playing clarinet with a new band at the gym where I was training - well, we know how the two are connected. For some reason, he left and made sure to turn off all the lights, leaving everybody in pitch-black darkness. We cursed Woody as we were preparing for our next raid against a gang of yakuza, and couldn't even find our way out... 

The night before that, I was composing a piece that Herbert von Karajan was supposed to conduct, with soprano Anneliese Rothenberger singing the main part. I had even written the text (in German) and as she was sight-reading it, she couldn't help laughing and correcting my grammar mistakes, under the unconcerned eyes of maestro Karajan. Then I thought to myself: "How could I POSSIBLY be working with Anneliese Rothenberger when she has has already... PASSED AWAY? It must be another one of those dreams", I said to myself. "But... it's happening so maybe I'm not dreaming after all... but... she IS dead isn't she? And is Karajan!!!!"

Yesterday, I was controlling all the lights of a massive fifty-storey building... from a corn cob! "It's so cool!!!" I exclaimed. "Just like Christmas decoration!". And I kept on pressing on the corn knobs of the corn cob...

And a week ago, I was chatting with my friend Isabelle, when suddenly I found myself naked on my bed, trying to put on my underwear and conceal an embarrassingly huge hard-on, while Isabelle kept talking gayly, totally unaware of my little struggle...

At the Eslite bookstore... From one end of the music section, Aretha Franklin getting vocally orgasmic parising the Lord in Amazing Grace, and from the other end, well... Nana Mouskouri (painfully) attempting that infamous Carmen aria...
Life is full of contrasts.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to one of the very last foundries in Taipei to design my first business card. I never had any, and would usually scribble my contact on a torn piece of paper! Not very business-like I guess... It was Thierry's idea to go to that shop, as he had previously had his name cards printed there several tims. "A tad more expensive, but the result is really worth it" he said. It was amazing to find myself in this environment... Indeed, I could as well have it done on the computer and it would be much cheaper. But the quality and craftsmanship can't be matched. And this taste of the 'real thing'. 

To think they used to print newspapers that way every day in the old time!

Today, I received through Thierry the quote for those business cards, and I think that I am going to reply with a resounding NO! 6,000 NTD. That's perhaps too much of a rip-off for a struggling composer such as I, especially when we know that at best those cards take the dust on a desk, or that people throw the them in the bin once they get home... There's always the other possibility to design them on a computer and have them printed for a very cheap sum, especially in Taiwan. 
Another one of those hipster things.
Then tea master Sarah Wu asked me why I didn't ask her father to do it. I had completely forgotten that her father was running a foundry as well. "1500 for 200 pieces" she said. Indeed... That's cheaper. Thierry wanted to write to the foundry to find out what made the price rocket up like that. "Perhaps for the simple reason that I'm a foreigner" I replied. 
Anyway, now may not be the best time for those things, since I have no money left, but I will certainly think of it again when times get more prosperous.

So much for the hipster rip-off!

 

William encore et toujours

The birthday of William today. Someone very special to me. It's a tale of wonder how certain people appear in one's life. The tale follows its own trajectory, reveals so much about us, about what can be, could have been, what sometime will never be except in one's imagination or fantasy, but I thank the universe that it is never dull.

This photo was taken during the shooting of They Lie. I asked William to be in the music video, as I like to include in my work people who are dear to me, important in that moment life, sometime for a longer time. I like the idea of them being part of my creative path, where they can exist without physical or emotional limit.

Bon anniversaire, mon bel amour, ma déchirure.