{"id":3689,"date":"2020-03-31T15:24:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T15:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/?p=3689"},"modified":"2020-03-31T16:18:26","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T16:18:26","slug":"new-dark-age-last-day-of-march-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/?p=3689","title":{"rendered":"New Dark Age – Last Day of March 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ghost VI : Locusts
\nNIN<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Over the years, Trent Reznor<\/strong> and NIN have scored or contributed tracks to at least seven motion pictures and \u2013 in collaboration with Atticus Ross<\/strong> \u2013 many, many more. This 15\u2013track sequel to the series \u201cGhosts I – IV” (2008)<\/strong> is said by Mr. Reznor to address the anxiety associated the current age \u2013 and helping us \u201cget through\u201d the current situation, presumably the Coronavirus pandemic. It certainly doesn\u2019t offer anything resembling consolation. Instead it resembles nothing so much a a catalogue of motion picture sound track elements for sale to the movie industry.<\/p>\n

Addressing anxiety certainly isn\u2019t a new m.o. for NIN, but it doesn\u2019t seem that this long, largely formless opus is geared to that at all. What it does represent is a more or less total abandonment of NIN\u2019s traditional industrial dance music characterized by anger and iconoclasm, to say nothing of NIN\u2019s reputation for catchy hooks, striking melodies and enigmatic lyrics full of non-sequiturs. <\/p>\n

With this new album, NIN has left behind completely the industrial dance genre and continued with another wordless sound collage into the business of movie music.<\/p>\n

It starts with \u201cThe Cursed Clock<\/strong>,\u201d seven minutes of ominous, creepy chimes that tick like a clock that resemble the soundtrack to a 1990s slasher movie. From there it takes off into 10 and 11-minute dirges with deranged piano arpeggios, sometimes meandering, melody-less fingering of the piano\u2019s lower keys (or higher keys, too). \u201cThe Worriment Waltz<\/strong>\u201d doesn\u2019t seem to have anything resembling the 2\/3 timing that defines a waltz, and many of the tracks have no discernible cadence at all. There are a lot of staticky, percusssive sounds throughout the album. Whirling wind sounds, repetitious arpeggios against formless synthesizer noise, and the clunking noise of assembly-line machinery are the best way to typify much of this opus as well as tracks with names like \u201cTURN THIS OFF<\/strong>\u201d (in all capital letters) and \u201cSo Tired.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are couple of ultra-short ( two or three minute) tracks, one of which, \u201cWhen It Happens Don\u2019t Mind Me<\/strong>,\u201d features the metallic, xylophone-like sounds of an Indonesian gamelan<\/strong>.
\nThe sixth track, \u201cAnother Crashed Car<\/strong>\u201d is dominated by the sounds made by an unmanned windshield wiper, continuing \u2013 one must assume, following a fatal car crash.<\/p>\n

Die-hard NIN fans will stick by Trent Reznor’s endeavor as he pursues this, his 21st century business. Industrial music fans may have difficulty doing so. It’s not the kind of album to which a fan of Rock – in any sense – will want to sit and listen unless his or her preferences have been softened (or heightened) by drugs. It might best serve as background noise – that’s not intended as a term if disparagement (for it mostly is loosely structured noise) – while reading a book or social distancing.<\/p>\n

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“Corpus Christi”
\nStarring Bartosz Bielenia<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Written by Mateusz Pacewicz
\ndirected by Jan Komasa<\/p>\n

This 2019 Polish-language release with English subtitles has a unique and fascinating premise. In modern day Poland, religious devotion and daily religious ritual saturates institutional and everyday life. When violence-prone, juvenile detainee Daniel is released, having served in an altar boy capacity at the detention center, expresses an absurd and untenable interest in applying to a seminary, the idea quickly discouraged and dismissed by the priest charged with counseling and releasing him. <\/p>\n

But before reporting to the rehabilitation-labor camp to which he assigned, he stops by a neighboring church where he whimsically makes the false claim to be a priest, perhaps to impress a cute teenage girl whom he encounters praying inside. Despite appearances, she is taken in by his claim and arranges for him to stand in for the parish vicar, who ,as fate would have it,is about to undergo a medical collapse the next day. <\/p>\n

The imposter, posing as his replacement, finds himself in a maelstrom of situations both predictable and unforeseeable. Reading up on liturgy and employing some of the unconventional tactics to which he was subjected in the detention center, “winging it” with situational ethics and dodging his unforgivable past history make for a story that is heart-breaking, uplifting, joyful, terrifying and riddled with conflicts, contradictions and dishonesty.<\/p>\n

No spoilers here: This magnificent motion picture has to be seen and digested in all its humor, pathos, ambivalence, tragedy and triumph before deciding where one stands on the moral, philosophical and existential issues it inflicts upon the viewer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ghost VI : Locusts NIN Over the years, Trent Reznor and NIN have scored or contributed tracks to at least seven motion pictures and \u2013 in collaboration with Atticus Ross \u2013 many, many more. This 15\u2013track sequel to the series \u201cGhosts I – IV” (2008) is said by Mr. Reznor to address the anxiety associated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3689"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3707,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions\/3707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}