Filed under

Film

 

The World of Nedzu

 

(download)

Something I started working on earlier this year. Not on the animation, even though the one posted up top is my own poor attempt at it, but on a very special soundtrack. Special because it's for an illustrated novel. Yes, an ostentatious endeavor because I not only get to do pretty much whatever the hell I want, I also get to work with one of my favorite story tellers slash purveyor of fantasy, Rui Tenreiro

I'm not going to get into detail about what the story is and what I'm actually doing with the score. It's a strange love story set in the even stranger world of Nedzu. But you can hear some of what I've been working on.

Please take me to the bandcamp page so I can listen

Filed under  //   Books   Film   Music  

Comments [0]

La Tête Savante

 

(download)

A kind of official Video for the first track on Tumi and the Volume's Pick A Dream album. Myself and Khalid, from Tuba Films, decided to turn the wonderful Illustration work Hippolyte crafted for the album cover and booklet into an animation and bring it to life. Easier said than done! But as they say, the proof is in the pudding. Well, hoping the lyrics below help savor this pudding.

He woke up restless and distressed feeling wretched
The perspiration filled his vest full of sweat
Missed a step, quickly checks, “What the F?!?”, he is the headless
Light headed? no, actually headless
Checks under the mattress and on the headrest
Good heavens this mess here, Needs a detective
He lived on a hill with his house on the edge of it
Far from the world to pretend his a president
But when heads roll, his a peasant again
He’s not special, just a resident
With no head though, so the searches commence
To his friend’s door, but he seems worst than him

They vow to assist each other in this mission brother
Fellowship, to find the tower where they brain power is
Main culture lives, heritage,
The way name our kids,
Bury our kin, pray away our sins,
Until the day it ends… on they went
Through the desert, through venomous temperatures
Searching for references, relics and evidence, something incredible
And there in the distance, they find their heads again,
They rejoice, celebrate the gathering,
Spend their whole lives, happy in this marriage.


I’ve seen stars and rode them. Up these narrow podiums. The challenge of another journey could break me in half if I wasn’t as open.
I rewrite the modus. To guide me up the motions. Follow in a shadow shower of a power stronger and larger than all this.

 

Filed under  //   Film   Music   Tumi and the volume  

Comments [6]

Ocupações

 

This is me at my most biased pseudo review. Well, scratch review and add portrait of someone who exhales at portraying.
Filipe Branquinho is one of my favorite photographers. Not even because he hails from the same city as me, and we were born in the same year and pretty much grazed in the same pastures, but because his pictures are truly worth a thousand words. His attention to detail and work ethos instinctively filter into his work, making his images easy to absorb and relate to. Oh, speaking of images, Filipe is also an accomplished Illustrator
Ocupações (Occupations) is something he's been working on for quite sometime. I guess it's a visual depiction of Maputo, done through it's inhabitants and the various things they have to do to afford living in such an african hub. Below are some of my favorite portraits this collection has to offer.

Car-repair-shop

Car Repair Shop (Guard)

 

Fisherman

Fisherman

 

Francisco-manianga-high-school

Francisco Manianga High School (Security)

 

On-a-motorcycle

On A Motorcycle (Guard)

 

Josina-machel-high-school

Josina Machel High School (Students)

 

Mr

Mr. Julião (Building Supervisor)

 

Mrs-sara

Mrs. Sara (Housemaid, Student and Mother)

 

Sebastiao

Sebastião (Soccer Coach)

 

Sergio

Sergio (Hospital Employee)

 

Sr

Mr. Lisboa (Hawker)

 

Student-residence

Student Residence (Employee)

 

Woman-with-a-balloon

Woman With A Balloon (Prostitute)

 

Filed under  //   Film   Places  

Comments [2]

Asinamali

 

(download)

This is the official music Video for Asinamali, Tumi and the Volume's first single off the album Pick a Dream. It was shot in a day inside a studio somewhere in Northern Johannesburg, and it was produced by Velocity Films.

Filed under  //   Film   Music   Tumi and the volume  

Comments [7]

Stanley Kubrick

 

(download)

An interview with Mr. Kubrick, during the early days. He didn't do many of these. In fact he became allergic to them. Here he talks about the humble beginnings, working as a photographer for Look Magazine, and the later progression of his career, which sky rocketed him into a movie icon. I love the pseudo-cockiness behind some of the things he says. "You never saw The Killing?! If you wanna see it there's a print at the Museum Of Modern Art".

 

Filed under  //   Film  

Comments [4]

Ilha das Flores

 

(download)

A few weeks ago in Dakar, during a very disappointing Cheikh Lô performance, and by pure cosmic chance, I bumped into an artist friend of mine who has recently ventured into directing music videos. This being one of my favorite topics we spoke about it for awhile. It was only a matter of time before I mentioned one of my all time favorite music videos, Daft Punk's Revolution 909, directed by Roman Coppola. As I rallied through the wonderfully imaginative plot, which revolves around tomatoes, my friend pointed out that there's an excellent documentary that also revolves around tomatoes. He spoke about it briefly and I made a mental note to hunt this little piece of film and watch it.

 This documentary is called Ilha das Flores. It means Isle of Flowers, and you can watch the whole thing above. It was made in Brazil by a Brazilian film director called Jorge Furtado in 1989. I'm not going to offer a synopsis or any further observations. Watch it! Unfortunately this version doesn't have English subtitles and the whole thing is in Portuguese. Here's a youTube link for a version with English subtitles

 

Filed under  //   Film  

Comments [2]

Australopithecus

 

(download)

So I took (more like stole) footage from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. I only used scenes from what could be considered the movie's chapter one, the dawn of man. I wanted to match them with 340ml's Australopithecus song. The reasons why are quite obvious.
The more I worked on the edit the more it dawned upon me (pun intended) how powerful that whole chapter is and how much I love it. I'm sucker for everything about it. The mesmerizing studio backdrops, the choreography, the pivotal dialogues without any words exchanged, the intense metaphors for the urgency of evolution and the suggestion that sooner or later we'll come full circle. Or maybe that we haven't really evolved that much.

 

Filed under  //   340ml   Film  

Comments [3]

Radio 75 live at Radio France Inter

 

(download)

Me and Pedro were invited to do a couple of songs at the prestigious France Inter Radio station in Paris, France. At a Radio studio it made sense to do a little Radio 75 rendition. So here it is, with the help of the Boss DD-20.

 

Filed under  //   340ml   Film   Places  

Comments [1]

On The Run - Backstage with 340ml

 

(download)

We were in Thun, Switzerland, backstage at Cafe Bar Mokka. Just before our performance, bored out of our minds, we decide to improvise Filewile's On The Run song. We had four laptop built in cameras and an amazing scenario. So amazing it even provided the necessary acoustic guitar.

 

Filed under  //   340ml   Film   Places  

Comments [1]

Birds eye view

 

Ali-by-neil-leifer

 

This has got to be one of the greatest sports photographs ever taken. The most remarkable thing is that the average sports photograph relies on a fast trigger, on speed, on movement, on all these things we associate competitive sports with. But not this one. Yet this moment is as sporty and as competitive as it gets, it depicts the micro seconds after Muhammad Ali knocked-out Cleveland Williams in November 1966. Contrary to the front page newspaper picture of the instant where the famous Soccer player mid-air scores an amazing header in front of thousands, this fine tuned Boxing picture was carefully planned for weeks by Neil Leifer, and eventually snapped by him, standing closely next to the ring. If this was the cover art for a music record I would probably buy that record without even listening to the music.

 

Filed under  //   Blah blah blah...   Film  

Comments [1]