by Nicholas Stevens
Of the many quotable lines issued by filmmaker and musician Jim Jarmusch at the Cleveland Museum of Art last week, two stood out: “I’m a self-proclaimed dilettante, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” and later, “The most beautiful thing humans do — have done — is music.” Both comments, given during a post-concert interview in the Museum’s Gartner Auditorium, shed light on the performance that Jarmusch and his bandmate Carter Logan had just staged.
by Jarrett Hoffman
Jim Jarmusch is best-known as an independent filmmaker whose stories unfold in his own slow, strange, beautiful way. He’s also a native of Cuyahoga Falls and one of two members of the post-rock band SQÜRL, who take on film from another angle at the Cleveland Museum of Art next week.
On Wednesday, November 1 at 7:30 pm at CMA’s Gartner Auditorium, Jim Jarmusch (electric guitar and keyboard) and Carter Logan (drum kit) of SQÜRL will play their own ambient, drone-heavy, semi-improvised scores to four avant-garde silent films from the 1920s by Man Ray: L’étoile de mer, Emak bakia, Le retour à la raison, and Les mystères du château du dé (see the links to watch them on YouTube). Reto Thüring, curator of contemporary art at the museum, will host a conversation with the musicians following the performance.
SQÜRL describe themselves as an enthusiastically marginal rock band from New York City who like big drums and distorted guitars, cassette recorders, loops, feedback, sad country songs, molten stoner core, chopped and screwed hip-hop, and imaginary movie scores. Their work includes four EP’s, a live album, and the scores to three Jarmusch films: The Limits of Control, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Paterson. [Read more…]