Cookie Jarvis meets Japanese noise artist
The Boston Phoenix has a report on a screening of “JO” by Cameron Jamie. Japanese noise artist Keiji Haino provided a live soundtrack.
The show began in darkness. Haino chanted a series of ghostly moans; those and the votive candles lining the aisles made it feel like a séance. JO is a rumination on patriotism, with footage of a Joan of Arc pageant in Orléans, French right-wingers laying flowers at the foot of a Joan statue in Paris, and a Fourth of July hotdog-eating contest in New York.
Haino proceeded through mysterious plucking, ominous vibrations, chimes, turbulent strumming, Godzilla thuds, and rumbles. It sounded a bit like a slasher-flick score. He deployed 13 pedals to loop and layer the noise, building jet-engine blasts. He went silent while Jamie’s camera panned down a stout fellow’s jacket embroidered with a list of dozens of eating-contest victories. The seated crowd chuckled.
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