Just uploaded last videoclip from Étoile, Jeanne d'Arc. This time I worked with paint effects on some footages about Crusades, Jeanne d'Arc and east europe (looking like a little middle east) singers. Track is, briefly, about the juxtaposition of western guitar arpeggios and middle east vocals.

My intention was putting together women from both sides in Cusades: a western woman, the "étoile" in this case, which dared to act like a male soldier in a demented inquisition environment; and docile eastern singers. They got no moments of glory followed by dying on a pyre, but a continuous subordination, so actually it's a pondering about women's troubles in western or eastern world. Different ways and degrees of cruelty, same patriarchism.

Clip simply follow this scheme and adds a movie picture support. I needed just a couple of days to finish it as it's a "punk" expression in videomaking. This time I tried to catch the result on the fly, without exceeding in refurbishing every single frame. Not a draft, but a quicker language. And a different subject, it wasn't the right place to unleash some After Effects frenzy quirknesses. At the opposite, I worked on slow motion footages, to achieve a relaxed but a little gloomy mood.

I found quite cruel in the last sequence to put side by side Jeanne d'Arc in flames and a smiling singer. It was not intended as a revenge of muslim on a christian, but the cruelty in life itself. While one is dying, the other is enjoying his art.

after Intro, from Etoile, I finished another video and released within september!
This time I went back to Outskirt, and chosen Зимний дворец (Zimniy Dvorets, the Winter Palace).
An historical theme: 1905 St. Petersburg bloody sunday. Subject is the Winter Palace, empty after Tsar Nicholas II leaved for Alexander Palace because of that massacre: an outskirts zone. Despite being in St. Petersburg center and rich as a royal manor can be, it was empty like a desert for a while. Interesting, when there are mutations.

Video tells about this story, showcase the palace, outside and inside, then steer to history with original footages - very bad coded, I had to struggle for half an afternoon to achieve a good acceptable quality - and pics, all taken from Wikipedia, pianist comprised.

Clip have a strange old russia taste, not communist nor tsar-like. A generical first last century russian scenario. And it seems more like a documentary than a videoclip, exactly what I aimed to right from the start.

Of course I added the famous stairs sequence in The Battleship Potemkin by Eisenstein, as it was what inspired me that endless scales hook in this song (the other, more romantic classical - opening and closing the track - was after listening the nth time The Carnival of Animals by my beloved Camille Saint-Saëns).

Subject of video is swines. I like them, they're clever and it's a stupid common place they love to squelch in the dirt. Vietnamese little pigs are clean like cats. Video is an operatic dadaist inferno - where pigs are menacingly main characters. Not an happy end (as it's my favorite mood), but everybody knows what's a swine destiny (no gory images, anyway). I think also a good video introduction for a live show, to let the people get at once what's the overall climate.

I finished yesterday afternoon (and sent to Lurholm) my track for last Apskaft covers compilation, it's Complete Control by Clash.

I followed more or less the original hooks as usual, and modified, enlarged, shrinked, cutted away parts 'til the result is barely similar to original song.

Briefly, it's composed by three movements: first one reminds Kim Thayil workout, the second is circus sludge, then third is a sudden turn to a latin with Trent D'Arbyesque vocals, and back to the first two movement.

Today I entered Garageband's Experimental Rock contest with Behind the Curtain (from Étoile). I was unsettled on what genre, as this song is progressive but also math rock, a friend of mine told me it's quite kingcrimsonian, and KC are one of the biggest example in oblique music ranging from avantgarde to prog or simple mechanic rock.

Zappa is one of the Big artists suggested by Garageband to define "Experimental Rock", with Mogwai (!). Really, can't see anything in common. But seems to me I'm more zappian than similar to Satriani, suggested by Instrumental Rock (another hypotesis I pondered on, but left after this evidence).

OK, cross my fingers and let's see what's happening! Wooooohoooo! :-)))