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The highly-respected Director and filmmaker Jem Cohen is well-known for his music films, including the very personal Fugazi documentary Instrument and the Elliot Smith short film Lucky Three. He also directed, edited, and shot (on Super 8 film), the excellent short film LONG FOR THE CITY, a portrait of Patti Smith in the city where she lives.
Having previously worked with Jim White, directing the video for Xylouris White’s ‘Tree Song’, his wistful music film for Jim White and Marisa Anderson‘s “Aerie”, the album opener of their latest duo album Swallowtail, is no less entrancing.
In his Swallowtail album review, Glenn Kimpton opens: “Drummer Jim White and guitarist Marisa Anderson have crafted such a distinctive sound on their respective instruments and as soon as their second album begins, there can be no mistaking them. Like 2020’s The Quickening, Swallowtail is a duo record in the truest sense, with no other contributors present, but this feels like a very different set to their debut, with spikier songs like that album’s Last Days absent in favour of a more consistent free-flowing meditation.”
This free-flowing meditation is enhanced in Cohen’s film that follows a young boy playing in the mountains; the music and visuals offer no prescriptive narrative or statement, instead simply letting the viewer observe and impart their own meaning.
Jem Cohen elaborates:
“Jim White and Marisa Anderson’s music asks questions so we don’t have to. Collaboration? Improvisation? Song structure? None of it has to be tied down. They are out on the road somewhere, luckily heading for my town. Playing hard, driving hard, a lot of experience. Meanwhile, a boy, Alexander, is up on a mountain and has to do something with sticks. It is important, requires effort. How can they be combined, will they balance, and what about the wind? He is improvising, concentrating. He is less experienced, will soon be 8. The boy and the sticks, it turns out, are on an aerie in early spring, high above an old trestle, houses and cars tiny below. Aerie is a beautiful word. And a beautiful track. I put it to a film, or a film to it. I’m honored.”
Listen to more from Jim White and Marisa Anderson’s duo album Swallowtail: https://thrilljockey.com/products/swallowtail
More from Jem Cohen: https://jemcohenfilms.com/
