All of this beautiful, conscientiously-assembled imagery is very sparingly spiced with footage of Harvey performing the songs solo with a guitar or autoharp in a modest, pretty studio with maps on the walls, lit by an evening sun coming through the window, providing another visual dimension that complements rather than disrupts the flow (even when, as in “The Words That Maketh Murder,” the sound purposely drops for one “live” verse, with Harvey singing and playing straight to us in direct sound, before coming back up and rejoining the studio-recorded song playing over the non-Harvey video material). Harvey’s voice and musical sounds are, of course, the driving force for the whole thing, and the album easily stands on its own as a complete and essential work of art. But Murphy’s photographic voice harmonizes beautifully with Harvey’s musical one, and although the music doesn’t need the visuals for its richness, neither do these images leech off of the music for their power; they can be considered apart from, but are perfectly in keeping with, the music and its meaning(s). (Unusually for Harvey, she has the voices of her entire band singing along with her in many of the songs, so the addition of another voice, and another kind of voice, to create a supplemental visual layer for the album feels even more apt). What Let England Shake: 12 Short Films by Seamus Murphy represents in the end is the literally awesome collaboration of two amazingly insightful, incredibly inspired, disciplined, magnificently expressive artists on a hybrid work that combines into a whole new kind of beauty the already amazing, whole-by-themselves, stand-alone parts it’s comprised of. It’s an overwhelming experience that reaches the heights of the best, most admired non-narrative short works of its kind, by the likes of Kenneth Anger (Scorpio Rising) and Chris Marker (La Jetée); it is simply not to be missed by anybody interested in either the cream of that cinematic crop or the very best that contemporary popular music has to offer.

Review of the Seamus Murphy-directed DVD featuring PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake. [via DVDtalk]

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Personally, I just want to see them live for once. If I had to add to this list, though, I’d go for “Where I End and You Begin”, “No Surprises”, and “Dollars & Cents”. Honorary mention to “Knives Out”.

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An initiative of the National Arts Council, Noise Singapore is dedicated to making noise about the creative talent of young people aged 35 and below. Through numerous platforms to express, develop and showcase their creativity, Noise Singapore hopes to encourage young people in Singapore to actively participate and nurture their relationship with the arts, as well as get them spotted for their budding abilities.

Broadly classified under the genres of art and design, music and photography, the Noise community will learn from top professionals, interact with like-minded youths and share their original creations with the world. Noise Singapore platforms include concerts at venues like the Esplanade that feature young musicians hungry for performing experience and exposure, exhibitions of varied scale that showcase the original artistic creations of young people, an online gallery, mentoring programmes that link aspiring artists with top professionals in the industry, as well as workshops, talks and activities that focus on providing a fun experience of participating in the arts.

Hit the main page for more details. [via Noise Singapore]

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4AD and Jagjaguwar have collaborated on a live session that captures a truly unique Bon Iver performance, featuring Justin Vernon and Sean Carey. On recent tours fans will have become accustomed to seeing Vernon flanked by an eleven-piece band, with the swell in numbers lending a grandiose element to even his most delicate songs. Sidestepping expectations, the idea Vernon presented for this session was to provide a wildly different experience.

Recorded in AIR Studio’s Lyndurst Hall – a building that was originally a church and missionary school designed in 1880 by the great Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse (designer of the Natural History Museum) – Vernon was joined only by Carey, with the pair positioning themselves opposite one another at two grand pianos. Although neither Justin nor Sean’s first instrument is piano, they were able to remodel the songs in a way that showcases their complimentary vocals and, perhaps more strikingly, a seemingly effortless ability to experiment with form and structure.

[via YouTube]

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Assorted

If I had any less class than the little I already have, I would be typing this in capital letters. But how? How did I miss the fact that Girls were in Singapore? [via i'm waking up to] [Video via YouTube]

Paul Kerschen reviews César Aira’s Varamo. [via The Quarterly Conversation]

Open Letter has their First 25 offer slashed by another 10% if you’re interested. [via Open Letter Books] I highly recommend it if you can fork out the cash because it includes the likes of personal favourites Macedonio Fernández, Quim Monzó, Mercè Rodoreda, and Juan José Saer. Other big names include Jakov Lind and Alejandro Zambra.

On watching Pina, Wim Wenders’s film about German choreographer Pina Bausch. [via The Paris Review]

James Joyce and the Internet. [via A Piece of Monologue]

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This week we had our Valentine’s special.

Also:

• Singapore duo Riot !n Magenta.
• Szirtes on Krasznahorkai.
• Review of the Javier Marías collection, While the Women Are Sleeping.
• New books.

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Some addenda to last week’s report, where I listed down a bunch of books I placed an order for:

I just added three more and a birthday present (half a year ahead of time!). The three are:

• The Future is not Ours, edited by Diego Trelles Paz, Open Letter (Preorder)
• The Canvas, Benjamin Stein, Open Letter (Preorder)
• Antigonick, Sophokles, translated by Anne Carson, art by Bianca Stone, Bloodaxe Books (Preorder)

I have to admit that I feel guilty about the Anne Carson book because I was about to support the good people at New Directions, but this I think being the more “international” edition turned out cheaper, which is in line with my poor student’s lifestyle.That said, I have no idea how these things work, and maybe they’ll still get money. They look like exactly the same book from the descriptions, though.

Also, on my radio this week is the Modeselektor album from last year, Monkeytown.

[via YouTube]

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[via YouTube]

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The final and perhaps greatest pleasure in the book, however, is found in rereading and discovering that the work is not quite what you thought it was—it’s not the stories only, it’s the soft surprises that burst from Marias’s delicate prose (via Margaret Jull Costa’s rendering in the way that I like best in a translation: she gives the feeling that what you’re reading is decidedly not English, though you can’t point to exactly why it feels that way, as her English at the same time feels perfectly natural—Chris Andrews’s translation of Cesar Aira’s Ghosts is another example of English prose that dexterously retains some flavor of the original Spanish).

A review of New Directions’ While the Women Are Sleeping, a collection of Javier Marías stories put out about a year ago (translated by the superhuman Margaret Jull Costa). [via Three Percent]

I have not got my hands on it, but I am on the last book of Your Face Tomorrow (starting on “Shadow” soon if school doesn’t interfere), and I was about to place an order on it when I realised that there’s a new Anne Carson book coming. Decisions, decisions.

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New Directions will be putting out the book later this year and I cannot wait to have my hands on it. I’ve actually plonked down money for a new hardback, which is rare given my poverty-stricken student status.

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