DEMENTIA
In the pulsing, throbbing, world of the INSANE MIND
Sleepwalking on a lost country road I dreamt that I was working on a blurred soundtrack of « Dementia » by John Parker.
A subterranean, poisonous work whose title, thaumaturgical sesame, is a sign of recognition for lovers of “beautiful weird” underground rarities ; a cult movie halfway between the arty avant-garde and the cinema bis, between film noir flirting with the fantastic, and the mental trip under a strong surrealist and expressionist influence.Contrary to the usual exercise in music to picture, which consists of composing a soundtrack that follows the course of the flm and thus becomes limited, even academic, here my « soundtrack» must arouse the emotion of the spectator-listener without seeking to reinforce the effect of the visual scene, it is not a question of musical synchronisation.
My desire is to create the possibility of pushing the imagination further, to express a visual fantasy, which I think could have been the imaginary soundtrack of a film that I like.
With its strange and quaint atmosphere « Dementia » was an obvious choice, the idea of being confronted with the paranoid delusions of a human being can be fascinating for someone who is very interested in Behavioural Psychology.
Back in 2023 when I started working on this “soundtrack” I chose to make an hommage to Serge synthesizers that was celebrating 50 years of existence and played my Guitar controlling the Synth OR being processed by my 2 panel 73/75 Serge system… Bringing in my prepared Piano Soundboard… Rubbing or clashing metal gourds ; adding text/spoken words… Filtering-feedbacking thru the RES EQ in search for Surreal and menacing soundscapes relating to the story:
The Gamin (Adrienne Barrett) wakens on a dark night in a city of the Damned. She takes a switchblade from her dresser and starts out on the town. Her wanderings lead her to increasingly strange encounters.
The line between dream and reality is blurred by hallucinations and paranoia, haunted by the nightmare that has just passed through the heroin and of which the whole film seems to be the hallucinated material.
It is as if the maelstrom of retinal images that compose it, retracing the nocturnal wanderings of a criminal in the one-eyed alleys of Venice in Los Angeles, came out of our sick brains conjuring up flashes of disturbing black & white grainy sounds, behind-the-scenes close-ups, languid nightmarish stop-motion effects.
I embarked on a visceral musical voyage, an intricate and imaginative soundtrack gathering both organic and sonic elements and giving life to an electric magma where unexpected frequencies stumbled over interferences, where analog accidents happened and drones and acoustic resonances filled the spaces in time.
From this moment on events and perceptions no longer had even the pretense of reality, the music sprang on me and got caught in my eye
« YOU! You out there. Do you know what HORROR is?
Smug. Confident. Sure. Because you are sane.
Do you know what madness is or how it strikes?
Have you seen the demons that surge through the corridors of the crazed mind? Do you know that in the world of the insaneYou will find a kind of truth more terrifying than fiction?
A truth that will SHOCK you?
Come with me into the tormented, haunted, half – lit night of the INSANE. This is my world. Let me lead you into it.
Let me take you into the mind of a woman who is MAD.
You may not recognize some things in this world
And the faces will look strange to you
For this is a place where there is NO love, NO hope
In the pulsing, throbbing, world of the INSANE MIND
Where only nightmares are real.Nightmares of the DAUGHTER OF HORROR.
The pulse of the neon lights, like a hammer at your brain
Tormenting you, haunting you
Forcing you to think, forcing you to remember your guilt, your HORROR.
Forcing you to go back, back, back into the TERROR that you are trying to forget Back through the mists of time
Into the graveyard where your secret lies buried from the world.
Yes, I am here. The DEMON that possesses your soul.
Wait a bit. I have so much to show you. So much that you are afraid to see.
Come, let me take you by the arm and show you the bed of EVIL you sprang from. Let me take you back to when you were a little girl. Let me show you – your father. Let me show you – your mother.
Marked! Marked forever, DAUGHTER OF HORROR.
Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Mad with guilt and the DEVILS that have taken possession. There. There it is. The body of your latest victim.
And around it the GHOULS of insanity. The imaginary fgures real only to you. The pendant! The clue to your guilt!The GHOULS know. They know you did it. But they can’t hurt you. You’ve got to get it. You’ve got to take it out of his hand.
Go ahead, the GHOULS won’t hurt you!
Run, DAUGHTER OF HORROR, run from your crime.But behind you the policeman with the face of your father,
The face of your frst victim.
Pursuing you relentlessly through your haunted dreams
Hunting you mercilessly through the twisted corridors of your TORTURED mind. The HORROR that will track you down!The HORROR that will destroy you!
Run. Run. Run. Guilty. Guilty. GUILTY!
Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. If you could only wipe out the CURSE of your guilty past.
If you could only become somebody else before it is too late.
Escape into a world of your kind of people.
Safe. Safe at last.
Yes, you are safe in another hallucination of your CRAZED mind.
Safe. In a drug dream of forgetfulness.
Yes, he’s seen you. And you’re trapped.
The handcuffs are waiting for your wrists.
Look. Look. It’s your latest victim.
Now everybody knows. There is NO escape.
Look around your neck. The pendant, for everybody to see.
Now all the images of horror, the DEMONS of your mind crowd in on you to DESTROY you!
Only a dream. A dream of MADNESS on a dark night.
Or was it? Was it ONLY a dream? »
Philippe Petit has been celebrating 40 years of activism in 2023 !
Born in Marseille, South of France, where he started Djing, animating radio shows and editing zines in 1983.Back then I contributed articles (under the pseudonym Candy Apple Grey and Filth Simpson ) for such magazines as Ruta 66 (Spain), Merlin’s Music Box (Greece), Maximum R&R (USA), What Wave, Cryptic Tymes (Canada), and French-written Taktik, Rage, Rocksound, Best, 491, Abus Dangereux, and many many more that a few may remember of…
In 1993 I started Pandemonium Rdz. 41 releases (vinyl and CD) with such bands as Guapo, Melt Banana, Condense, Drive Blind, Cows, Headcleaner, Ground Zero, Zeni Geva, Double Nelson, Cerberus Shoal, Flying Luttenbachers, Unsane, Bästard, Kepone, Ron Anderson, Ruins, Hint, Andy’s Car Crash, Spaceheads…
Our motto was “Parallel musics for perpendicular feelings” while Pandemonium means “A Wild State of Noise & Disorder” and was the antique Greek Capital of Hell…
41 records later, I needed to rejuvenate and started a new label:
BiP_HOp was physically born in 2000 !
A webzine, a radio show, organizing live events, and above all a label documenting the state of electronic art and sound design, unconventional sound adventures, modern ambient, contemporary alliances between acoustica vs. digitalia…
Releasing music by the likes of Scanner, Teho Teardo, David Toop & Max Eastley, FM3, Murcof, Tennis, Benge, Douglas Benford, Sci-cut.db, Janek Schaefer, Mira Calix, Twine, Spaceheads, & many more…
Music challenging the ears and the mind, and to me Modulisme is the logical continuation of this venture.
Since the early 2000s performing the world, playing festivals all over Europe, Russia, Poland, Canada, USA, Mexico, Australia & Asia… Having released more than 75 records on several international labels…
Relying on electricity/amplification to produce, manipulate, work on sound-material, constantly trying his best to make sure that each album differs from the previous one, trying to avoid routine and surprise listeners.
Other than that I have been fortunate enough to work with what people call a dream-team of collaborators: joining Lydia Lunch, Murcof, The European Contemporary Orchestra (E.C.O.), Mark Cunningham (MARS), Cindytalk, Orkest De Ereprijs, Audrey Chen, Mia Zabelka, Iancu Dumitrescu’s Hyperion Ensemble, Stephen O’Malley, Yannick Barman, PAS or Faust onstage and-or in studio.
Besides I did some recordings with: Eugene Robinson (Oxbow), Edward Ka-Spel (Legendary Pink Dots), Simon Fisher Turner, Kumo, Scott McCloud (Girls Against Boys), Cosey Fanni Tutti (Throbbing Gristle), My Brightest Diamond, Sybarite, Foetus, Pantaleimon, Graham Lewis (Wire), Barry Adamson, Andy Diagram, Scanner, Mira Calix, Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Justin K. Broadrick, James Johnston (Gallon Drunk/Bad Seeds/Faust), ASVA, Jarboe, Jad Fair, Martin Dupont and many more…
https://www.philippepetit.info
