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... ˙·˙· THE FREEMARTIN CALF (an original soundtrack) poetry & film by Jayne Amara Ross original music by Frédéric D. Oberland with Gaspar Claus To be released on Deluxe LP DVD next Autumn 2013 on Gizeh Records /// The film The Freemartin Calf was shot on super 8, hand-processed and edited at home by Jayne Amara Ross between 2009 and 2010. The music was composed and recorded at Magnum Diva Studio by Frédéric D. Oberland with Gaspar Claus /// Mixed on an analog console at Le Fresnoy by Maxime Champesme /// Mastered to tape at Durton Studio by Nils Frahm /// Jayne Amara Ross: narration /// Frédéric D. Oberland : electric bowed guitar, fender rhodes, piano, kalimba, harmonium, theremin, bowed glockenspiel, bells, electronics /// Gaspar Claus: cello /// Maxime Champesme: sound design, field recordings /// Words by David Roocroft: 'Divorced from its original context, a film soundtrack can all too easily serve up a problematic listening experience. Once separated from its visual parent, a score runs the risk of losing its purpose and narrative guidance - even the finest examples of the artform are shadowed by the implicit reminder of the absent component. Perhaps then, the first remarkable thing about The Freemartin Calf soundtrack is that from a listener's perspective nothing is missing. Rendered with a painterly detail, the piece is an intensive ebb and flow of musical and verbal imagery that harnesses concrete sound, roving multi-instrumentalism and the bewitching performance poetry of Jayne Amara Ross (the filmmaker behind The Freemartin Calf). Ross' vocal and carefully constructed dramatic discourse reside at the crux of the piece, ruminating on notions of the creative act made corporeal as she explores the relationship and bond between mother and child. The spoken text resounds with Plath-like flourishes of language, all the while inflected with an artful, purposeful delivery. These words are cradled within an astoundingly fluid and complex musical sequence, crafted by sound designer Maxime Champesme, cellist Gaspar Claus and consummate composer / multi-instrumentalist Frédéric D. Oberland, the latter of whom calls upon a dizzying repertoire of tools, devices and music-making disciplines to provide a soundscape full of texture and nuance. The Freemartin Calf' assumes an episodic quality that thrives on a deft interchange between the avant-garde and sheer harmonic beauty. Oberland and Claus are equally at home conjuring moments of icily cinematic abstraction as they are establishing stirring melodic themes: by turns the soundtrack brings to mind the immersive sound collages of musique concrète pioneer Luc Ferrari and the neo-classical know-how of contemporary composers such as Max Richter or Johann Johannsson. However, going beyond such aesthetic comparisons, in terms of its spirit and completeness as a project, it might not be too outlandish to draw parallels between this work and the ECM release of Jean-Luc Goddard's Nouvelle Vague soundtrack - both eschew OST conventions in favour of a comprehensive auditory survey of the film source, encompassing music, spoken content and location-based sound. The outcome is an acousmatic concoction able to stand alone by virtue of its own merits, offering a no-less powerful sensorial experience than that prompted by the film itself.'˙·˙· . . . . . . . . . “The brackish wind beats at the blinds like a vatic cudgel counting down the last of the day. On the final strike the night comes vaulting over the village, bursting with a thick dye to hood the sky, an eyelid closing over an eye, my hands feeling expectant, opening as if to receive something. My heart comes fast over the ridge like a drunk taxi. You're already a quarter of an hour later than your morning promise. I am as silent as the chicken roasting in the oven, all trussed up with string and clogged and bogged with heavy stuffing. For their proximity in my imagination, your features are indistinguishable from how they fit into mine. For a black moment I doubt your return... but the port calls to you like to all the other ships. The walls thin, I can hear you swing the latch; I can hear your heal catch the uneven brick; I can hear your feet court the hackle of our welcome mat. You are here, and the day falls from me like mature fruit.“. . . . . . . . . ///
