YOKO ONO

      There is still a sense of forceful danger to Ono's early records, crystallised in Plastic Ono Band and Fly. When the needle crashes onto the vinyl and Lennon's guitar sparks into action, an incredible freedom flight emerges, which almost kicks Ono into a frenzy of screaming and screeching in retaliation, stretching beyond rock's safe language into free jazz assault. Spread across those albums is an intense physicality and an enjoyment of textured, studio experimentation. More uncontrolled than most of her far more valued contemporaries and less regular than some of the punk rock she was supposed to have been a pioneer of, she later fell into writing songs that weren't as daring or spontaneous but were pretty off the wall and once in a while she'd create something invigoratingly strange and thrillingly catchy. Ono is an outsider, despite her fame and age, she has a much needed arrogance to fight conventional derision and a continuous urge for adventure.
       
      On her collaboration with Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore she explores an unsteady, ceremonial territory which links back to her initial Cage inspired improvisations. Her guttural, harrowing  yet tender voice often setting fearful words against Gordon's sombre intonations. Layers of guitar tones map shivers and drones, ghostly whispers for her to build a waste landscape which sees the idyllic through challenge. There is a feeling that she has been stripped of her positivity and been left to experience a cold emptiness perturbed by strangled notes between the silence. It is sometimes rare for seasoned players to allow an element of worry in their music, an uncomfortable, disturbed concern of where the tunnel might extend. Often arid confrontation can be expected from forms of so-called oppositional interruption, Ono here does not devour chaos but instead seems to internalise it's force, casting a shield with vigilance, armed and amorous.

 

HOLY MOTORS

 The couple sat on wooden chairs in the old library, waiting for the writer to arrive.

 'I wonder what he'll say,' he said.  

         'I don't even know him,' she said.
                        'So your staying with a host family?'
      ' Yeah, they are fresh from Ohio. So I'm not learning much French.'
'I'd sooner get an apartment.'
                   'Why are you here then?'
                 'For the great, inexpensive wine and a music festival that's quite reasonable.'
      'Oh yeah, how could you tell I was an American abroad, I mean I'm not wearing a baseball cap.'
'I can sense things.'
           'Why must you always follow me round Europe when I'm trying to gain independence?'
                            'It's part of the game.'

The biographer turned up but he wasn't quite there yet. He had written a book on his famous cousin who had fled to Paris and an early demise. This was his first trip to France and his view from his hotel window was so fantastic it made him feel melancholic. He'd done the research, told the story from the contrasting viewpoints of the women in his cousin's life; a mother, a wife, a mistress, a sister. Although, when he read the extracts alone and aloud he realised that he'd prefer to publish his own diaries from the early days before they went their different ways to unknown futures.

A guy in a creased white shirt looked at his silver watch and left the room. He walked through the streets to a nearby cinema. Unsure if to watch Loach's La Part des Anges or Carax's Holy Motors he visited the pitch black bathroom and considered the choice before the match was struck. Glasgow would have been too much of a shock. The mysterious Carax presented a magic show, where the central being shifted identities, his dressing room driven by the elderly lady from Eyes Without a Face. He could be anybody with anyone in any situation at anytime in the city; a father, a phantom, a fetish, a dying man. While the limousines were talking, undercover.

Strolling back through the gardens he saw a pretty brunette ardently stretching and holding positions, balancing herself on a stone balcony. Her younger brother sat over there by the blossom tree, on the park bench, humming to himself, engrossed in video games.