Time Frames
Time Frames introduces three films by Emily Richardson and includes an audio CD of the soundtracks by Benedict Drew.
Redshift,Nocturne and Aspect are outlined in three essays by Nicky Hamlyn, Mark Edwards and Ed Baxter. They describe dark, haunted landscapes full of unsettling anticipation and engaging detail. The darkness, light, colours and texture of Richardson’s films are illustrated throughout by beautifully reproduced stills arranged filmstrip style. I have yet to see the films, but there is a revealing fascination to be had running the images together as flickering storyboards whilst absorbing the soundtracks. Pause to study, and there is an immediate tension which dominates these places and lures the viewer inside.
The night skies of Redshift demonstrate there really is something out there, and the audience is invited to look up and discover what whilst straining to catch the smallest detail across a deep yawning expanse where colours modulate with distance and time. Look, and you have to listen to the rhythmic communication intercepts and thrumming analogue overload tones of Drew’s accompaniment.
Nocturne abandons the observer in the industrial part of town after dark. Urban fox or lost human soul, they share the same perspective here, standing, waiting at one end of the street and looking into the middle distance. Is there baleful intent or beauty all around? Either way the suggestions posed by these street scapes are compelling and deeply suspicious. The atmosphere is richly processed and reminiscent of the nightmare sonic world Alan Splet created for ‘Eraserhead’ but Drew cannot hide the distant human reverberations of machinery and traffic that must surely be coming from the next street. There is no-one here, but, believe me, you are not alone.
Filmed on location in King’s Wood, Challock, Aspect squeezes a filtered view of daylight through a mixed coniferous/deciduous tapestry representing in nine minutes the annual forest cycle. This is one of my favourite habitats and there is something so special about seasonal woodlands around these latitudes. Temperature, humidity, acoustics, light, shade, pattern and chaos. Scan the images, extract the detail, is it day break? A sudden sonic down draft from the canopy marks the dawn chorus but there are no goldcrests or siskins singing here, not at least in our temporal plane. Acidic streams cascade and wobble unseen below a carpet of pine needles and gather in dark, non reflective pools created perhaps by the tyre ruts of huge harvesting machinery. This film, premiered in the forest, must cross a divide, projector beam scanning both reality and screen alike, commercial resource meets the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a family day out, but not into the wild wood. Our innate suspicion of where the wild things are follow just a few silent paces behind, perhaps just over your shoulder. Look out, and listen...
Reviewed by Chris Watson
A sound recordist with a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world. http://www.chriswatson.net/biography.html
