Cinematic Silent Rhythm - Program 1 - Shamon Cassette & Gang Wizard

This music performance features SoCal hip hop, electronic and noise artists creating and performing live original scores to some of the earliest films of the avant-garde.

Shamon Cassette is captain of The Zamboni Zound Zyztem, a hockey rap performance art audio/visual band on a mindful mission. What all started as a sweet jazzy classical nod to ’90s hip hop ended up in a blender and spat out as a psychedelic, trip-hop, goth, mammoth-packed with enough raps to skate away. In the universe they call The Nebula Hockey Legion, action sports is front-and-center ice. Full-speed arena rock with a legion of clowns and rollerskate villains. Grab a hold of your sights and sounds, Shamon Cassette and The Z.Z. performances are like acid without doing acid.

ABOUT THE FILMS

Paul Leni - “Rebus FIlm No. 1” (1925)

Paul Leni was a German filmmaker and a key figure in German Expressionism, making Waxworks (1924) in Germany and The Cat and the Canary (1927) and The Man Who Laughs (1928) in the U.S.

Man Ray - “L’Étoile De Mer” (1928)

Man Ray was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. A significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal, he was renowned for his pioneering fashion and portrait photography and also noted for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself.

-AND-

Gang Wizard started in 1995 and is still alive today in Long Beach, California, having undergone dozens of personnel changes over the years.

“Guitar noise spits around as if shot from water guns; shards of hardcore punk and grumbling bass pass through like cars running a red light; and drums get so thoroughly punched, slapped, and punctured, one wonders if the band believes kits have to be broken to work right. (...) More bands should be flailing away in basements and garages, treating rock like a huge water balloon to pop and drown in. If anyone out there feels so inclined, I can’t think of a better role model than Gang Wizard.” – Pitchfork

ABOUT THE FILMS:

Fernand Leger - “Ballet Mécanique” (1923–24)

A Dadaist, post-Cubist art film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger in collaboration with the filmmaker Dudley Murphy (with cinematographic input from Man Ray), it is considered one of the masterpieces of early experimental filmmaking.

James Sibley Watson & Melville Webber - The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)

A short silent horror film adaptation of the 1839 short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe. It tells the story of a brother and sister who live under a family curse. An avant-garde experimental film, the visual element predominates, including shots through prisms to create optical distortion.[2] There is no dialogue in the film, though one sequence features letters written in the air moving across the screen.