Beautiful Noise: A Shoegazer Documentary
I don't post much around these parts unless I happen to be up in Toronto for the odd film festival. However, I found this news too exciting to ignore.
If you want to get me to listen to a band, no questions asked, you just have to say one word: "shoegazer". If there's a musical genre that I'd call my favorite, it'd be this seemingly obscure one that arose out of the U.K. in the late 1980s. Albums by the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Lush, Catherine Wheel, and The Boo Radleys are still in constant rotation here at Opus HQ, and they still sound as revolutionary and breathtaking as ever.
And so not surprisingly, I was really excited to discover that a documentary is being made about the genre. Entitled Beautiful Noise, the film looks at shoegazing: its origins, its main figures, and its continuing impact on popular music today.
To that end, director Eric Green has amassed a considerable list of interviewees: Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine), Robin Guthrie (The Cocteau Twins), Robert Smith (The Cure), Neil Halstead (Slowdive), Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) and Wayne Coyne (The Flaming Lips) -- to name a few. Looks to me like the man's been doing his homework over the last few years.
The film is nearing completion; no release date has been set.
Hypnagogia Films -- Under construction
"MBV, JAMC, Corgan, Coyne, Reznor in Shoegaze Doc" -- Pitchfork article on the documentary
