Niki N. Phaser

From all the other arts, music could best be compared to painting. A painter is able to communicate emotions through the images he creates. Sometimes, these are very complex, filled with all sorts of details, shades and colours and sometimes, they are very simple, just a few lines and yet they are still as strong, if not even more. In this respect, songs are very similar to paintings. Some are multilayered, with all sorts of sounds an instruments filling the sonic space, while others are very minimal, played on one instrument or composed of one melodic episode. The music of Vangelis is a good way of exemplifying this theory. He has plenty of tracks that use dozens of sounds and create an universe which offers something new to discover at every listen, but he also has very simple compositions which are very effective in creating moods.

(continue reading…)

Hip-hop master RZA, the brain behind Wu-Tang Clan’s beats, is going one step further with his by-now legendary obsession with old martial arts movies. He plans to make his directorial debut with a movie entitled The Man with the Iron Fist, which has been on his mind for years. The screenplay is written by the rapper himself, but not to worry, Sonny Chiba fans, if there is anyone with his homework done in the field of kung-fu movies, it’s RZA. More experienced help will be offered by Eli Roth, author of the Hostel movies, who will be producing and is very siked about the project. RZA is also said to have been studying the art of film directing while working with Quentin Tarantino. The rapper provided some of the score of Kill Bill, but if you are really interested in what this man is able to create, I recommend the Ghost Dog soundtrack. It’s a classic. The film promises to be really bloody, but we musn’t expect something tarantinesque, since the debutant director is a strongly-visioned artist, who, no doubt, has his own ideas about how a neo-kung-fu movie should look like. This might just become the next cult classic (at least, soundtrack-wise), whose poster will hang on every cool kid’s wall. OS !