an old friend calls and tells us where to meet
I discovered another one. Another perfect synthesis of image and music, that is.
The first was detailed in this post:
Mono, “Life In Mono” — To date the strongest synthesis I’ve found between a song and a visual image. It was between this song and the first teaser trailer to the 1997 movie Great Expectations. You won’t find the teaser any more anywhere–I’ve looked–only the full-length, inferior trailer remains with a different accompaniment. But if you hear this song and think of muted red and green, symmetrical, baroque icons and elaborate shapes rotating deliberately on a black background intercut with the more passionate moments from the film, you’ll be on the right track. Beautiful, delicate, enchanting.
So yesterday evening on the way to the gym, I plumbed Primitive Radio Gods’ “Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand” through the iPod onto the stereo, and whilst listening, the image of Velázquez’s painting Las Meninas came into my head:
I wish I could describe how the song and the painting fit together, but at this point it’s a gut-level thing. It’s powerful, but the reasons aren’t fully-formed yet.