Another delightful little collab with J. Worms. I recently met a French woman in a squat in Switzerland who had lived in south-east London in the 90's. The wide-eyed energy with which she spoke about her time there made me feel slightly vindicated in my sense of nostalgia for a particular type of, now relatively marginalised subculture of exploratory and/or free music that I tried, through the lens of Edwardian romanticism, to evoke with this soundtrack. And which, whether successfully evoked or not, was some kind of inspiration.

I'm sure London is still very exciting if your in the right situation. And it still has lots of lovely parks.

hand developed 16mm rushes of a park | 3' | 2018 | Sound: Benjamin Whitehill

"An experiment in hand developing 100ft of 16mm film in my flat. Just a collection of shots of Ruskin Park in Camberwell... The real action is on the soundtrack, which I asked Benjamin Whitehill to construct. He wanted to draw out the aesthetics of the city which surrounds the tranquil Edwardian Park, as well as evoke a sense of the musical history of the area - ‘exploratory music, improv, avant rock post punk kinda stuff’.

Ben finishes: ‘So that was a vague consideration in terms of, I suppose, 'musical aesthetic.' In a very loose sense I was trying to create a kind of lament for this stuff and a related atmosphere of London which seems to be lost but is also largely imaginary to me... A nostalgic view on a somewhat mythical past of the sort that cities always seem to possess after they reach some kind of 'development' critical mass. In the case of London, one which seems to have remained fairly intact right up until the point when I was old enough to really appreciate the city. Boo!’"

More great stuff from Jack Wormell featuring a piece of guitar from 'A S E R I E S O F M I S G I V I N G S' by Ben Whitehill; who is, as usual, very proud to soundtrack Jacks gaze. In particular on this occasion, when for a moment it falls on the 5000 year old stones of Callanish. The stones, in the words of Julian Cope, "are most alive when they are attended to." An enchanting place, as no doubt the outer hebrides are in general, attended to beautifully,  poetically and slightly absurdly by Jack with this film.

Temporary Tripods | 8' 20'' | 2017 | Music: Benjamin Whitehill

"Off to the Outer Hebrides I went but unfortunately forgot a piece of kit I usually take with me on holiday. Eager to evoke something of the landscape around me, I made do...using the landscape around me.

This was videoed on Lewis and Harris; from what I saw of the island from my short stay it seemed to be a place where ancient, very old, old, new and newer, are sprawled on top of each other like duvets at a sleepover.

The whole thing comes together with the gnarly and nuanced guitar playing of Benjamin Whitehill on the soundtrack."

You can find the album Benjamin's track is from here.

Two short films by Jack Wormell, with sound from B. Whitehill (in collaboration with J. Thomas on one). For more of Jack Wormell's films go here. They're all fantastically playfull and well worth a watch.

Holiday Video | 4' 56'' | 2016 | Sound: Benjamin Whitehill & Jamie Thomas

'Holiday Video' is meta, mental and quite magical. Here's what jack has to say about it

"A video I videoed on holiday a couple of years ago, with some Super 8 in there as well. Great holiday, went canoeing on a loch, played frisbee, walked up a mountain, drank beer in a water sports centre and generally enjoyed the magical wooded environs. I then took some of the footage I shot and cut it into this, and gave my friends Ben and Jamie some sounds, from the holiday and elsewhere, to work into a soundtrack, which they did admirably."

Scree Fucking Junk | 11' 27'' | 2014 | Sound: Benjamin Whitehill

'Scree Fucking Junk' was made some time ago. I'm very fond of it. It's delightfully lo-fi and a wonderful expression of the unnerving, grainy strangeness that can occupy the banal. In Jack's words:

"This film’s a real groaner. It looks at a fairly useless piece of land in north west London which seems to only exist because of the roads and walkways that delineate its perimeter. An irrational space born out of rational urban planning, me and Ben worked on this premise, shifting from rational to the irrational in the sound and image relationship. They move along separate trajectories, at times in unison, at other times just out of step with each other, and at others, way off. It reminds me of Mulder and Scully’s phone calls in X-Files - always just missing each other in times of crisis. Partly inspired by the photography of John Gossage and listening to The Dead C, and wanted to make a video with some of that wreckage of the everyday. Filmed over two mornings in Febuary because the internal battery of the Panasonic SDR-S26 handicam I was using only had about an hour of juice. I had to get a tube and then a rail replacement bus both days. Play loud please."

the lowest cardinal number, half of two
a single thing
viewed as taking the place of a group
just one as opposed to any more
or to none at all
electronics all circuit bent
he put one hand around her neck
and one around her waist
a glass tube closed at one end

none of this yet was a mistake

one afternoon in late October
a noteworthy example
of something identical: the same
a mist rose out of the river
weekend drizzle and fog
a domino or dice with one spot
​a person of a specified kind
extraordinary yet inexplicably not

intangibly tied to a passing smile

a conversation between two loud speakers
in agreement / microtonal harmonies
I for one am becoming sick of writing
following the vogue of deleted existence
unique
single
she hadn't had much sleep recently
one thing corresponds to or is exchanged for another
not all instances fall neatly into these categories
a few, there are one or two signs worth watching for
​
but i'm done fucking thinking about it