Grupa Budapeszt
Rameau's Nephew by Grupa Budapeszt (Thanx to BNNT) by MMMK
1. Credits
2. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Take 1)
3. Dennis Burton
4. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Take 2)
5. Commentator
6. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Take 3)
Grupa Budapeszt: Igor Krenz, Michal Libera and Daniel Muzyczuk (compositions)
BNNT: Konrad Smoleński (baritone missile, electronics) and Daniel Szwed (drums)
MM: Macio Moretti (voice).
MK: Michal Kupicz (recording, mix, mastering for bandcamp).
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WP: Wojtek Perczyński (mastering for vinyl)
The cycle was commissioned by Barbara Piwowarska (Galeria Studio)
Album is available freely and digitally via bandcamp
or in one-copy pressed vinyl for sale (please contact us for details and see album cover for the shape of vinyl release)
Six songs make up Grupa Budapeszt's remake of a film by the cult avant-garde artist Michael Snow “Rameau’s Nephew” by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen (1974). Spanning four hours and a half, Snow’s monumental work consists of twenty six episodes that build a microcosm which is as absurd as it is acutely logical, thus it was initially entitled Talking Picture. Indeed, his film is a picture that talks. Amongst a range of audiovisual experiments pursued by the Canadian artist, Grupa Budapeszt discerns a hermetic praise of a deceptive education process. One of Snow’s methods is a singing class in which Nam June Paik is tasked with repeating the chorus melody of Bob Dylan’s song A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall. In Grupa Budapeszt’s interpretation, this scene becomes the most important in the film and provides the key to understand the entire work. Accordingly, Snow gives the viewers twenty six singing lessons. Yet, we should not forget that the lessons exemplify deceptive education akin to deceptive teachings included in Denis Diderot’s book, evoked in the title of Snow’s film.
The cycle of six songs being the remake of the film had been worked out by Grupa Budapeszt with the band BNNT (Konrad Smoleński and Daniel Szwed), MM (Macio Moretti) and MK (Michał Kupicz). The hermetic content of the songs was explained in the exhibition in Gallery Studio in Warsaw by means of objects and four projections: Power Point presentations. The opening featured a concert that attempted to represent Snow’s hermetic education principle. The process in question is that of a mysterious natural delay which allows Grupa Budapeszt to perversely praise philosophical hermetism, colloquially understood hermeticism and the physical phenomenon of hermetisation – all at the same time. Now, with a natural delay of over two years, a one-copy vinyl plate featuring the song cycle had been pressed only to be melted into a 100% vinyl cube – the only object containing the music of the remake of Michael Snow's film.
