Pontiak will be at Littlefield with Thrill Jockey labelmates White Hills, previewing songs from their upcoming discs (photo by Lino Brunetti)
Littlefield
622 Degraw St.
Saturday, December 10, $10-$12, 10:00
www.littlefieldnyc.com
www.thrilljockey.com
One of our favorite labels, Chicago’s Thrill Jockey, is offering a little taste of things to come with a great double bill Saturday night at Littlefield in Brooklyn, with local natives White Hills and Virginia’s Pontiak highlighting songs from their upcoming records. In just the last couple of years, space-rock pioneers White Hills — guitarist Dave W. and bassist Ego Sensation — have released such far-out head trips as H-p1, Heads on Fire, the eponymous White Hills, and the twelve-inch Stolen Stars Left for No One (which features the amazing “Drift Away” and is currently back in stock in a very limited quantity). Wearing intergalactic costumes and electric face paint, White Hills take off for dimensions unknown in their live shows, captured on the Christmas release Live at Roadburn 2011. At Littlefield, they’ll be previewing songs from their March 2012 record, Frying on This Rock, which promises to be another energetic and unpredictable sojourn, with such tracks as “Pads of Light,” “Robot Stomp,” and “Song of Everything.” They’ll be joined by labelmates Pontiak, who will be giving concertgoers an advance look at their amazing new disc, Echo Ono, which Thrill Jockey will be releasing on February 21. Recorded by brothers Van, Lain, and Jennings Carney at their farm studio, Echo Ono is a sonic concept album in which the band seeks to capture texture and color, incorporating classic amps and instrumentation. From the explosive psychedelic opening of “Lions of Least” to the ass-kicking finale, the guitar-and-drums freak-out “Panoptica,” Pontiak takes the band to a whole new level. The middle of the record gets more melodic, as soaring harmonies and acoustic guitars lift the back-to-back duo of “The Expanding Sky” and “Silver Shadow,” while “Royal Colors” includes a massive guitar jam. Along the way, the brothers Carney give nods to Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, and even Ozzie. Make sure you’re ready for one loud, crazy, psychedelic night. (And if that’s not enough Thrill Jockey for you, Arbouretum will be at Union Pool on Saturday night as well, touring behind their 2011 disc, The Gathering.)
Based on the play by Charles Bennett, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1929 thriller, Blackmail, is both his last silent picture as well as his first sound film. The transition is evident from the very beginning, eight glorious minutes of a police arrest with incidental music only, highlighted by an unforgettable mirror shot (courtesy of cinematographer Jack E. Cox) as the cops close in on their suspect. After those opening moments, the film switches to a talkie, as New Scotland Yard detective Frank Webber (John Longden) gets into a fight with his girlfriend, Alice White (Anny Ondra, later to become the longtime Mrs. Max Scmeling)), who goes off on a secret rendezvous with a slick artist named Crewe (Cyril Ritchard). When things go horribly wrong at Crewe’s studio, Frank assures Alice that he will help her, but slimy ex-con Tracy (Donald Calthrop) has other ideas, thinking he can use some inside information to make a small killing. After shooting the picture with sound — including having Ondra’s dialogue spoken off-screen by Joan Barry because Ondra’s Eastern European accent was too thick — Sir Alfred filmed some scenes over again in silence, resulting in two versions of this splendid psychological thriller, both laced with elements of German Expressionism and early film noir as well as flashes of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Look for Alfred as the man on the subway being menaced by a young boy. The rarely shown silent version of Blackmail is being screened December 7 and 8 at the Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, with Hayes Greenfield and the Eclectic Electric providing live musical accompaniment.
