The French filmmaker behind La Blogothèque’s Take Away Shows plays Dublin on Wednesday August 19th, with Homebeat.
If you spent any time watching music online in the 2000s, you watched a Vincent Moon film, whether or not you knew his name was attached to it.
Moon was the main director behind La Blogothèque‘s Take Away Shows, the point-and-shoot series that pulled bands out of venues and dropped them into Paris stairwells, kitchens, lifts, bars and streets. Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, Beirut, The National, Sigur Rós, R.E.M., Grizzly Bear, Yeasayer and dozens more featured. The format was simple, one camera, one take, no soundcheck, and it reset what a music video could look like for a decade of blogs, YouTube channels and everybody who copied it afterwards.
Since around 2009, Moon has been filming under the banner of Petites Planètes, travelling to more than 70 countries to document ceremonies, folk traditions, religious rituals, village singing, trance music and shamanic practice, and releasing the results free under Creative Commons rather than selling them. The Brazilian series Híbridos, on spiritual and musical practice across the country, is probably the best-known of those projects.
Live Cinéma is what he does with that archive in a room full of people. It is not a screening. Moon edits the footage live in front of the audience, mixing images with his own field recordings, sometimes bringing local musicians on stage to play into and against what is happening on screen, and building the performance around the specific room he is in. No two nights are the same, and there are well over a hundred recordings of past editions sitting on his SoundCloud if you want a sense of the shape of it.
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Homebeat have him at the Fumbally Stables on Wednesday August 19th, which is a good fit venue for it – a bare stone room off Fumbally Lane.
Tickets and info: Eventbrite
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
