SUPERSWEET's April Band of the Month Irmin Schmidt & Kumo are two of a kind. Frankly we've been a little intimidated to interview the greats of the music history that we just had to ask them to do something a little less confrontational. Even though they are currently in different countries, but Irmin Schmidt and Jono Podmore aka Kumo still manage to have come up with the same band that made some of their favourite videos! It's a shame they haven't made one for themselves yet, but we did find an excerpt of their video installation, Flies, Guys and Choirs presented as part of their new album Axolotl Eyes which we found to be extra courageous and amazing. Check it out, up there!
Cornelius: Fit Song
Kumo: I have to admit to being a Cornelius fan. I first saw them live in Montreux in 2002 and was completely knocked out by the perfectly synchronised use of video in the live show. Since then the show has improved even more and the gig at Sonar in Barcelona last year was best thing I saw all year. The films themselves are minor masterpieces so it was pretty hard choosing one. I went for 'Fit Song' in the end (although it was a photo finish with 'Like a Rolling Stone') because I love the song so much and the depiction of the typical mundane Japanese home coming to life is proper poetry. Also, like a lot of the Cornelius vids, I haven't got a fuggen clue how they did it.
Michael Jackson: Thriller
Irmin Schmidt: No comment needed here. It's a classic. Everything is perfect: the film, the music, the performance and it says so much about America itself.
The Birthday Party: Nick The Stripper
Kumo: This vid is so old I still think of it as being black and white as the tellys I first saw it on were. 1981 was at the heart of the real boom years of cheesy video making - just think Duran Duran. Then out of nowhere this Australian band produced something of such simmering evil with such a true sense of menace and chaos that it stuck with me for years. Genius. What's more, shortly afterward I saw The Birthday Party at the Haçienda in Manchester and howled with glee watching Nick Cave randomly kicking people in the face from the stage. There's clips from that gig on YouTube too.
Aphex Twin: Windowlicker
Irmin Schmidt: THAT's how I like to hear the music of Aphex Twin. The wonderfully evil wit of Cunnigham takes away any bit of pretentiousness that Aphex Twin's music has sometimes.
Missy Elliot: Work It
Kumo: A friend of mine is writing his PhD paper about this video - he started over 4 years ago and is STILL finding stuff to write about. Every frame of this clip and every second of the music is so loaded with reference to 30 odd years of Black American culture that it serves almost as an encyclopaedia. Just the choice of trainers is a lexicon of subtext. But what is SO fantastic about it is that despite all the erudition, attention to detail and metaphor (Bee Girl indeed!) it's still funny, sexy and super funky.
Cornelius: Like A Rolling Stone
Irmin Schmidt: That's how effortless and playful poetry can be and you could still write a whole philosophical essay about this video (but not now....).
* Due to legal reasons, the video to 'Thriller' has been prohibited from embedding, to see the full version cick here.