The Thousands

Call it post-rock, call it noise music, call it sonic experimentation… to me, they’re always soundtracks for unmade films. Gilbert Fawn (a.k.a Matthew Aitken of Ghost of 29 Megacycles) likes his movies too; heck, he organised a backyard film festival that featured Dennis Hopper fishing.

Listening to the new Fawn album Dead Rhythm, my film nerd mind went directly to Harrison Ford instead. Why? Because it’s adventure music with an exotic air, particularly when the folky ‘Median’ strikes, so naturally it is Temple of Doom times. Things get weird with the atmospheric loops of ‘Dead Meat’, take us out of Spielberg territory.

Yet the image of Harrison Ford sticks around, but this time in ‘Plane Food’, it’s Ford in The Mosquito Coast where he plays a freaky inventor who wants to build a giant fridge in Central America. Hardly anybody saw it. But it’s just like a Werner Herzog movie, only directed by an Aussie. And Dead Rhythm can double as its brand new soundtrack. Music that is rugged, bold and a little bit madcap.