“There's no real objection to escapism, in the right places... We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality... It's a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can't think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality.”
― Arthur C. Clarke
Limite (Brazilian Portuguese: [lĩˈmitʃi], meaning "Limit" or "Border") is a film by Brazilian director and writer Mário Peixoto (1908–92), filmed in 1930 and first screened in 1931.
Sometimes cited as the greatest of all Brazilian films, this 120-minute silentexperimental feature by novelist Peixoto, who never completed another film, was seen by Orson Welles and won the admiration of everyone from Sergei Eisenstein to Georges Sadoul to Walter Salles.
Plot and analysis
A man and two women lost at sea in a rowboat. Their pasts are
conveyed in flashbacks throughout the film. The unusual structure has
kept the film in the margins of most film histories, where it has been
known mainly as a provocative and legendary cult film.
For Peixoto, the experience offered by Limite cannot be
adequately captured by language, but was made to be felt. Therefore, the
audience is left with images of a synthetic and pure language of
cinema. According to the director, his film is meticulously precise as
invisible wheels of a clock, where long shots are surrounded and linked
by shorter ones as in a planetary system.
Peixoto characterizes Limite as a 'desperate scream' aiming
for resonance instead of comprehension. The movie shows without words
and without analysis. The film projects itself as a tuning fork, a
pitch, a resonance of time itself, capturing the flow between past and
present, object details and contingence as if it had always existed in
the living and in the inanimate, or detaching itself tacitly from them.
Since Limite is more of a state than an analysis, characters and
narrative lines emerge, followed by a probing camera exploring angels,
details, possibilities of access and fixation, only then to fade out
back into the unknown, a visual stream with certain densifications or
illustrations within the continues flow of time. According to Peixoto,
all these poetic transpositions find despair and impossibilities; a
luminous pain which unfolds in rhythm and coordinates the images of rare
precision and structure.
Preservation status
The film has been restored, with the latest restored version to have its American premiere in Brooklyn, New York in November 2010.
Siouxsie and the Banshees were an English rock band formed in London in 1976 by vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and bass guitarist Steven Severin. Initially associated with the English punk rock scene, the band rapidly evolved to create "a form of post-punk discord full of daring rhythmic and sonic experimentation".The Times cited Siouxsie and the Banshees as "one of the most audacious and uncompromising musical adventurers of the post-punk era."
With the release of Juju in 1981, the group also became an important influence on the emerging gothic rock scene. They disbanded in 1996, with Siouxsie and drummer Budgie continuing to record music as The Creatures, a second band they had formed in the early 1980s. In 2004, Siouxsie began a solo career.
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Formation (1976–1977)
Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin met at a Roxy Music concert in September 1975, at a time when glam rock had faded and there was nothing new coming through with which they could identify. From February 1976, Siouxsie, Severin and some friends began to follow an unsigned band, the Sex Pistols. Journalist Caroline Coon dubbed them the "Bromley Contingent", as most of them came from the Bromley region of Kent,
a label Severin came to despise. "There was no such thing, it was just a
bunch of people drawn together by the way they felt and they looked." They were all inspired by the Sex Pistols – from watching them, they realised that anyone could do it. When they learned that one of the bands scheduled to play the 100 Club Punk Festival, organised by Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren,
pulled out from the bill at the last minute, Siouxsie suggested that
she and Severin play, even though they had no band name or additional
members.
Two days later, the pair appeared at the festival held in London on 20
September 1976. With two borrowed musicians at their side, Marco Pirroni on guitars and John Simon Ritchie (already commonly known as Sid Vicious) on drums, their set consisted of a 20-minute improvisation based on "The Lord's Prayer".
While the band intended to split up after the gig, they were asked to
play again. Two months later, Siouxsie and Severin recruited drummer Kenny Morris and guitarist Peter Fenton. After playing several gigs in early 1977, the band realised that Fenton did not fit in because he was "a real rock guitarist". John McKay finally took his place in July.
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Legacy and influence
Siouxsie and the Banshees have inspired many musicians of different genres.
The group have been cited by their peers. Morrissey said that "Siouxsie and the Banshees were excellent". "They were one of the great groups of the late 70s, early 80s".
He also said in 1994, "If you study modern groups, those who gain press
coverage and chart action, none of them are as good as Siouxsie and the
Banshees at full pelt. That's not dusty nostalgia, that's fact." Another ex-member of The Smiths, Johnny Marr, mentioned his liking for Banshees guitarist John McGeoch and his composition on "Spellbound". Marr qualified it as "clever" with "really good picky thing going on which is very un-rock'n'roll."Joy Division producer Martin Hannett
saw a difference between Siouxsie and the Banshees Mk1 and the other
bands of 1977 : "Any harmonies you got were stark, to say the least,
except for the odd exception, like Siouxsie. They were interesting".U2 cited Siouxsie and the Banshees as a major influence and selected "Christine" for a Mojo compilation.The Edge was the presenter of an award given to Siouxsie at the Mojo ceremony in 2005.The Cure leader Robert Smith declared in 2003: "Siouxsie and the Banshees and Wire were the two bands I really admired. They meant something." He also pinpointed what the 1979 Join Hands
tour brought him musically. "On stage that first night with the
Banshees, I was blown away by how powerful I felt playing that kind of
music. It was so different to what we were doing with The Cure. Before
that, I'd wanted us to be like the Buzzcocks or Elvis Costello, the punk Beatles. Being a Banshee really changed my attitude to what I was doing."Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode hailed the single "Candyman" at its release: "This is a great Banshees record[...], I like their sound".Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth cited "Hong Kong Garden" in his top 25 all-time favourite songs, and Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine also mentioned them in his early influences.Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction
once made a parallel between his band and the Banshees: "There are so
many similar threads: melody, use of sound, attitude, sex-appeal. I
always saw Jane's Addiction as the masculine Siouxsie and the Banshees."
The Banshees have been hailed by other acts. Radiohead cited John McGeoch-era Siouxsie records when mentioning the recording of the song "There There".Jim Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain selected "Jigsaw Feeling" from The Scream amongst his favourite songs.Jeff Buckley, who took inspiration in several female voices, covered "Killing Time" on various occasions.Suede's singer Brett Anderson named Juju as one of his favourite records in 2011 and also cited three other albums by the band on his website, The Scream, Kaleidoscope and Tinderbox.Red Hot Chili Peppers performed "Christine" in concert and their guitarist John Frusciante cited the Banshees in interviews.Garbage singer Shirley Manson wrote in the foreword to Paytress' Banshees biography, "I learned how to sing listening to The Scream and Kaleidoscope. Today, I can see and hear the Banshees' influence all over the place." Siouxsie has also been praised by various female singers including PJ Harvey and Ana Matronic of Scissor Sisters. PJ Harvey selected Siouxsie's album Anima Animus in her top ten albums of year 1999. The band had a strong effect on two main trip hop acts.Tricky covered "Tattoo" to open his second album, Nearly God: the 1983's proto trip-hop version of that song helped Tricky in the creation of his style. Another group of Bristol, Massive Attack, sampled "Metal Postcard" on the song "Superpredators", recorded prior to their Mezzanine album.
The Banshees continue to influence younger musicians. Singer James Murphy was marked by certain Banshees albums during his childhood. His band LCD Soundsystem covered "Slowdive" as a B-side to the single "Disco Infiltrator". The Beta Band sampled "Painted Bird" on their track "Liquid Bird" from the Heroes to Zeros album.TV on the Radio said they have always tried to make a song that begins like "Kiss Them for Me" where all of a sudden, there's an "element of surprise" with "a giant drum coming in".[97]Electronica singer Santigold based one of her songs on the music of "Red Light". "'My Superman' is an interpolation of 'Red Light,'" she explained.[Indie folk group DeVotchKa covered the ballad "The Last Beat of My Heart" on the suggestion of Arcade Fire singer Win Butler; it was released on the Curse Your Little Heart EP.Gossip named the Banshees as one of their major influences during the promotion of their single "Heavy Cross".[ British indie band Bloc Party
took inspiration from "Peek-a-Boo" and their singer Kele Okereke stated
about that Banshees' single: "it sounded like nothing else on this
planet. This is just a pop song that they put out in the middle of their
career that nobody knows about, but to me it sounded like the most
current but most futuristic bit of guitar-pop music I've heard."The Weeknd sampled different parts of "Happy House" for his song "House of Balloons", and also used the chorus of the initial version. wikipedia discography
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Cocteau Twins were a Scottish rock band active from 1979 to 1997. The original members were singer Elizabeth Fraser, guitarist Robin Guthrie and bassist Will Heggie, who was replaced by multi-instrumentalist Simon Raymonde in 1983. The group has earned much critical praise for its innovative, ethereal sound and the distinctive soprano vocals of Fraser, which often seemed to veer into glossolalia and mouth music .
They were a phenomenon. Not necessarily the kind that plays to stadiums or fills MTV's timeslots or even sells millions of records. Rather, the kind that quietly causes a fundamental shift in perception, exerting a seminal influence that is universally felt if not always seen. Even after having called it quits in 1998—ending a 15-year career together that was impressive by any measure—their mark continues to be recognized everywhere, and legions of fans still hunger for more. But more is not likely to come soon.
In the midst of recording their ninth proper LP as a group—the follow-up to the 1996 release Milk & Kisses—Cocteau Twins decided "enough was enough." Elizabeth Fraser, the group's beguiling, singularly distinctive singer, took her leave and moved away from London to pursue a promising solo career. Her long-time collaborators—Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde—continue to focus on their own musical pursuits. Simon's solo work and involvement in developing new talent and Robin's new project, Violet Indiana—along with their successful independent record label, Bella Union—have proven that life beyond Cocteau Twins can be fruitful indeed.
It is ironic, of course, that Bella Union should have been founded as a vehicle for Cocteau Twins music. It was so named in honor of the trio's success and determination to stay together through difficult circumstances, to continue to make music that defied description and ignored prevailing music trends. Music that transcended boundaries into a realm uniquely their own.
But change, as they say, is inevitable, and even such stunning beauty as that created by Cocteau Twins could not—and, perhaps should not—go on indefinitely. But their music and their contribution to the art form, thankfully, will last forever. Cocteau Twins are among the very few artists whose music withstands the test of time: even in 2001, an eleven year-old Cocteau Twins song like "Fifty-fifty Clown" sounds as fresh and new as if it were recorded only yesterday.
Devoted fans and newcomers alike are sometimes filled with questions about this often-mysterious, sometimes media-shy trio, who were influential in not only defining the post-punk sound of the 1980's (and 4AD in the process) but also influenced generations of musicians in the 1990's and beyond. To-date, they have been cited as notable influences by such diverse artists as Prince, Madonna, Annie Lennox and Perfect Circle, not to mention bands such as Slowdive, Lush, My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse and Curve (just to name a few), who all worked in musical territory pioneered by Cocteau Twins.
As recently as 2000—nearly twenty years after Robin and Liz first started to make music with their friend Will Heggie in a small, dirty industrial town in Scotland—a two-CD collection of radio show performances (BBC Sessions) was released on Bella Union in conjunction with the BBC. That was followed in late 2001 by an eighteen-track digitally remastered retrospective from 4AD entitled Stars and Topsoil, which chronicled highlights from their career with their long-time record label from 1982 to 1990. The story continued in 2003, as remastered early LPs Garlands, Head Over Heels, Treasure and Victorialand were reissued by 4AD. In 2005—an ill-fated year in which the band nearly reunited—4AD released a new limited-edition box-set, Lullabies to Violaine, a compilation of digitally remastered EPs, singles and b-sides spanning the entire Cocteau Twins catalog (including non-4AD music) from 1982 to 1996.
So, like a compilation of songs from various records, this chronological series of articles is intended to give the reader some insight and perspective on Cocteau Twins, and document the span of their remarkable career together. Readers can look forward to a book-format biography of Cocteau Twins, written by fan extraordinaire Leesa Beales, which is due sometime in the near future. Visit www.cocteautwins.org for more details and the latest news on that.
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Cocteau Twins have proven to be one of the most prolific bands in modern music, with dozens of releases spanning their 15-year career—nearly 140 individual songs.
This Discography and Videography focuses on the basic information about each release, with details concerning UK, Canadian and US releases, with some information about Japanese or other international versions of material. For a more exhaustive discographic analysis, visit the 4AD/Eyesore Database (for information up to 1991).
An extensive discography and gigography are also available at www.cocteautwins.org.
