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13 posts tagged Phoenix
Phoenix Documentary ‘From a Mess to the Masses’
Antoine Wagner, director of Phoenix’s official “Lisztomania” video, followed the Versailles quartet for over a year while Thomas Mars, Laurent Brancowitz, and co. set out on an extensive tour in the wake of their breakout fourth record, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Now the result of Wagner and co-director Sorriano Francisco’s footage taken “in the footsteps” of the band’s meteoric rise has become a 52-minute documentary borrowing its title, From a Mess to the Masses, from the lyrics of the aforementioned single. The film premieres this week (on October 13th at 10PM) in France and Germany on the Arte television network, but here’s hoping it will hit screens elsewhere soon. In the meantime, check out the trailer, which promises plenty of live and behind-the-scenes footage to come, above. *Update: The full film is above.
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Photos: Phoenix Recording LP5
Fashion designer/photographer Hedi Slimane joined Thomas Mars & Co. in a New York recording studio where Phoenix are plotting their follow-up to their breakout fourth LP, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Earlier this year, Mars and bassist Deck D’Arcy said they hope to work with an orchestra and live drums for the TGV-inspired project. Check out the full collection of black-and-white shots here.
Speaking of surprise Grammy Award winners, Phoenix have begun work on their follow-up to 2009’s “Best Alternative Music Album,” Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, in New South Wales, Australia. Our Aussie friends at Pedestrian caught up with Thomas Mars and Deck D’Arcy of Bill Murray’s favorite French quartet in Sydney over the weekend for a Q&A, in which they revealed that they’re “going to record a bunch of percussionists” and an orchestra in Byron Bay to test out new material.
“If it works, we’ll probably come back and record something that’s going to be on the album,” said Mars, describing their new tunes as inspired by the both “nostalgic” and “futuristic” sound of a French high-speed train called the TGV. “It’s very experimental. It’s minimal[istic] music,” he mused, adding that their past work with drum machines is “a little frustrating” and they “want to escape that” for the next LP.
Sounds like a reasonably intriguing departure so far — can’t wait to hear it, obvs. Meanwhile, you can watch Mars and D’Arcy talk LP5 here or preview the non-melodious tones of the TGV below:
While many of us, myself included, were first made aware of the undeniably adorable PS22 kids chorus — led by music teacher/Tori Amos fanatic Gregg Breinberg — when they took on Phoenix’s “Listzomania” last year (a cover that even pulled at the heartstrings of the band), Breinberg’s rotating cast of Staten Island, NY 5th graders have actually been filming versions of well-known pop, classic rock, and new wave songs, not to mention a few lesser-known indie faves (e.g. Beach House’s “Zebra”), for 10+ years. Their recent take on 2010 critical favorite “Round and Round” by Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti inspired me to dig through the PS22 YouTube archives for a few standouts and others that you may want to enjoy before they perform at next month’s Oscars. Here’s my uplifting, essential collection of 10 PS22 videos:
Bill Murray performed a wonderfully odd speech at the National Board of Review Awards last night in honor of Sofia Coppola, reflecting on her directorial career from 1999’s The Virgin Suicides to her latest feature, Somewhere, a film scored and partially soundtracked by her partner Thomas Mars’ band, Phoenix. At one point, Murray went on a hilarious tangent about the French rocker:
Sofia has gotten into life. She’s married. Now she’s got a French lover, [Mars]. She has two beautiful children by this French lover. And I, for one, am sick of these directors with the homely kids. I can’t stand it anymore. She’s got beautiful children, and she lives with a man who is the only Frenchman that could play rock and roll, ever. Fuck Johnny Hallyday! [Audience roaring, gasping.] Pardon my French.
Check out his full speech over at Vulture. On a semi-related note, here’s hoping the PS22 kids reprise their take on Phoenix’s “Lisztomania” for their Oscars performance next month.
“A few presents coming before our Madison Square Garden show,” said Phoenix yesterday on Twitter, “here’s the 1st one…” The gift that followed makes me officially excited for Thomas Mars, Branco, and the boys’ future “presents” as this weekend’s link leads to free mp3 stems for their breakout, deservedly-acclaimed LP, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.
As stand-alone tracks, there’s nothing to see here, kids, but the inevitably fun remixes and mashups to come — not to mention their score for Sofia Coppola’s new film — sure make these ears happy. What’s more: “You’ll never know how long we’ll take to record the next album,” teases the French quartet in a handwritten note attached to the files. Is it possible to drain more pleasure from this stellar album in the meantime? My critical mind says “no,” but the iTunes play count on “Countdown” says “let’s go.” Either way, enjoy.
Ever since the trailer to Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere hit in June, which featured music by her partner Thomas Mars’ band Phoenix (“Love Like a Sunset”) and poignant use of a Strokes demo by Julian Casablancas (“I’ll Try Anything Once”), we’ve been anxious for the scoop on the rest of the Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning-starring film’s soundtrack. Thanks to a tracklist uncovered by the Playlist on the Italian distributors’ site, however, the wait is over…
Coppola has apparently bookended the soundtrack with the first and second part of Phoenix’s almost-instrumental Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix cut “Love Like a Sunset,” placing the aforementioned Strokes tune alongside T. Rex’s “20th Century Boy,” “So Lonely” by the Police, Amerie’s “1 Thing,” Bryan Ferry covering the Platters’ “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” and nine more carefully selected songs in between. Check out the full tracklist and trailer below:
Watch: Sofia Coppola Unveils Somewhere Trailer
“She asked us to do some music, very in the spirit of ‘Love Like a Sunset,’ so we tried to put that track and elements of the track in the movie,” Phoenix frontman/Sofia Coppola boyfriend Thomas Mars told MTV in April. The “movie” he’s referring to is Coppola’s Somewhere, which hits theaters in December, and features “very small pieces of music, very minimal music” from his band.
Well, the trailer hit the Web earlier tonight and (surprise, surprise) the aforementioned Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix almost-instrumental scores part of the clip. As the Playlist notes, however, it’s Julian Casablancas’ demo of “I’ll Try Anything Once”—an early version of “You Only Live Once”—that pretty much steals the show. View the Stephen Dorff/Elle Fanning-starring trailer above.
Phoenix have toured the globe and appeared on basically every U.S. late-night television program since the release of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix last spring, but if you have yet to catch them live or just want a totally free live album from Thomas Mars, Branco, and the boys, behold: Live in Sydney.
The band are offering a free download with no strings attached (not even an email address) of their concert in Sydney, Australia earlier this month on their official site. Well played, monsieurs.
The 8-song tracklist is below:
A certain sentence from an interview with Phoenix published in the New York Times last week has gotten music and film sites buzzing the past couple days: “Among the band’s next projects,” the Times’ Melena Ryzik wrote, “is a movie directed by Sofia Coppola, Mr. Mars’s girlfriend, based on its song ‘Love Like a Sunset.’”
We knew that frontman Thomas Mars will be contributing music to Coppola’s next feature film, Somewhere, but this report of an entire film based around one of his band’s songs is news to me.
Ryzik left the details out of course, leaving us with a host of unanswered questions, namely: Will it be a feature-length film? The two-part song, which sits about halfway through Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, is almost entirely instrumental and only seven minutes long, so it seems unlikely that it could inspire anything of feature length. My guess: Coppola will direct an epic music video to cap off the band’s whirlwind promo tour for their breakthrough record.
Either way, celebrity couples with actual talent collaborating is always good news.