Episode 27: Weird Music, Part One

In this first of two episodes devoted to the music of the weird, Phil and JF discuss two works that have bowled them over: the second movement of Ligeti's Musica Ricercata, used to powerful effect in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and the opening music to Cronenberg's film Naked Lunch, composed by Howard Shore and featuring the inimitable stylings of Ornette Coleman. After teasing out the intrinsic weirdness of music in general, the dialogue soars over a strange country rife with shadows, mad geniuses, and skittering insects. And to top it all off, Phil breaks out the grand piano. Header image by Bandan, Wikimedia Commons REFERENCES Ligeti, Musica Ricercata, 2nd movement Howard Shore and Ornette Coleman, opening music for David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation Suzanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey Viktor Shklovsky, "Art as Technique" Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut Hitchcock, Psycho Vulture, "The Evolution of the Movie Trailer" by Granger Willson Official Trailer for The Shining_vs teaser for _2012 Jan Harlan (director), Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures David Cronenberg, Crash William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus Gunther Schuller's interview with Ethan Iverson Weird Studies, Episode 25: David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch Deleuze & Guattari, Anti-Oedipus