Sqürl, the group created by Jim Jarmusch to create the soundtracks for his films, performs at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, scoring silent films by Man Ray.
In 2009, drummer Carter Logan, keyboardist and sound engineer Shane Stoneback and film director Jim Jarmusch as guitarist – who had previously been the singer and keyboardist in the No Wave band Del-Byzanteens – formed Bad Rabbit, a group created to score Jarmusch’s film The Limits of Control. As the name coincided with that of a Boston band created shortly before, it was decided to change the name to Sqürl, and under that new name they have gone on to create several more soundtracks for other Jarmusch films.
Over the last fortnight Sqürl has also been performing live on a European tour, providing a live musical soundtrack to four silent and dreamlike films by the artist, painter, photographer and Dadaist director Man Ray – L’Étoile de mer (1928, 17’38”), Emak Bakia (Fichez-moi la paix) (1926, 19’43”), Le Retour à la raison (1923, 2’51”) and Les Mystères du château de Dé (1929, 25′). The tour began on 28 January in Berlin and has travelled to Bochum, Turin, Milan, Lausanne, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Antwerp, The Hague and London, and concludes in Paris with performances at the Centre Pompidou this evening and on Wednesday 15 at 20:00. These are semi-improvised scores in which loops, synthesizers, guitars and effects pedals are mixed to create a work somewhere between experimental and drone and ambient music.