Top 20 Vincent Moon Videos
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Vincent Moon's Fiume Nights video of Nikaido Kazumi doesn't just belong on this list, but on any list of great moments in live musical performances of any kind. There's no pyrotechnics or gimmicks, no random acts of happenstance or chaos: there's just one girl with a guitar, walking through an Osaka subway underpass. There's nothing else there, and that leaves the sheer power of Nikaido's voice to shine, ringing out clear and true into the night. Her voice is so overwhelming that it floors people, and maybe even herself; when Moon was rolling camera, he was crying. She was crying. They were drunk and happy and soaked in emotion. Moon had come to Japan to make a film on avant-folk legend Kazuki Tomokawa (2009's La Faute des Fleurs), and serendipitously stumbled upon Nikaido. It was a moment of magic.
The glories of Take Away Shows are so often in their details; those blessed, spontaneous moments that let you know that these truly are songs delivered unplanned and on-the-fly. At the end of a pair of Owen Pallett performances for La Blogothèque —captured back when he was still rolling as Final Fantasy— there's this awesome moment where he's clearly spelling out Alex Lukashevsky's double-meaning lyrics in his best explanatory English. I'm not sure "I'm smarter than a chair/until it needs red paint" has a ready French translation. Anyone who's ever seen Pallett play live, in any setting, knows that he's comfortable inhabiting the moment, so it's hardly a surprise he seems at ease in front of Moon's cameras.
It was always bound to happen: a meeting of the two greatest French exports to the blogosphere. Knowing all too well the clichés of Frenchmen that persist on foreign shores, the video marriage between Moon and globe-conquering Parisian pop-stars Phoenix choose to mock their own cultural baggage, exporting back to the world the sights familiar to generations of tourists. So, for their 2009 hook-up —which came when the band were beginning their march towards Grammy immortality— Moon put Phoenix as glorified buskers by the Eiffel Tower, had them riding in an open-top tourist bus tripping around sight-seeing streets, and finally found some solitude by the Seine. And playing in super-stripped-down mode, Phoenix's pop-songs still shined bright.
If one thing unites the incredibly disparate array of performers Moon has turned his camera on over the years, it's the power of the human voice, especially in harmony. This makes Danish a cappella posse Valby Vokalgruppe natural allies to the filmmaker's aesthetic. In two separate videos with Valby Vokalgruppe —one Take Away Show, another via Vincent's own Fiume Nights project— their voices fill the night. Or, moreso, grow to fill the surrounds we see on video, the pitter-pattering of their rhythmic singing exploring the surrounding architecture. Moon's work has long sought to strip away the unnecessary elements of musical performance and concert footage, and these Valby Vokalgruppe performances are humans producing sound in the most elemental fashion.
Vic Chesnutt was a songwriter's songwriter: hand-carving rough-hewn tunes from a strummed acoustic and a raggedy voice, fashioning fabulous lyrical curlicues but never sanding down the splintered edges. An intimate video of Chesnutt performing sans accompaniment and amplification is capturing his singular talent in an unrefined fashion. Given his wheelchair-bound status, it's not surprising that Chesnutt's Take Away Show is a little more static than most; but what it lacks in movement it more than makes up for in profundity. Here, one night in 2007, Chesnutt tore through "Sponge" and "Warm" and "Glossolalia" with a rasp and a snarl, a songsmith in command of his craft. Following his 2009 death, it's impossible not to see the end looming as you watch the video; this tiny man with the monumental songwriting powers not much longer for this world.
"Okay, so we run now! They're gonna get the cops!" Now that's an ending! Anyone who's ever done any kind of guerrilla filmmaking knows that feeling, of having to get stuff done before someone in a uniform comes along and tells you to stop. Of course, if you're trying to not attract attention, using the Stravinsky Fountain as a giant percussion instrument —and, indeed, kicking the crap out of it— isn't the best way to stay inconspicuous. Volcano! —a strange, shape-shifting art-rock/math-rock outfit from Chicago— have always remained strangely underrated in my book, and the fact that their 2006 Take Away Show hasn't reached legendary status despite its in-built drama only backs up the idea.
Witnessing Wildbirds and Peacedrums play their intensely physical and grippingly passionate jams, it sometimes feels like the husband/wife team are —musically speaking— grappling mano-a-mano. So, it was with some wit that the band ended up playing for Moon's camera inside a boxing ring, in the middle of a gym. Knocking out "My Heart" and "There is No Light," Mariam Wallentin and drummer Andreas Werliin are sparring; staging a back-and-forth workout where vocals and percussion mix it up, and the duo finish up breathless and sweaty. Like so many of the entries on this list, the Wildbirds and Peacedrums Take Away Show stands out because of its singing. Which comes down to Wallentin, whose glorious voice carries the weight of great emotion with seeming ease.
As Moon has wandered farther around the globe, Take Away Show locations have started to move from the back to the front of frame. No longer are they a mere setting in which the music takes place, but a key player in the musical drama. His Petites Planètes series rolls with one-world-ism in its title, and his eyes are —when far removed from Parisian streets— more wide-open than ever. The Take Away Show for Israeli-French duo Winter Family is one of Moon's most location-specific works; the band delivering their stark, mournful, spoken-word elegies by the Tomb of David, in the Old City, and on the Mount of Olives; Jerusalem alight and alive behind them. It doesn't feel like video tourism, reducing things with a foreigner's eye, but footage aware of where it is being shot.
Watching Yeasayer go through their Take Away Show is a little like taking a journey, growing as you go, and learning something along the way. At the beginning, the Brooklyn bros are suspicious and dismissive of these demanding Frenchman, showing their disinterest with swearwords, cool-posturing, and a kind of 'above it' air. But then they start performing, on streets and in metro carriages, bars, and hotels, an ever-growing crowd following them. Wine is flowing, spirits are high, and the audience is roped in to yell along. There's caterwauling, back-slapping, rejoicing; love is in the air. Yeasayer have won over viewers, but also been won over by the power of Moon, his ever-creative ways, and unblinking camera.
11. Nikaido Kazumi
Vincent Moon's Fiume Nights video of Nikaido Kazumi doesn't just belong on this list, but on any list of great moments in live musical performances of any kind. There's no pyrotechnics or gimmicks, no random acts of happenstance or chaos: there's just one girl with a guitar, walking through an Osaka subway underpass. There's nothing else there, and that leaves the sheer power of Nikaido's voice to shine, ringing out clear and true into the night. Her voice is so overwhelming that it floors people, and maybe even herself; when Moon was rolling camera, he was crying. She was crying. They were drunk and happy and soaked in emotion. Moon had come to Japan to make a film on avant-folk legend Kazuki Tomokawa (2009's La Faute des Fleurs), and serendipitously stumbled upon Nikaido. It was a moment of magic.
12. Owen Pallett
The glories of Take Away Shows are so often in their details; those blessed, spontaneous moments that let you know that these truly are songs delivered unplanned and on-the-fly. At the end of a pair of Owen Pallett performances for La Blogothèque —captured back when he was still rolling as Final Fantasy— there's this awesome moment where he's clearly spelling out Alex Lukashevsky's double-meaning lyrics in his best explanatory English. I'm not sure "I'm smarter than a chair/until it needs red paint" has a ready French translation. Anyone who's ever seen Pallett play live, in any setting, knows that he's comfortable inhabiting the moment, so it's hardly a surprise he seems at ease in front of Moon's cameras.
13. Phoenix
It was always bound to happen: a meeting of the two greatest French exports to the blogosphere. Knowing all too well the clichés of Frenchmen that persist on foreign shores, the video marriage between Moon and globe-conquering Parisian pop-stars Phoenix choose to mock their own cultural baggage, exporting back to the world the sights familiar to generations of tourists. So, for their 2009 hook-up —which came when the band were beginning their march towards Grammy immortality— Moon put Phoenix as glorified buskers by the Eiffel Tower, had them riding in an open-top tourist bus tripping around sight-seeing streets, and finally found some solitude by the Seine. And playing in super-stripped-down mode, Phoenix's pop-songs still shined bright.
14. Valby Vokalgruppe
If one thing unites the incredibly disparate array of performers Moon has turned his camera on over the years, it's the power of the human voice, especially in harmony. This makes Danish a cappella posse Valby Vokalgruppe natural allies to the filmmaker's aesthetic. In two separate videos with Valby Vokalgruppe —one Take Away Show, another via Vincent's own Fiume Nights project— their voices fill the night. Or, moreso, grow to fill the surrounds we see on video, the pitter-pattering of their rhythmic singing exploring the surrounding architecture. Moon's work has long sought to strip away the unnecessary elements of musical performance and concert footage, and these Valby Vokalgruppe performances are humans producing sound in the most elemental fashion.
15. Vic Chesnutt
Vic Chesnutt was a songwriter's songwriter: hand-carving rough-hewn tunes from a strummed acoustic and a raggedy voice, fashioning fabulous lyrical curlicues but never sanding down the splintered edges. An intimate video of Chesnutt performing sans accompaniment and amplification is capturing his singular talent in an unrefined fashion. Given his wheelchair-bound status, it's not surprising that Chesnutt's Take Away Show is a little more static than most; but what it lacks in movement it more than makes up for in profundity. Here, one night in 2007, Chesnutt tore through "Sponge" and "Warm" and "Glossolalia" with a rasp and a snarl, a songsmith in command of his craft. Following his 2009 death, it's impossible not to see the end looming as you watch the video; this tiny man with the monumental songwriting powers not much longer for this world.
16. Volcano!
"Okay, so we run now! They're gonna get the cops!" Now that's an ending! Anyone who's ever done any kind of guerrilla filmmaking knows that feeling, of having to get stuff done before someone in a uniform comes along and tells you to stop. Of course, if you're trying to not attract attention, using the Stravinsky Fountain as a giant percussion instrument —and, indeed, kicking the crap out of it— isn't the best way to stay inconspicuous. Volcano! —a strange, shape-shifting art-rock/math-rock outfit from Chicago— have always remained strangely underrated in my book, and the fact that their 2006 Take Away Show hasn't reached legendary status despite its in-built drama only backs up the idea.
17. Wildbirds and Peacedrums
Witnessing Wildbirds and Peacedrums play their intensely physical and grippingly passionate jams, it sometimes feels like the husband/wife team are —musically speaking— grappling mano-a-mano. So, it was with some wit that the band ended up playing for Moon's camera inside a boxing ring, in the middle of a gym. Knocking out "My Heart" and "There is No Light," Mariam Wallentin and drummer Andreas Werliin are sparring; staging a back-and-forth workout where vocals and percussion mix it up, and the duo finish up breathless and sweaty. Like so many of the entries on this list, the Wildbirds and Peacedrums Take Away Show stands out because of its singing. Which comes down to Wallentin, whose glorious voice carries the weight of great emotion with seeming ease.
18. Winter Family
As Moon has wandered farther around the globe, Take Away Show locations have started to move from the back to the front of frame. No longer are they a mere setting in which the music takes place, but a key player in the musical drama. His Petites Planètes series rolls with one-world-ism in its title, and his eyes are —when far removed from Parisian streets— more wide-open than ever. The Take Away Show for Israeli-French duo Winter Family is one of Moon's most location-specific works; the band delivering their stark, mournful, spoken-word elegies by the Tomb of David, in the Old City, and on the Mount of Olives; Jerusalem alight and alive behind them. It doesn't feel like video tourism, reducing things with a foreigner's eye, but footage aware of where it is being shot.
19. Yeasayer
Watching Yeasayer go through their Take Away Show is a little like taking a journey, growing as you go, and learning something along the way. At the beginning, the Brooklyn bros are suspicious and dismissive of these demanding Frenchman, showing their disinterest with swearwords, cool-posturing, and a kind of 'above it' air. But then they start performing, on streets and in metro carriages, bars, and hotels, an ever-growing crowd following them. Wine is flowing, spirits are high, and the audience is roped in to yell along. There's caterwauling, back-slapping, rejoicing; love is in the air. Yeasayer have won over viewers, but also been won over by the power of Moon, his ever-creative ways, and unblinking camera.
20. Zawose Family
Interviewing Vincent Moon in 2011, it was clear that he saw the indie-rock shows by which he made his name as a thing of his past, and that he was now a global wanderer chronicling cultures and musics off the beaten rock'n'roll track. The seeds of his evolution had been sown long ago, at least as far back as this memorable 2008 video with Tanzanian vocal clan Zawose Family. Backed by only thrumming kalimba, gentle hand-percussion, and a home-made, bowed ngoni, the Zawoses sing in astonishing, vibrant polyphony, create a sound striking and celebratory by the power of their throats. Moon, up close, gets right in, so you see the sound coming out. And, all the while, they're all surrounded by children; so often the cameo guests and charmed background in countless Take Away Shows.
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