New Mexico’s widescreen roving folk duo A Hawk and A Hacksaw (accordionist/drummer Jeremy Barnes and violinist Heather Trost) present a brand new rescore of Soviet director Sergio Paradjanov’s classic film “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors.
Set high up in the Carpathian mountains, the film tells the age old tale of a peasant’s love and loss in a pre- industrial age where magic and ritual are as much a part of existence as back-breaking work and violent family feuds.
The colour, grandeur and gut-wrenching romance of A Hawk and A Hacksaw’s music is the perfect counterpoint to Paradjanov’s visionary blend of folklore, sorcery and religious symbolism.
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors | Excerpt
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cdwis82ZQQE&feature=related
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is the first major work by the legendary Russian filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov. Hailed as a genius by the likes of Fellini, Antonioni and Tarkovsky, his films are as allegorical and mysterious as Byzantine frescos, each a beautiful riot of small movements within his almost always static frames.
The film is the archetypal Ukrainian story of a young peasant who marries the daughter of his father’s killer, loses her, falls into a long spiral of sadness and then remarries again, with tragic results. Paradjanov enriches the tale with occult imagery, swooping camerawork and a wide tableaux of breathtaking landscapes.
Started as a solo project in 2000 by accordionist and drummer Jeremy Barnes (former member of indie rock legends Neutral Milk Hotel) and named after a line in Cervantes’ Don Quixote, AHAAH became a duo in 2004 when Barnes met violinist Heather Trost.
The pair began an adventure that took them to Budapest, Hungary where they lived for two years and met/toured with some of the country’s finest folk musicians, as well as countless US & European tours both on their own and with big names including Portishead, Calexico and fellow New Mexico resident Beirut.
Joined by an ever expanding and contracting line-up of musicians, A Hawk and A Hacksaw seeks to create and document an ecstatic sound much like the village bands of old, with the communal aspect of folk tradition and musicianship the key factor.
A Hawk and A Hacksaw’s release an official soundtrack album to Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors this Spring on their label LM-Duplication.
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A Hawk And A Hacksaw – live rescore of Sergej Paradjanov’s “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”
Sunday, 11 March 2012 | 20:00 CET
HAU 1 | Stresemannstr. 29 | 10963 Berlin/Kreuzberg
ahawkandahacksaw.net | parajanov.com | hebbel-am-ufer.de
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