The idea of creating original techno soundtracks for old movies is nothing new. Jeff Mills first popularized the concept in the early 00s, with his own sonic take on silent flicks like Fritz Lange's classic Metropolis, before folks like Richie Hawtin (Brumes d'automne), the Innervisions crew (The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari) and Shed (Nosferatu) jumped on idea and made it their own. All of the aforementioned artists added music to silent features from the 1920s, but the latest to wow us is Chicago producer Jamal Moses, aka I.B.M. (Insane Black Man), whose recent release on Interdimensional Transmissions—From The Land Of Rape & Honey (The Suppressed Tapes) 1995-2005—has been set to the finale sequence of American experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger's 1954 occult classic, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.Kenneth Anger's Inaguration Of The Pleasure Dome (1954) The I.B.M. Version from Interdimensional Transmissions on Vimeo.The music comprising the score (and the album) was recorded by Moses on a mix of cassettes, video tapes, and mini-discs, and had to be rehabilitated by IT before being mixed live to the footage by Detroit-bred DJ Carlos Souffront. The sound is as raw and jacking as one would expect from a producer who got his start attending Ron Hardy's legendary Music Box parties, but who also moved freely within the equally influential 80s Chicago industrial scene that gave rise to the Wax Trax! store and record label. The name of the album even references the seminal Ministry album, The Land Of Rape and Honey, which was mandatory listening from every over-eye-shadowed teen in the early 90s.Moses calls his sound "post industrial angst in an urban environment." Combined with Anger's dystopian fever-dreams on film, we'd call it some serious shit that you probably shouldn't try watching late at night by yourself.
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