Be Still Life
Artist: 400 Lonely Things
Album: Be Still Life
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Formats:
Uncompressed audio on compact disc, with eight-page insert available at 400lonelythings.com
Download this album at:
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Catalog Number: 400LT-6 • PIMALIA-14
UPC: 754422716321
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Another solo outing by Craig Varian, Be Still Life was recorded between August and December of 2008. The album title points to the bittersweet interplay between the constant change of life, and the human desire to keep things always as they are. This is further enacted by the packaging; still lives arranged and photographed by Craig’s (then) seven-year-old daughter, Emma, fleeting mandalas found around their house in the mountains.
400 Lonely Things were to ever make a psychedelic folk album, Be Still Life is perhaps what it would have to sound like. The songs are built entirely of sampled arrangements and locally grown, organic field recordings, reflecting life in the woods, both serene and sinister. Acoustic guitars and woodwinds drift in and out of golden sunlight and sparkling meadows, while fireflies lure you to sleep in dark, forbidding forests of drones and dirges as the evening draws to a close.
Be Still Life opens and closes with homages to two cinematic cautionary tales of innocence and faith, with the tranquilizing beauty and peacefulness of the woods as their backdrop. Track one, Swiss Miss features a few audio bites culled from Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, and the albums’ closing track Wicklow Wood is composed entirely of a few brief, treated samples from John Boorman’s Zardoz. Be Still Life is the sixth album from 400 Lonely Things (all of which were released in a one year period).
400 Lonely Things is Craig Varian and Jonathan McCall.
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Be Still Life from 400 Lonely Things on Vimeo.
A short film / long-form music video by film-makers and brothers Michael and Phil Harrell, inspired by the music of 400 Lonely Things.
Be Still Life takes its name from the 2009 album by 400 Lonely Things, extrapolating the bittersweet interplay suggested in the album title between the constant change of life, and the human desire to keep things always as they are. While drawing most of its inspiration and soundtrack from Be Still Life, additional songs from the 400 Lonely Things catalog are also used to tell a wordless, introspective story.
Our withdrawn protagonist discovers a busted, old TV frame, and discovers that looking through it - he is again able to see the beauty in life. However, taming the outside world comes with a price - he begins to only look at things through the frame, developing a dependence on it that ultimately leads to a chaotic and freeing climax.
Be Still Life was filmed and edited December of 2009 - January of 2010 by Michael and Phil Harrell. The albums comprising the soundtrack by 400 Lonely Things, are available at 400lonelythings.com or downloaded at the retail links above.
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Tracklisting:
- 1 Swiss Miss (For Bergman)
- 2 A Still Life
- 3 Red Rover
- 4 Open Windows
- 5 Upstairs at Elric’s
- 6 Swing State
- 7 Wicklow Wood (For Boorman)
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Download one-sheet pdf here.
Email 400 Lonely Things here.
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Artist Links:
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