Silent Film Soundtracks Volume One

Artist: Larry Marotta

Album: Silent Film Soundtracks Volume One

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Catalog Number: PIMALIA-5

UPC: 754422714525

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Larry Marotta is a guitarist and composer based in Columbus, Ohio.

He has performed with David Reed, Mike Shiflet, Ryan Jewell, Jason Roebke, Ben Bennett, Kyle Bruckmann, Ernst Karel, Neil Feather, Matthew Sperry, Rat Bastard, Bill Orcutt, David Gross, Spencer Yeh, Tatsuya Nakatani, Dave Rempis, James Ilgenfritz, Avant Collective, Brian Casey, Rocco Di Pietro, Steve Perakis, and the Rattling Wall Collective.

In the last several years, he has scored several independent and classic silent films for the DVD series of Avant-Garde and Experimental films by Kino International.  Pimalia will be releasing a series of these scores.

Volume One in this series:

1. Anemic Cinema: Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp’s only film (1926 – 6.5 min.) alternates images of spirals in motion with verbal non sequiturs which, like the spirals, also rotate on the screen. Marotta’s score takes a harmonic approach to the subject. Performed on electric guitar, themes repeat but with constantly shifting meters. The score was commissioned by Kino International for its DVD Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and 30s

2. Christmas, USA: Performed by Marotta on lap steel guitar, the score for Gregory Markopoulos’s Christmas, USA (1949 – 13 min.) captures the dreamlike mood of Markopoulos’s film: a mystical meditation on coming of age both intellectually and sexually. Although a key figure in American avant-garde cinema, Markopoulos’s films are regrettably rarely seen. This score was commissioned by Kino International for its DVD Avant-Garde 2: Experimental Cinema from 1928-1954.

3. H20: The theme of the film H2O (1929 – 12 min.) is just that: water. Director Ralph Steiner takes a close look at the planet’s most ubiquitous liquid and the images range from the placid and soothing to those bordering on psychedelic. Marotta makes the visual sonic in his acoustic guitar score. The score was commissioned by Kino International for its DVD Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and 30s.

4. Regen: Rain falls on a Dutch city and Joris Ivens’s camera was there to capture the poetry hidden within the mundane in his film Regen (Rain) (1929 — 14 min.) The score, which straddles the line between folk and jazz, is performed by Marotta on electric guitar. It is unashamedly tuneful and often pretty. The score was commissioned by Kino International for its DVD Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and 30s.

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Tracklisting:

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Artist Links:

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