Favorite Films: Avant-Garde Trio Kilter Get Off on ‘Stalker,’ ‘Annihilation’ ‘Street Trash’
If your tastes in music are liberal and erudite enough to encompass Khanate and Yakuza, you are living in sin with each passing moment you fail to avail yourself to Kilter. The instrumental metal-jazz trio from Paris and Brooklyn is counting down the hours till Kilter’s new album, Ten Billion Years, arrives via Excursus Production on June 19.
“A concept album depicting nothing less than the birth and death of our solar system, Ten Billion Years unfolds with cosmic-level grandeur, its instrumental compositions exploring spaces between the sounds of John Coltrane, Sunn O))) and Meshuggah,” reads a statement in press materials about the release. That jibes with us; does it for you?
If you’re sold, mark your calendar for a week from today, when Bandcamp hosts a Ten Billion Years listening party a week from today at 1 p.m. ET. And with that sneak preview still a week away, The Bad Penny is casting the spotlight on the burgeoning band by featuring them in the latest installment of our Favorite Films series. If the title doesn’t give it away, the ongoing feature allows musicians to share their favorite movies ever (and we usually publish it on Saturdays).
Buckle up (especially in the case of the first selection) for the picks that Kilter’s Laurent David (electric bass, production); Ed Rosenberg III (bass and tenor saxophones); and Kenny Grohowski (drums) handpicked for their installment of Favorite Films.
Laurent David on Stalker (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
The first time I watched Stalker, I thought it was boring. I wasn’t ready for it and was expecting something to happen. But nothing happens. Or at least, not the way you expect. And that’s exactly why it stayed in my mind.
What Stalker does is simple: It breaks your relationship to time. You don’t watch it — you submit to it. The film decides the tempo, not you. Those long walking scenes, with the Stalker guiding the two men through the Zone… they shouldn’t work. They’re slow, almost empty. But they pull you in. You start paying attention differently. To space. To silence. To what might happen, or not.
The Zone is never explained. You don’t know what it is, where the danger comes from: war, science, something else… it doesn’t matter. That uncertainty is the point. The sound is part of it too. Not really drones, not really music. Something in between. It stretches the moment even further, like time refusing to move forward.
Watching this film in a theater feels like stepping out of your own habits, not as a “consumer.” You’re inside it. That’s something I connect to directly with Ten Billion Years: we slowed everything down, four times. Not as an effect, but as a way to change the perception of time.
It asks for the same thing: stop trying to control time, let it happen, be patient and stay inside, for Ten Billion Years.
Ed on Annihilation (dir. Alex Garland, 2018)
There have been so many sci-fi movies about other worlds, other beings, etc., and so many cliché musical approaches have evolved: The early electronic music in Forbidden Planet; the grandeur of Strauss’ Zarathustra and dense dissonance of Ligeti in 2001; John Williams’ epic fanfares in Star Wars. But Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow managed to find something different which reflects the core of the Annihilation story, and it pairs beautifully with the imagery in the Alex Garland film. This is a depiction of aliens that is mysterious, impenetrably strange and unknowable. The music manages to convey this mystery beautifully. I found the climactic “alien” scene at the end to be particularly powerful and moving.
Kenny on Street Trash (dir. Jim Muro, 1987) and more:
A name that often comes up during Kilter tours is one that most of our fans may not expect, but one that the music world at large would be hard-pressed to not be familiar with. That person would be Huey Lewis. On top of the myriad of hits and music, Lewis and the News created over the decades, “The Power of Love,” is always mentioned in conversation.
Stories, gossip and anecdotes of the tune’s history dominate the back and forth, which inevitably leads to a deep dive on either Back to the Future itself, or Ghostbusters – a personal favorite – and the gossip behind that theme song, or other ’80s music and film interests. Ultimately, the conversation will end with the notorious, NYC-made B-movie, Street Trash.
Ed and I got to enjoy this movie during one particular residency and, ever since, discussions on the thoroughly imagined sequel, subsequent soundtrack and score, have dominated a lot of our free time as a band. In many ways, those discussions led to the eventually serious discussions on what would later become the opera La Suspendida and [our] Ten / Ten Billion Years recording projects.
Finding common ground, even if it is something ridiculous to merely laugh at, is crucial for any group of people. Conversations and moments like these helped build bonds that have translated into how we write music, do business and make records now. It’s these moments I hold fondly as we work.
(Lastly, go watch John Carpenter’s The Thing. It’s incredible, and the theme is impeccable.)
For more on Kilter, visit their Bandcamp page and this one too.
For more Favorite Films edition, check out these:
• The New Loud Pick Their Favorite David Lynch Films
• Dummy Give Thumbs-Up to ‘Psycho Goreman,’ ‘Megan,’ ‘Creep,’ ‘Nosferatu’
• Jacob the Horse Singer Digs Russ Meyer, Nolan, Tarsem Singh, William Friedkin
• Dying Remains’ Frontman Treasures ‘The Thing,’ ‘Suspiria,’ ‘City of the Living Dead,’ ‘Wounded Fawn’
• Heavy Heavy Low Low Vocalist Lists His Favorite Flicks as Halloween Creeps Closer
• Napalm Death’s Shane Embury Picks ‘2001,’ ‘Inception,’ ‘Forbidden Planet’
• Point Break 2 Frontman Cops to His Guilty-Pleasure Movies: ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘Terror,’ ‘Elvis,’ More
• Oathbound Swear ‘Alien,’ ‘Big Lebowski,’ ‘Interstellar,’ ‘Cabin in the Woods’ Are the Bomb
• Did You Catch These Easter Eggs in ‘One Battle After Another’?
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