Skateboarding as a metaphor for all creative activity? Why not life, full stop? You fall off the damned board, it hurts like hell but you get on and ride again. Andrew Lovgren's artfully composed documentary, complete with dream/nightmare sequences and exquisitely shot studio scenes, connects Art with the art of freewheeling through the streets. His choice of Wanda Group for the soundtrack to Symirroretry is a good one, being contrary to the obvious cliché of 'urban' sounds and in the spirit of independent thought. There's something of William Burroughs' Wild Boys about the masked skateboarders in black rolling through the night. Whilst they're not as wilfully destructive as Old Bull Lee's bad boys, Lovgren's film features some clips from street shooting that demonstrate the hostility they provoke, one particularly funny example coming from an old lady here in London Town.
Louis Johnstone's Wanda Group project matches the individualistic attitude of skateboarding and, yes, art-making on the outside of things. Whilst skateboarding is also a community, as expressed in the film, it is also, ultimately, a solo venture. No 'sexy' pounding beats cut to the clack of a board hitting concrete after a great trick here, thankfully. This soundtrack barely makes any sound at all in some places, but does sound, at times, like nothing more, or less, than the rolling of wheels going off into the night. Perhaps a hint of heavy industry still working out there on the edge of the city...field recordings...the clatter of a train...voices...vapour trails of sound....more like exhaust fumes, perhaps, through which skateboarders sail...
The CD is a limited of edition of 150 hand-numbered copies in screen-printed gatefold sleeves and you can get it here.
Watch Symirroretry here
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