Björk and Matthew Barney - New Film!

Oh my sweet jeebuzzz this film looks frellin' AMAZING. My friend Jesse just clued me into the news (thanks, bro!) It's nice that they included some preview clips of the soundtrack as well-- I'm going to remain on the edge of my seat until the film is released. I find it OH so romantic that these two have collaborated in this way-- it just looks (and sounds) so exquisite. Ok, I'll stop gushing now so you can all just read for yourself:

Drawing Restraint 9, a film by Matthew Barney with a soundtrack composed by Björk, represents the first creative collaboration of two of the most protean, dynamic forces in music and fine art.

It is an apt pairing. Refusing to choose between pop pleasure and restless experimentation, Björk's musical vision weds technology and emotion, countering gut-level expression with an insistence upon formal modernity and innovation.

Similarly poised, and celebrated, within the world of contemporary art as Björk is within her own field, Matthew Barney is a visual artist whose ambitious, rigorous multimedia work encodes esoteric meanings while providing lushly immediate aesthetic rewards. Best known for The Cremaster Cycle, the sprawling sequence of five films made over ten years which was the subject of a recent Guggenheim retrospective, Matthew Barney's work is multimedia in execution but singularly focused in conception: tightly unified fusions of sculpture, performance, architecture, set design, music, computer generated effects and prosthetics, Barney's films deploy the full range of cinematic resources in the service of a hermetic vision rich with densely layered networks of meaning drawn from mythology, history, sports, music, and biology.

The basis of Barney's approach is an operative tension between sculpture and film: the lingering attention to sensuous detail and richly organized aesthetics lends each character, costume, artifact, set, and architectural location within his work the frozen timelessness of sculpture-- yet these components are subjected to vigorous processes of radical rupture and change as the films unfold. (continue reading)

I was also able to track down some more info on the film as well as its premiere dates (and date of soundtrack release) via Verbose Coma

Drawing Restraint 9 will premiere in Kanazawa, Japan, on July 1st, with Björk's soundtrack available on July 25th.

The film, shot aboard the whaling ship Nisshi Maru in Nagasaki, Japan, once again appears to colorfully and epically incorporate Barney's use of gargantuan landscapes, luscious set design, intricate costumes, ethereal sculpture, mystical characters, and experiemental music. Björk's soundtrack is centered around Japanese history and culture and features the sounds of everything from a harpsicord to a children's choir to orchestral swells to an oboe all while her own voice threads them together. Perhaps what is most exciting and rather dizzyingly uncharacteristic for these two artists who, up until now have only been very private partners in love, is that both Björk and Matthew Barney are appearing opposite one another in the film.