Film FestivalPress

The Devil Music Ensemble perform LIVE during "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."
Apr 19, 2004

Live Performance by The Devil Music Ensemble during "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."

One night only, Thursday April 29th at 7 pm, at Plan 9 on the Corner: From Boston MA, The Devil Music Ensemble will perform live during a screening of the German Expressionist Masterpiece, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."

Formed in Boston in 1999 by guitarist Brendon Wood, Devil Music Ensemble explores all facets of music from rock to electronic, orchestral to folk, and improvisational to incidental. Devil Music Ensemble is both a rock band and a multi-media tour-de-force, performing both composed and improvised scores to silent films. While their studio recordings have garnered the accolades of both the Boston Phoenix and the Village Voice, their live scoring of classic and modern silent films has gained them an eclectic following from Boston to Bowling Green.

Employing standard and modified electric guitars in tandem with lap steel, Brendon Wood creates a dynamic canvas of sound on which electric violinist Jonah Rapino and drummer Tim Nylander paint soundscapes alternately serene and scary. Rapino -member of the acclaimed, New Millenium String Ensemble- also handles keyboard duties (occasionally alongside Wood), using vintage analog synthesizers that sound far more modern than their electronic parts. Former Say ZuZu drummer Tim Nylander brings a machine like precision, garnered from many years of accompaniment in music theater to the project, laying down beats that anchor Devil Music Ensemble'c sound safely outside of the waters of pretentiousness.

With remarkably flexible compositions that land somewhere between Glenn Branca and Can "with contrails of Sister Ray, Goran Bregovic, and Maurice Ravel streaming behind" (Village Voice), Devil Music Ensemble just finished touring with their live score to Robert Wiene's 1919 film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" in movie theaters, museums, performing art centers, and colleges around the country. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is considered the most cherished film of German expressionism. As a horror film, it stands alongside Dreyer's Vampyr and Murnau's Nosferatu for its stunning visual embodiment of expressionist ideals. Devil Music Ensemble's score is both beautiful and extremely dynamic, bringing the characters and the film to life as if for the first time.

All this for $8 in advance ($10 at the door), tickets at Plan 9 locations in C'Ville Richmond & Harrisonburg.