Newburyport - Devil Music Ensemble will play an original soundtrack to ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,’ but that’s not all they’re about
There are several ways to get led astray by this Boston-based trio coming to town next week, beginning with its name — Devil Music Ensemble.
The phrase “Devil Music” carries with it certain connotations that are pseudo-shameful or cautionary — or worn with pride, since, as Bart Simpson says, and as everyone knows, all the great rock bands are allied with Satan. And there’s the rub. One of them, anyhow.
Devil Music Ensemble isn’t a rock band, although the musicians have performed as a rock band in the past. And as a speakeasy-era jazz band. And, for that matter, as an Eastern European folk band.
Maybe the word “ensemble” is a tip-off. It sounds suspiciously like a classical formulation. And it is. In fact, the band — er, ensemble — takes its name from the fourth image of George Crumb’s bleak masterpiece “Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land.”
It’s a frightening enough piece, a classical quartet composed in a time of turmoil, drawing its anti-inspiration from the Vietnam War, a horrific sonic tableau of amplified, occasionally shrieking instruments played with thimbles on the musicians’ fingers, with unusual bowing techniques and pedal tones.
But DME, which will perform a live original score to the silent film “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” at the Firehouse Center next week, is not a classical band either. And it’s not “the band that plays original live scores to silent films,” even though the trio recently toured Europe to support “Jekyll and Hyde.”
They’ve also created original scores for horror classics like “Nosferatu” and, in a completely different vein, “High Stakes,” a 1920s silent Western comedy, opening up a completely different universe of sounds for the band, which has also, naturally, performed as a country and westernband in the past as well.
Often the trio takes on all these roles during the course of a single performance. Take their original soundtrack to “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” another strange, silent classic: It’s a wild rollercoaster of styles and moods. “The Fair at Hostenwall,” a slightly tipsy waltz, slides easily into the ominous wash of feedback, “Twilight Zone”-y vibes and dark colors of “In the Cabinet” and, just as effortlessly, to the thoughtful, pretty, incidental “Lucy Wakes.”
Any attempt to pigeonhole Devil Music’s sound is doomed from the beginning. But this furious eclecticism is neither pose, nor critical stance nor marketing strategy. It is who the band is.
“We’re not trying to do anything or be anything in particular,” says Jonah Rapino, who plays electric violin and viola. “We’re just trying to keep inspired and keep playing music. We’re just trying to keep it fresh.”
Dancin’ with Mr. D
Devil Music Ensemble came together in 1999. Founded by Brendon Wood, who plays guitar, dobro, banjo, accordion and bass clarinet, the group remained a work in progress, changing its personnel — and sound — until 2002, when Rapino, who had been playing with New Millennium String Ensemble, and percussionist Tim Nylander of the Boston-based alt-country Say Zuzu, settled in. They were an avant-garde rock band — think early Interstellar Overdrive-era Pink Floyd — improvising original, seemingly on-the-spot pieces with surrealistic movies, Man Ray and the like, playing in the background.
They got some notice performing against “Le Voyage Imaginaire,” an experimental French film by Rene Clair from the silent film era, in 2002 at Cellu-loud, a music-film festival at the Coolidge Corner Cinema. They had already created soundtracks for Jean Cocteau’s “Le sang d’un poete” and Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times,” as well the sound design and live soundtrack for a modern adaptation of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” played guitars in the world premiere of Glenn Branca’s “100 Guitar Symphony #13,” and, after adding a cellist and saxphonist, performed a 45-minute “rock” version of minimalist pioneer Terry Reilly’s “In C.”
But Devil Music Ensemble had become known as the group that did music for film.
“At some point, we started to focus on it,” says Rapino.
Hyde out
Based on the Robert Louis Stevenson story, “Jekyll and Hyde,” of course, is a film classic. Made in 1921,the film stars John Barrymore as Dr. Jekyll, an idealist devoted to his fellow man, who is taunted for his incessant do-gooderism. He develops a potion that releases Mr. Hyde, his increasingly hideous alter ego. Soon competing personalities struggle over who will control the body, the soul. DME debuted the piece in late 2006 and took it on the road. They just finished work on the music for a Jekyll and Hyde DVD two weeks ago. They hope to have it out in late spring.
None of the musicians in DME are themselves film buffs or major sci-fi fans, says Rapino, who has also produced scores for new films, like “Alice,” about portrait painter Alice Neel, which won the audience award at the 2007 Newport Beach Film Festival, and “Darkon,” a documentary about a group of live-action role players that won the audience award at the 2006 SXSW film festival. They approach films like “Jekyll and Hyde” from the musical side.
“You have to find a balance,” says Rapino. “You don’t want the music to overpower the film, or be lost in it. You use the music to bring out the drama of the film ... What we create is inspired by the film. You can’t separate them. Sometimes it feels like you’re being pulled in a lot of different directions. You try to do the film justice, but it always has to have a Devil Music sound.”
They still play out, but don’t perform all that much in the area. When it does, the band tries to bring out something different. They might perform in an all-original, all-classical showcase, like the 40-piece shows they’ve put on the past couple of years. It could be accompanying a silent film, it might be a one-off rock show with an 11-year-old guitarist.
“People who come to our shows don’t know what to expect, but they know it will be something new, something different,” says Rapino. “Sometimes they come just to see what we’ll do next.”
Interested?
The Devil Music Ensemble will perform a live original soundtrack to the 1921 silent film “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde,” starring John Barrymore, Friday, Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Firehouse Center, 1 Market Square, Newburyport. Tickets are $12, or $10 for members. For tickets, call 978-462-7336 or visit firehouse.org. For information about the band, visit devilmusic.org.