The Sound

I’ve got to hand it to Detroit techno legend Kevin Saunderson for his response this week to the piratical Italian “producers” who jacked his 1987 classic “The Sound.” Here’s the story on inthemix, the Australian dance music website that I write for:

Kevin Saunderson rages against rip-offs

These Italian hacks, who roll under the name Supernova, sampled and looped the hook from Reese & Santonio’s “The Sound” (produced by Saunderson and released on his label, KMS Records) without permission, and without adding much of value of their own, and are passing it off as a piss-poor original tune called “Beat Me Back.” Saunderson’s vengeful response was to take Supernova’s tune and guerilla-upload it to SoundCloud, offering it for free in order to circumvent its sales. (He’s also offering “The Sound” for free, I imagine to increase its distribution and visibility in hopes of educating younger generations.)

Here’s the classic Derrick May mix of “The Sound”:

Here’s the Supernova hack job. (I apologize that you have to look at the cheesy photoshopped picture of President Obama and Colin Powell, apparently the work of “DJ Beatmaster B,” who uploaded this track. But anway, it kind of says it all about the culture of bad club music.)

Here’s the letter Saunderson posted on his site explaining his actions. I love the way he attacks the pirates while yet defending the practice of sampling:

Dear friends, fans and members of the music industry,

Today I’m giving away as a free download one of the productions I am most proud of: “The Sound” by Reese & Santonio. I recorded “The Sound” back in 1987 and released it on my own KMS Records label. It was a massive hit at New York’s Paradise Garage and in Chicago and of course Detroit. Once it hit the UK it became one of the earliest Detroit anthems all around Europe, a huge underground record across the globe – a true desert island techno track. It is such a special record to me because it was one of my first really successful productions and I hope that you all will enjoy this free, fresh digital download of my original 1987 version.

The reason I have decided to give this track away for free is because of a situation that recently developed involving the unauthorized sampling of “The Sound” by Italian producers Giacomo Godi & Emiliano Nencioni (Supernova) in their release “Beat Me Back” on Nirvana Recordings. It came to my attention that they are licensing and selling, with considerable success, this track which is nothing more than a continuous loop of the main hook from “The Sound.”

For me to hear “Supernova” taking an extended loop of “The Sound” and claiming that this is their own original composition and production is both dishonest and disrespectful. My first thought was that they were perhaps naïve, but as they have apparently been recording together since 2002 this seems unlikely. In any event this is completely unacceptable; we cannot continue to let this kind of wholesale ripoff go unchallenged and tolerate “artists” who completely sample recordings, add nothing of their own and then release the results as their own work.

I have a huge affection for sampling – it’s how some of the most inspiring and groundbreaking tracks of our times were created. We’ve pretty much all sampled records at some time, and cleared the sample so we can use it on our releases, but it is just not cool to take someone else’s music, create a big old loop of it and then put your name on it, and try to have success entirely off the back of another artist’s efforts. This really has got to stop. For this reason, I have uploaded the Godi/Nencioni version of “The Sound” to SoundCloud so that you all can download this for free if you so wish. These producers and their record label should not be profiting from my back catalogue… This is not their track to sell.

Is it really such a crime that they ripped off Saunderson’s record? Am I not usually philosophical about sampling, even when it’s unauthorized? True, the history of dance music is filled with unauthorized samples and steals and ripoffs, and some great sounds have resulted. Think about all the great hip-hop breaks from the old days, when samples weren’t necessarily licensed. Take the entire history of reggae – there have been so many brilliant reggae “versions” (“borrowed” instrumentals with new vocal tracks) because there are no copyright laws in Jamaica.

But that argument breaks down when you consider that the spirit of hip hop and reggae is innovation – adding your own twist to a classic record or break and passing it on. Being part of a culture that’s shared outside the bounds of music “ownership.” So even though I have issues with the idea of “copyright,” and even though I’m a fan of a lot of pirated music, I’m on Saunderson’s side here. What sucks about the Supernova track isn’t so much that it uses a sample, it’s that it does it in such a lazy and boring way. Sampling (even without permission) is much more justifiable if you’re going to do something new, add to the culture. If I had a nice recording studio and an Italian record contract, I’d sure as hell do something more creative with it. This is just nightmarishly bad club music that has no sense of history, no regard for the culture. And at the end of the day, crap music or not, why didn’t they just get permission?

So these clowns deserve everything they get. And I just love Saunderson’s in-your-face protest. My first thought when I saw this story was, Middle Eastern dictators, Tea Party governors – and now, Eurotrash dance producers.

Check out Kevin Saunderson’s website, where you can find the download of “The Sound” (as well as the link to the guerilla SoundCloud track of “Beat Me Back,” if you happen to be interested).

As a parting shot, and hopefully to erase the Supernova track and the photoshopped Obama from your mind, here’s another supreme classic produced by Saunderson – Inner City’s “Do You Love What You Feel”:

 

I Dream a Highway

Watch this fan video of Gillian Welch’s “I Dream a Highway,” the rambling, apocalyptic conclusion to her masterpiece of postmodern country and folk, Time (The Revelator):

This is what a fan video should be. Simple but powerful concept, well-executed. No still photos of Gillian, no random footage of somebody’s high school reunion, none of the typical stuff that makes other fan vids so cringeworthy. The highway footage is endlessly watchable – as hypnotic as the song is. I imagine it would be even better projected on a large screen in a dark room. It’s just an unexpectedly brilliant piece of minimalism. About the only bad thing I can say is that edit of the 14-minute song is slightly awkward. (And now that the time limit on Youtube videos has been increased to 15 minutes, it’s also unnecessary.)

Here’s another outstanding fan video of another haunting tune by another alt-country queen, Emmylou Harris (who, by the way, is mentioned by way of tribute in the lyrics to Welch’s tune). I found these two videos on the same day and they make great companion pieces. This is the title track of Emmylou’s 1995 album Wrecking Ball, a Neil Young cover with hazy, shimmering production by Daniel Lanois.

The footage was shot in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina. Again, the element of restraint is very important – no voiceovers or clips from news footage, no explanations, nothing to break up the spare, elegant construction of the film. And the complete lack of human subjects lends an awful, apocalyptic undertone to the scenes of this calamity. That Young’s lyrics are vaguely (if darkly) romantic, and quite abstract in any case is actually perfect. If there was a more literal interface between word and image – say if it was a blues song about a flood – it wouldn’t work quite as well; it wouldn’t have the same aching atmosphere.

We’ve got nowhere to hide
We’ve got nowhere to go
But if you still decide you want to take a ride
Meet me at the Wrecking Ball

But wait. The really cool thing about this video is the “fan” in question is Cinqué Lee, Spike’s brother! No wonder it’s so spot-on! I looked, and could not find any link or any other reference to this project online. I’m pretty sure he just made a great short film and decided to set Emmylou’s music to it and put it up on Youtube. Even better, his user name is Jedi26. I love the internet!

Casio Daisy

Gold Panda
Lucky Shiner
Ghostly International

Electronic music has often been a domestic phenomenon, at its best produced on secondhand equipment in ambitious kids’ bedrooms. But as it’s evolved over the past 20 years or so, it’s become domestic in another sense: no longer limited to imagining future worlds or utopian dancefloors, but increasingly reflecting personal lives and intimate settings. The laptop-driven noise symphonies of Fennesz, the refracted/desaturated beats of Boards of Canada, Four Tet’s folktronic psych, Herbert’s found-sound groove – this is the work of musicians who seek inspiration in their kitchens, their friends and families, their summer vacations in the country. It’s the real indie: made by and for people at home. The accessory and the lifestyle have become one and the same.

This homey vibe is epitomized by the suddenly-hot Gold Panda. Read any article about him and you’ll get the same idea: he’s a normal guy named Derwin from London. His checkered employment history (nonchalantly working in a sex shop because he was desperate, getting fired from HMV) is often used as a lead. In interviews like this one, he’s almost too humble, going on about how he’s thankful to have some success with his “hobby.” His sampladelic new album Lucky Shiner was recorded in rural Essex, in a cottage owned by his elderly aunt and uncle. It’s all as if to say that we shouldn’t feel threatened by him – he’s not a rock star, he’s one of us – and a nice guy, too. Yet there must be something special about him because Lucky Shiner is one of the most damned listenable albums to come to light recently.

Many of the (overwhelmingly positive) write-ups on Lucky Shiner are charmingly clueless about electronic production, often breathlessly highlighting the process of sampling itself – as if it’s something new, as if Gold Panda is the first one to sample his auntie talking or some exotic stringed instrument over a funky beat. The technique is fine, but that’s not what makes Lucky Shiner so good: it’s Panda’s aptitude for inhaling a wide range of sounds into his music, moving confidently through different styles and tempos, nimbly chopping up influences, reconstituting them into something organic and refreshing.

“Snow and Taxis” is an uptempo track that moves with the lithe grace and melodic repetition of The Field’s post-minimal techno. ”Vanilla Minus” starts as a Daft Punk-style loopy house track before expanding into something as achingly atmospheric as Orbital in their heyday. With its cascading vibraphone sounds and choppy drum patterns, ”Same Dream China” doesn’t bother hiding its debt to Four Tet.

Gold Panda isn’t quite as accomplished as most of these influences. But that’s all right; it’s a sound that’s thrillingly in-process. This is what the electronic music revolution is all about: discovering genius and beauty as an experiment, a pastime, a daily habit. There are awkward moments, rough patches, but the music is very light on its feet – quirky, adventurous, ultimately uplifting. His enthusiasm and overriding love of music – the joy of discovery as he puts the sounds together – are palpable, the strongest qualities on Lucky Shiner. There’s some of the cheeky experimentalism of Four Tet or Squarepusher, but the compositions never stray so far into glitchy beat-bop and noise that they neglect music: most of the tracks have melodic basslines and lovely tinkling keyboards, and there’s a fine atmospheric swoosh reminiscent of Kompakt’s Pop Ambient sound.

Even better, Panda’s got a great instinct for dynamics: his tracks often rely on one element – one sampled vocal or one breakdown – that doesn’t repeat, or doesn’t repeat the same way. This tantalizes the listener with possibilities, creates fascination, makes you want to hear it again, makes the music more lifelike. It’s an underrated skill perfected by many of the greats including Hank Shocklee, Derrick May and 808 State, but it’s funny how many modern producers – with their perfectly layered, perfectly repeating tracks – seem to have no idea of its importance.

And, yes, the pastoral, folktronic, groove is in effect here, with many acoustic instruments incorporated into the mix. “Parents,” the album’s third track, is simply a sweet-sounding folky guitar interlude that would fit on any indie-rock album. It sets an appealing tone and ices the whole package as a fantastic home listen. Or maybe something to rock on your headphones on a walk in the woods; like such an excursion, this is music that’s relaxing and bracing at the same time. And it’s probably what its creator had in mind while working in that country cottage. We should all thank Derwin’s aunt and uncle for their contribution to our personal soundtrack.

Mirror Face Is the Place

The other day my old friend DJ FTL, a tireless champion of conscious hip hop, posted this video by Madvillain on his Facebook page:

As you can see it’s a tribute to the legendary cosmic jazz progenitor Sun Ra. The footage is from the 1974 film Space Is the Place, which was written by and stars Sun Ra and features his music. Here’s the original footage:

Sun Ra is well known for combining pan-African consciousness with some wild intergalactic personal mythology. Throughout his life he claimed in all seriousness to be from the planet Saturn, saying he realized his unearthly origins during an out-of-body experience. Just so you know he may have not regarded this film as science fiction.

Whether he was a visionary or a little crazy is up for discussion. The important thing is he paved the way for Afrofuturism, and made the world safer for freaks of all kinds, from Jimi Hendrix to De La Soul to Underground Resistance. And in any case, he was a musical genius and innovator when he was back on Earth composing and leading his famous Arkestra. Check this out:

But the real reason I bring it up is that while watching the footage from Space Is the Place, I couldn’t help but notice that the hooded figure with the mirror for a face seems to be the very same creature seen in Janelle Monáe’s brilliant video for “Tightrope”:

(I’m really sorry for the stupid ad that precedes the clip; there doesn’t seem to be a way around that. And it drives me nuts that the blasted record label has disabled embedding; I’ll work on finding a bootleg video, but for now at least it only opens a new window instead of taking you to another page.)

Pretty cool! I knew Janelle was on some future-freak stuff, and of course the music-video industry perpetually absorbs avant-garde influences. Still, it’s amazing to discover a direct visual reference to Sun Ra of all people in a hugely popular commercial video. And, speaking of strange beings with artificial faces, it figures it had to be Madvillain that brought it to light for me. (Is there anything that motley crew can’t do?) I haven’t yet heard Monáe’s debut album, The ArchAndroid (a high-concept set of “suites” about time travel and liberation inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis), but this makes me want to go out and get it.

I quickly googled “Janelle Monáe Sun Ra,” but could not find any direct explanation of the connection between the mirror-face creatures in the 1974 film and the 2010 video. Nor could I find any good images of the creatures themselves. I did see some more general musing about how Janelle fits into the cosmic pantheon, including this densely academic article that has a lot to say about the relationship between pop music and Afrofuturism – a lot of it very interesting, but read it at your own risk. (I actually love to see stuff like this. I often worry that I’m too wordy; this guy makes me feel like I’m doing all right.)

FTL is based in Brooklyn. Check out his blog page, Faster Than Light Music, featuring lots of downloadable hip-hop mixes.

Spaceship out the House at Night

Sufjan Stevens’ concert at the Sydney Opera House last month was a dream fulfilled, a celebration, a journey into space and sound and color, an ecstatic revenge of the nerds, with go-go girls and balloons.

I’d been waiting years for this (as I mentioned in this ode to Sufjan written the day of the gig), but my timing was just right. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, thanks to the synergy: a musician at the peak of his powers, perfect sound, a warm and adoring crowd inside an iconic edifice.

On his new album, The Age of Adz, Sufjan blasts into uncharted nebulae of orchestral weirdness, electronic beats, visionary raving about pain and too much love and murdering ghosts, supernovas of obsession and heady sonic invention. He sings about Mount Vesuvius, mixes up the pronunciation with his own name. It’s about creative energy spilling out, the fire of emotion, the destruction of self, the end of the world. Maybe not in that order.

Eno, Bowie, Zappa, Björk, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Danielson, Flaming Lips? Animal Collective? TV on the Radio? Uh, Beatles? There are touchstones, but it’s hard to keep track; Sufjan has a way of incinerating his influences and scattering the ashes. The album’s raising eyebrows, making new fans. He sold out the Concert Hall at the Opera House, twice. Then sold out the State Theatre. It’s a beautiful thing when an artist decides to get really weird, only to see their popularity go on rising.

As 2671 (or so) delighted people greet Sufjan when he takes the stage, no doubt the question on their minds is, how is this weirdness going to come across live? The answer is meticulously plotted and arranged: 10 musicians are scattered all over the huge stage. Two drummers, brass, backup singers, more keyboards than I can count. But the operatic acoustics combined with Sufjan’s perfectionism as a bandleader make for awesome sound: each instrument balanced in the mix, the arrangements complex but warm and visceral, vibrant, colorful.

Color is a big part of Sufjan’s new vision. He and the band and their instruments are plastered with day-glo accessories and florescent electrical tape in wild future-tribal patterns and shapes, glowing matrices, like a Tron Mardi Gras. The light show and video projections are all color and geometry and science fiction, including the work of the paranoid visionary artist Royal Robertson, a major influence on the new album.

So the band is gathered, the fuel loaded, the colors primed, and we’re ready for a ride into the dark electric heart of the new material. So it’s a surprise when they start playing the melancholy opening to the title track of 2004′s Seven Swans, a mostly acoustic meditation on mystic-Christian themes. But as the song gradually builds in intensity, we’re reminded that its lyrical allusions to the Biblical Apocalypse, its slow-burning orchestral climax and its swooning haunted chorus make it an early harbinger of The Age of Adz. It’s actually a perfect preface.

Pulling us in with a classic, Sufjan then launches into the single “Too Much,” one of the brightest and biggest of the new songs, the meta-pop video projected huge over the stage, and we’re off. The rest of the show will be almost entirely new material, and powerfully effective it is. The baroque/folktronic sound is wholly integral, somehow avant-garde and arena-ready at the same time – it feels like a new paradigm. The intricate arrangements, the buildups and breakdowns, the many changes of the sprawling songs are played with grace and aplomb by the garishly-outfitted band. The new album, which I had considered kind of difficult, starts to come to life for me.

As each song ends, the applause becomes louder, the whoops and whistles from the crowd more shrill and enthusiastic. This is a great cross-section of unpretentious Aussie fans – some of them in their class-A hipster uniforms for the Opera House, some not dressed up at all, swilling champagne in their trainers – and they’re right there with it, loving it. There’s something about Sufjan that all kinds of people connect with. It’s pretty gratifying to see someone so nerdy and utterly himself win affection from the punters.

When he talks between songs, he has a good deal of (nerdy) charisma, but also an utter sincerity. And a rambling pressured way of talking, like he’s thinking too fast, imagining things, trying to find ways to share what he sees with the rest of us. He tells us how amazing it is to be playing in this, this spaceship – over and over he calls the Opera House a spaceship – and says he’s so happy to be in Australia, such a warm place, he can feel the warmth in this room, the warmth of beating hearts, the warmth of love.

Something about his presence feels like a challenge. Am I living up to my potential, being creative enough? Speaking freely enough? Striving hard enough to share it with love? I’m filled with an acute urge to go out and create and live every moment of my life.

I’ve been a fan of Sufjan’s for years but didn’t notice until this night how good a singer he is. His voice is reedy, and twee, yet surprisingly strong, and he has a lot of control over it. The concentration, the obsession he shows when performing is captivating, and the emotion and poetry within shine. He sings,

When I die, I’ll rot
But when I live I’ll give it all I’ve got
Gloria, gloria, it rots
Victoria, victoria, it lives in all of us

and the place is absolutely hushed, his choral falsetto swirling around the spaceship cathedral’s rafters. How can music be so melancholy and euphoric at once? Sufjan tells us the tune is about the end of the world. But don’t worry – it’s going to be OK, it’s all going to be OK, we’re not going anywhere. He says it with conviction.

The set list flows, epic overload freakout followed by quieter stuff in the aftermath, just his voice and one or two other instruments. “Futile Devices,” a brief acoustic number on the new album that harks back to Sufjan’s earlier work, becomes a highlight. Chiming, ringing, plucked strings, simple piano playing, Sufjan tenderly confessing to a friend that he loves her (or him?) but can’t say it out loud. With the Concert Hall hanging on every word and note, Sufjan is quietly, slyly approached from behind by a bearded, face-painted space traveller in mirror shades – a keyboardist – holding a little Casio up to the mic, finishing off the little tune with a low-fi electro-jazz improv. It’s so melodic, such a perfect interface between folky and futuristic, heartbreaking and hilarious. The crowd erupts into boisterous appreciation. Tears form in my eyes.

Shortly after this it goes completely electro, big-beat, kicking out the jams, the backup singers become plastic-and-silver-nylon-clad go-go girls, as Sufjan sings, I must do myself a favor, I must get real, get right with the Lord. He gets us up to dance and clap and sing along, and the Sydney Opera House has become a cross between a hootenany, a church revival and a rave. It earns him his first standing ovation of the night. Sufjan – applauding the crowd right back like a high-school music teacher – can do no wrong. He announces he will now play a 25-minute tune, and everyone smiles and claps some more as if he’s promised free champagne. ”Impossible Soul” takes the show into hyperspace, and all over the place, with Reichian experimentalism, Flaming Lips-esque prog-power-pop, Autotune R&B stylings, the stage transformed with screens and partitions and light, costume changes and – finally – a folky conclusion. No one gets bored. Boy, we can do much more together – it’s not so impossible.

Another standing ovation. The call for more is long, loud, amazed, heartfelt. When the band comes back out, it’s time to come back to Earth and simply celebrate, and sure enough they’re playing “Chicago,” and balloons – balloons! – thousands of balloons are pouring from the rafters, bouncing all over the hall, volleying back into the air, getting knocked around by the crowd, the climactic power of the anthem subverted, replaced by the childlike glee taking over the place. Sufjan singing, I made a lot of mistakes, I made a lot of mistakes, like we have a right to be this happy all the time.

We Can Survive the Transition

The Saturday before last, Detroit techno troubadours Octave One had the honor of closing out this year’s Sydney Festival with a live performance at the Mad Racket party at Beck’s Festival Bar. Mad Racket is a long-running and popular house-music monthly featuring international guest DJs alongside residents Simon Caldwell and Ken Cloud. It normally takes place in a bowling club in Marrickville, so the large midsummer’s event they throw once a year for Sydney Festival is a hot ticket.

The shindig lived up to its billing and then some. It was a gorgeous night at the end of January, and the fabulous Festival Bar, an open-air venue at the Hyde Park Barracks Museum smack dab in the middle of the city, was packed with a good mixed crowd party people, including me, my lovely wife and some old friends of ours. As detailed here, I love this venue, and I was sorry to see it close down for another year.

Here’s my review of the gig on Music Feeds.

And here’s a clip of Octave One playing that night that I shot on my iPhone:

Yes, I’ve joined the legions of people who upload cheap videos shot at live gigs. The sound is distorted, but I like this footage because it gives you a sense of the great vibe on the dancefloor and the enthusiasm of the Burden brothers. You also get a glimpse of the shape of the huge marquee (canopy) that covers part of the venue along with the projections and the awesome light sculpture overhead.

Someone else got better footage than I did, closer to the stage, with better sound:

Note the terrific use of footage from The Shining in the video projections.

The week after I saw the gig I still had Octave One’s music on my mind and did some searches for their stuff online. Here’s a clip of them performing live in the studio.

It’s part of a longer video starring Jeff Mills (well worth checking out; Mills mixes techno like no one else in the world). I love this video because it shows the geeky, obsessive, knob-twiddling characteristics universal to electronic musicians, while at the same time highlighting the musicality and soul of the Detroit sound – e.g., the Latin percussion in the drum tracks, the improvised live keyboard playing. I can’t remember seeing any other videos of electronic musicians playing in the studio, and it makes me think we need more of this kind of thing. But the Burdens are special in any case.

And I found this tune off my favorite Octave One record from back in the day, Generations of Soul by Random Noise Generation (one of the Burden brothers’ other monikers on their homegrown label, 430 West). I lost this record years ago and was so happy to see this. The subtle, deep, minimal sound epitomizes the “second wave” of Detroit techno (along with Mills and Robert Hood).

It’s not only the music; I love everything about this EP. I love the name of the project, with its plays on the word “generation.” I love the muted colors and design of the sleeve and label, the fonts, the image of the buffalo soldiers. Collecting music is about so much more than the signal coming from the speakers, it’s also about the peripheral stuff, the collateral, the communication that takes place on the side. The feeling that in this big world with its cynical divisions and entertainment apparatus, you’ve come across evidence that someone else in a distant city has something in common with you, thinks the same things are cool.

I love the song titles:

We Can Survive
The Transition
Last Campaign
My Soul “Will Be Free One Day”

Especially the way the first two run together on side A in so that it seems like a statement: We Can Survive The Transition. In the years since I lost this record, I may have forgotten other details, but that phrase stuck in my head and became a weird little “found” slogan that touches on a lot of things in the world today. We can survive the transition. Indeed.

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

I saw Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere on its opening night in Australia, at a cineplex on the top floor of a vast mall in the middle of the suburban sprawl of Sydney’s North Shore. There was only one other party in the large stadium-style theater, bringing attendance to a grand total of maybe five people. When I opened my M&Ms, the sound of paper tearing echoed through the theater as through an empty cavern. It was pretty depressing.

But the lack of a vibe suited the film, right from the opening shot of a Ferrari circling again and again around an empty track in a California wasteland. The static, long-range shot goes on unedited for several minutes, the car running mindlessly in and out of the frame on its circuit. Roger Ebert has often quoted an old film exhibitor: “If nothing’s happened by the end of the first reel, nothing’s going to happen.” Uh, yeah – is that a bad thing?

Sofia Coppola’s work is all about emptiness. Her characters are always privileged and popular people who are lost, suffering from existential ennui, in danger of being annihilated by the social apparatus they serve – whether it’s the entertainment industry (Lost in Translation) or the French aristocracy (Marie Antoinette). She’s back to meditating on show business. This is the world she was raised in and she knows it through and through.

The owner of the Ferrari is a Hollywood leading man named Johnny Marco (played by Stephen Dorff) who’s between projects and adrift, self-exiled in Hollywood’s infamous Chateau Marmont hotel. He drifts from one party to another in an alcoholic stupor, engaging in mindless sex with whatever blonde happens to be available.

This is not as glamorous or pop-sleazy as it might sound. Johnny is far from fabulous, far from a hipster, coming across like a regular bloke in jeans and a band T-shirt. He looks like he isn’t sure why he’s world famous. He gets a lot of attention, and has a certain magnetism. But he has no personality. He’s inarticulate and uncomfortable around people (except for strippers) and is treated as little more than a child by his agents and handlers. He’s never had to grow up, never had to think about who he is. He’s forgotten how to feel good.

We spend a lot of lonely time with Johnny. Coppola demands our patience as we watch him stumble through his life, late for appointments, stuck in shallow conversations at parties. Mostly we watch him by himself, in medium shots, at a distance from us and from himself, bored in his hotel room, drinking. A couple of strippers come and go; what we see of them is sort of entertaining, but mostly weird and a little sad. It makes the high life look pretty bleak.

I couldn’t place where I’d seen Dorff before. At first, I thought it was just my own ignorance (I can’t keep track of Hollywood stars, are you kidding?) But I looked up his filmography and realized there’s no particular reason I should recognize him. He’s most noteworthy for a supporting role in Blade. This relative anonymity is perfect for the film. Dorff totally inhabits his character. We completely forget we’re watching a performance; sometimes I think he forgets he’s giving one. There are many moments when we’re staring at Johnny as he’s lost in thought, and Hollywood conditioning leads us to expect a flash of insight, a heroic decision, some new resolve. But it remains elusive. Johnny’s a tabula rasa.

The only thing he has going for him in real life is his daughter, Cleo, the adolescent child of a messy divorce, who literally arrives on his doorstep one day. He’s been tasked with looking after her for an indefinite period while her irresponsible mother clears her head. Cleo is a wondrous creature, all gangly limbs and gleaming intelligence and earnestness yet undimmed by her difficult upbringing. (Obviously an analog of Coppola herself.) Elle Fanning’s performance in this role is bright, natural, nearly pitch-perfect. The film sets Cleo’s life-affirming spirit against the void that gnaws at the middle of her father.

Does she change his life? It would happen unequivocally in another kind of film. Here, we’re not sure. Johnny’s love for her is tangible, and very touching. Around her, he seems like a decent person. She, of course, ends up mothering him a bit. But there is hardly a plot, hardly any tension, just a series of sketches as Cleo gets pulled into the running joke that is her father’s life. We observe them interacting. The emotional arc runs silent and deep.

I wasn’t sure about Somewhere while I was watching it. Maybe it was the empty suburban cineplex that weighed heavily on my experience, but my initial thought was that Coppola had set out to show us a meaningless existence and, well, succeeded. I have a lot of patience for slow cinema, but I was dismayed by something lacking here. The film seemed like a shrug followed by a dry sob. I cringed at the thought that Sofia, who is often regarded lightly (especially after Marie Antoinette), had further armed her critics. I was also disappointed by the music, which is much less dynamic and integral to the storytelling than in her other films. The music in Somewhere is largely incidental and often ironic.

Time passed. I thought I would quickly forget about Somewhere. I did not. I find myself thinking of it often. Something about it sticks with me and grows on me, like a deceptively simple melody. I’m not alone in this. When it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, where it premiered, jury president Quentin Tarantino said, “From that first enchanting screening, it grew and grew and grew in our hearts, in our analysis, in our minds and in our affections.” Somewhere now seems like one of the best films I’ve seen recently. Coppola’s minimalist approach somehow softly shapes the story into something that intrigues over time.

In his four-star review of the film, Ebert writes, ”Coppola is a fascinating director. She sees, and we see exactly what she sees.” It’s all about the gaze. The scenes where we simply watch things happening are central to the film: the Ferrari circling, the strippers dancing, Cleo figure skating, Johnny pacing around his hotel room. It’s improbably compelling. You’ve got to hand it to editor Sarah Flack, who constructs it all so delicately – when she’s doing her job, you don’t know it. Meanwhile Coppola’s visual storytelling is as indelible as ever, with a strong sense of composition and color, and exquisite use of sunlight – Harris Savides’ cinematography is superb.

There are (somewhat) more structured narrative scenes, but the focus is always on the day-to-day. She creates a kind of documentary fascination, as when Cleo makes brunch for her dad, and we follow each step of the process. Time loses its momentum; we’re just watching a girl cook eggs, as if that was the point, as if it was a cooking show. Each object or activity is approached this way. The film is like a collage of observations.

This organic approach allows the characters and their feelings to resonate. There’s a scene where Johnny says goodbye to a parking attendant at his hotel; it’s such a genuine little moment, the kind of prosaic human interaction you don’t often see in a film. Yet it adds something to our impression of Johnny’s internal crisis. There’s real compassion at work here.

I would place Somewhere in a school of American minimalist cinema along with Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (which was also shot by Savides) and the wonderful films of Kelly Reichardt. But I wonder if it will receive its due. I’m glad it got love at Venice, but I duly note the cold shoulder from Oscar. It falls through the cracks: it’s too quirky and difficult to be a blockbuster, and it won’t ignite passion among the critics and cognoscenti who are easily swayed by the flashy, the extravagantly gritty, the “important.” Somewhere has been called boring, but I find the list of Best Picture nominees boring.

It makes me angry if I really think about it. How many widely-distributed female directors are as independent-minded and true to themselves as Coppola? Is she judged harshly because of her background? If she was the spoiled princess she’s often made out to be, she would have sold out long ago. Marie Antoinette would have been a predictable, overacted epic (starring Cate Blanchett, perhaps) and would have made much more money and maybe gotten a few award nominations. Somewhere could be far more conventional and appealing – mocking the Hollywood game, sure, everyone’s meta these days – but cashing in with big stars and glamor.

Instead she’s doing her own thing with her own vision. She doesn’t make prestige pictures. She doesn’t reformulate her Hollywood upbringing as product – grist for the apparatus – like a lesser talent would do, but she assesses it with the honesty, detachment and adventurous spirit of the indie rock that is such a big influence on her. Her films are often flawed but they have a unique grace and humanity. (At least Tarantino sees it.) Here’s hoping she continues making them just as she pleases for some time yet.