the seven ambiguities and the seven souls of david thomas broughton

The Ambiguity of David Thomas Broughton (trailer 1) from Oh Kestrel Film on Vimeo.

so horsemouth went out to see the ambiguity of david thomas broughton down in sunny central london (at the institute of contemporary art doncha know) being shown as part of the ongoing london short film festival (lsff). he has a how did you like the show questionnaire somewhere (he picked it up thinking it might be a flyer or a money off voucher) he may use that to structure his response.

 1.which film/ event did you attend?

the ambiguity of david thomas broughton with a filmed introduction by the filmmaker greg butler and statement too (a shorter film on norwegian musician arvid sletta) at the the institute of contemporary art.

2. how would you rate the film/ event? 4 (assuming 4 means good on a scale of 1 to 5 - horsemouth is a polite beast)

3. how would you rate your overall experience of LSFF? 4

4. have you attended an LSFF event before?

yes. well maybe. wasn’t the robbie basho film part of that?

5. how did you hear about us? facebook

do you have any other comments?

 has some comments on the films (but first a whine about ticket prices - how much! for less than two hours of entertainment! in my day blah blah grumble grumble etc. etc.)

 statement too (a short film on norwegian musician arvid sletta) was nice and inoffensive and short - arvid’s songs were nice too, short and a little ‘outsider’-ish, it briefly looked like it was going to open out into a discussion of empathy and a refusal of judgement and success. apparently he sells well in the cardiff/ swansea region.

the ambiguity of david thomas broughton (with a filmed introduction by the filmmaker greg butler) was pleasant also - they interviewed his family, his record label, various other acoustic guitar slinging types, the filmed him wandering round near leeds (horsemouth might have guessed he was a yorkshireman). he draws, he’s a keen birdwatcher, he may be living in pyongyang at the minute.

he plays guitar well, sings in a good but slightly uncommercial manner, writes good solid (if elliptical) songs - but his main claim to fame seems to horsemouth to be that he uses his loopstation pedal not to multitrack himself singing banal harmonies but to attempt to destroy his own performance. at last a use for these infernal contraptions. at last something interesting going on on stage rather than the endless rehearsal of good taste and technical competence.

this is all (as if) explained away in the film as being due to an unexpressed rage and his eccentricity, half-arsedly positioning him as some kind of outsider artist and not bothered about going any further.

but horsemouth thinks it is simpler - he thinks david has read some books on anthropology, on ethnomethodology in particular, in which the anthropologist (in order to discover how a particular social ritual works - queuing say - deliberately breaks the rules of it to see what will happen). the best known example of this is probably carlos castaneda he broke the anthropology rule about doing fieldwork and having an informant when he wrote his celebrated teachings of don juan books.

what david thomas broughton does is break the rules of singer-songwriter performance - but let us be blunt about this - not by very much - this is not dylan going electric - little is at stake in this procedure (apart from his own health at the hands of disgruntled audiences).

alternatively it could be that david thomas broughton has read some books / articles by fellow (to horsemouth) MUTE contributor mattin - where he challenges improv musicians to challenge the rituals attending the performance of improvised music.

or perhaps he has taken attali’s complaints about recording and repetition from noise: a political economy of music too much to heart.

or it could be that he arrived at it by his own intelligence by accident while fiddling about with delays.

 there is wiliam empson’s book seven types of ambiguity and there are william burrough’s discussions of the ancient egyptian notion of the seven souls that a human being possesses - one of these souls is best imagined as a small statue of a hawk shrunk down with your face on it. this might at least interest david who is a keen birdwatcher.

back to the questionnaire; tell us about yourself

6. sex (please tick) male

7. age group (please tick) 45-64 (was my number)

8. ethnic group? (please tick) white

9. do you consider yourself disabled? no

10. do you work in film/ media/ arts? no

11. how far have you travelled today? (please tick) 0-5 miles.