OLTA showreel by visual artist Daniel Ryan
Interpol have posted on their website (interpolnyc.com) a brief composite reel of an audio/visual installation that was included in the last leg of the OLTA tour. The visuals were created by Daniel Ryan, with ambient music written by Carlos Dengler.
My quick interpretation:
In the “Introductory Video,” I hear repetitive but subtly changing music, and I see this music mirrored in the gradually morphing grids of tiny squares of white light.
The “Composite Reel of Stage Video,” begins with an interlude that was placed between “The Lighthouse” and “Not Even Jail” during live performances. Floating particles are accompanied by ambient music, and just as “Not Even Jail” bursts over the ambience a splash of light overtakes the particles. These unify into a solid white bar as the initial burst of sound gives way to the song proper. Here we fade into the last part of NARC (the part that I read as shifting abruptly into the fantasy key) as amorphous blobs of light, as if reflected in water, move fluidly over the screen. This fades into “Rest My Chemistry,” and in slow motion spots of light move horizontally across the screen, almost like cars passing in the night. This fades into water ripples at an orangey-bronze sunset as “Hands Away” fades in. The composite reel ends with “Roland” and his knives, the latter being represented by a brutal and dizzying close-up of escalator stairs.
In the same way that I feel London when I listen to Radiohead, I can feel NYC in Interpol’s music. Something I also sometimes feel in Interpol’s music is water. This feeling, of course, is often fostered by the song titles and lyrics: “The Lighthouse,” “oh my love, we’re sailing to Norway,” “Take You On a Cruise.” For example, their penchant for minimalist-esque repetitive guitar riffs resemble to me at times the flow of water in a river or ocean, at others the flow of the city as people stream through a street, as subway doors open and close, and so on. I can see elements of both NYC and water in Ryan’s video installation.
Though I’m glad they posted the composite, it does make me wish I could see the entire installation. Ah well, what’s life without a little longing?
