Anna Gawrilow, John Strysik, Jared Skolnick, David Stone, Eric Zann/Jim Juup, Alex Voytenko - The Music of Erich Zann

Nekoliko filmova i muzičkih projekata zasnovano je na Lovecraftovoj priči The Music of Erich Zann.

 Anna Gawrilow:

John Strysik:

part 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqQWrZFHouA

Jared Skolnick:
http://vimeo.com/6806455
http://vimeo.com/6808202
or http://www.imdb.com/video/withoutabox/vi190448153?ref_=tt_pv_vi_1

A university student is forced, by his lack of funds, to take the only lodging he can afford. In a strange part of the city he had never seen before, on a street named "Rue d'Auseil", he finds an apartment in an almost empty building. One of the few other tenants is an old German man named Erich Zann. The old man is mute and plays the viol with a local orchestra. He lives on the top floor and when alone at night, plays strange melodies never heard before. Over time, the student gains Zann's trust, and eventually learns of his secret, that the old man has discovered melodies and rhythms of sound of an almost otherworldly nature. Zann plays these sounds to keep back unknown and unseen creatures from Zann's window, which is said to look out into a black abyss, most likely another dimension.

A young student of metaphysics is forced to take the only lodging he can afford, a crumbling and decrepit building in a strange part of the city. Every night, he hears strange and unusual music coming from the room above him, music he cannot describe and cannot ignore.
He finds that the music above is being played by Erich Zann; a mute and eccentric German man who plays at night in a local orchestra. Fascinated by the man’s genius, the student tries to befriend Zann and understand why such a great talent chooses to live in such squalor. Eventually, Howard learns of the secret behind Zann’s music, one too terrifying to imagine.

Based upon the short story by legendary author H.P. Lovecraft, "The Music of Erich Zann" is a horror film of haunting beauty and terrifying poetry, filmed in the style of the German Expressionist films of the 1920’s.

David Stone: http://vimeo.com/46026291


slarner1:

Kreds McGeds: Erich Zann Analysis

The Music of Erich Zann Obsession Fear of the Unknown In summation An extremely important detail is that Zann was a mute, and as such likely sought company through music
Zann lived alone, never had a wife and never had any sort of relationship with people
After his strange playing awakened otherworldly entities, Zann was frightened but happy, as he might finally have company beyond himself and his intrument
Potentially, Zann originally left Germany due to growing suspicions about his music and its connotations
Zann essentially became a servant to the viol, as he continued to play but always appeared stricken with fear Forbidden Knowledge People amidst the industrial revolution felt alienated as society so rapidly changed that many people uninterested in it became swept up in it anyway
The theme of knowledge that people were simply never to find out about was reflected in much of turn of the century literature, where the industrial revolution and technological advancement outpaced society's adaptability
Much akin to the fruit of knowledge, the tie to the biblical story was often present where creatures "above" humanity deemed them unworthy The entities in the story were determined to be the antagonists quite early on, due to being "outsiders"
Many people in the early 1900's viewed the influx of immigrants as incredibly problematic, citing the same reasons many do today
Anti-immigrant sentiment was strong despite America's majority being made up of non native peoples
This idea was projected often in literature since writers and commoners alike felt that; despite their own immigrant ancestry, their way of life was under attack Besides being a nice little science fiction story, it could be gleaned that "The Music of Erich Zann" is a cautionary tale. Don't lose yourself amidst passion, approach things with an open mind, but always be wary; no one can predict the future, so it helps to be prepared for what it may bring. A Cautionary Tale "The Music of Erich Zann" is a tale about how a curiosity becomes an inescapable torrent of strange occult energies and occurences. A curious college student in a nameless French town becomes embroiled in the strange music of his mute upstairs neighbor in his apartment complex, "Rue d' Auseil," a modification of, "au seuil; at the threshhold," and begins to listen attentively before seeking an audience with the man.
Eventually, the student ends up coaxing from Erich Zann, a personal rendition of the most unsettling yet intriguing piece of music, never before woven by human hands or spirits. Too late, the narrator realizes, that he is in far too deep, and becomes subject to the wrath of mysterious and invisible entities as Erich Zann has been. Resolution Erich Zann eventually ends up allowing too many of the beasts through a rift in space, that reveals itself outside of his window
Zann dies, but his body continues to play his viol, mechanically as if he were a puppet
The narrator looked out of Zann's window and saw only blackness Main Symbolic Themes Obsession: Zann's feverish viol playing is analogous to the obsession felt about anything, by anyone. The blinding fervor that enshrouds one's mind from all other activities and goings on Forbidden Knowledge: The music was "described" as indescribable. A cacophony of unearthly sounds that chilled yet intrigued the narrator, and pushed him to seek Zann out personally. Fear of the unknown The narrator becomes terrified beyond consolation at the spatial rift in an otherwise unspecial apartment building, the voices he hears and the horrid sounds of the viol awaken a primal fear in him. Additional symbols and allegory Zann's death could be viewed as escape, since he seemed "under a trance" whilst playing, a dedication that removed him from consciousness
Additionally, his death could be viewed as the path tread by substance abusers, since he played despite knowing the harm it brought him yet he refused to, or could not stop. In the 1900's, heroin was readily available over the counter as a cough suppressant, creating addicts and dependents that were visible in many turn of the century stories, where heroin addicts were created as children, and were as common and possibly synchronous with alcoholism Yet more symbolism An ever-present theme is Lovecraft's stories was madness, evident in the beginning when the narrator repeated Rue d'Auseil throughout the enture page, and even yearned to go back
It is also commentary on human fragility, since Zann was killed quickly and seemingly without effort on the part of the entities. Tuberculosis and other disease cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and many novels make a point of making us aware that nearly everyone had a sickly relative that withered away, unable to be helped
As such, disease and a general haze of death inhabit many turn of the century stories and novels due to the prevalence of people losing loved ones as they stood idly by, incapable of helping 

Eric Zann

Eric Zann is an alias of electronic musician Jim Jupp (along with Belbury Poly). Jupp's releases are on the Ghost Box Music label, ofwhich he is a co-founder. The name references a minor H. P. Lovecraftshort story, The Music of Erich Zann.

Ouroborindra (2005)

Sidereal release of eclectic occult sampledelia and possessed instrumental vignettes taking its moniker from one of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft stories. In it the protagonist rents an apartment and is soon bewildered all nights by the maddening wails of his neighbor's violin, he eventually discovers that his neighbor is nothing more than a conduit for undefined extradimensional forces which possesses Zann nightly with their intonations and ululations across the void of space. Likewise this album is of a distinctly different sort than most of the other Ghost Box releases; a certain antiquarian pre-70s focus remains, but it is turned towards arcane mysteries of a malignant and misshapen sort. Like Anworth Kirk, or a beatless Demdike Stare in full-Haxan mode, Eric Zann has its closest sister in Mount Vernon Arts Lab. But rather than the latter's mostly analog electronic focus, Ouroborindra merges its sampledelic soup of radio signals from non-euclidean channels with wailing strings, brass, percussion instruments, likening their free skronk to the occult possession of the Lovecraft antagonist, with a knack for turning improvisation into unconscious malignancy rarely seen out of the more jazz-oriented elements of the Miasmah label (Kreng, Kaboom Karavan, Marcus Fjellström). Grisly and enveloping vibes.

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The name adopted by Eric Zann is one of the few non-Anglo references in the Ghostbox catalogue. It’s taken from New Englander H. P. Lovecraft’s gnarled 1922 weird tale The Music of Erich Zann, in which Zann plays his viola so madly and intently, so beyond earthly means that he becomes lost in the unutterable void. Ouroborindra is correspondingly darker and more miasmic than Sketches and Spells. More electronic and more like ‘classic’ music concrete with longer, deeper, darker swathes of matte sound rather than the constantly changing, glinting chops and loops of The Focus Group.
Ouroborindra is music that has leaked from a world at an angle a single degree different to our own, where Philip K. Dick is rightfully acclaimed as the 20th century’s greatest realist author and where George Lucas is less popular than Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale. The beautiful sleeve appropriately contains a quote from Kneale’s 1972 BBC TV play The Stone Tape, in which the walls of a house have acted as a recording device, capturing moments that when replayed later are perceived as a haunting.
Again, notional library idents:

“It Is Narrow Here”
---immobile synth drone, church bells processed to sound like clattering shutters, female voice shudders

“Ouroborinda”
---space frequencies and bleary synth calls obscure negative ticktock heartbeats; exotic - features sitar

“The Obsidian Pyramid”
---falling sine tones spark electro-yoghurt pot percussion; cool, like the grave

“Dôls”
---light, sophisticated viola of Zann segues into the absolute blackness of deep space

These records are nostalgic, but it is a counter nostalgia that aims to balance the scales of the passed, that obliquely references the near-hidden. A nostalgia for what gets discarded, for geography and physics textbooks that accidentally reveal the hidden dreams of a nation. These records are nostalgia as a starting point, an on-going process; they are clues rather than a map.-  www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=3469

SONGS OF AMBIENT DARKNESS

Two long electronic pieces inspired by the works of H P Lovecraft. These pieces were intended for use with lucid dreaming exercises and skrying and are meant to complement the magickal practices of groups working with Lovecraftian ideas in a ritual setting. 

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Darkly cold, ambient, Lovecraftian magickscapes of layered sonic trance-doom krautrock chill. Evoking the sound of glaciers collapsing, a telephone exchange possessed by demonic voices or the primal Great Mother calling its brood back to the womb. 

DOG STAR MAN

Meditational music for raising conscious energies to the cosmic ajna chakra that is the star Sirius.

- www.paraphiliamagazine.com/erichzann.html

Alex Voytenko "The music of Erich Zann":