Last night at Studio 15 Twenty (up the street from Amoeba) Noah and the Whale screened singer Charlie Fink's film The First Days of Spring (which you get a copy of when you buy the deluxe 2 disc version of the album linked above) followed by a Q&A section with the band (Charlie Fink, Tom Hobden, & Matt Owens).
The screening was outside in a very well lit courtyard area surrounded by a cafe and a fashion clothing store. Much to my confusion the backdrop the projector screen was against was lit from the top by a row of fluorescent bulbs that were never shut off, washing out almost all of the blacks throughout the film, but it didn't really matter. What mattered was that it was cold as hell. The crowd seemed to be mostly teenagers at first, including a girl dressed in overalls she'd fashioned into a skirt---a true Noah and the Whale devotee if I'd ever seen one, though I got the impression she had yet to listen to Spring, the album, since if she had she'd have known their new aesthetic is woe and not ironic hipster Wes Anderson inspired bittersweet joy... Ah, it's true, the one thing you can be certain of about anything is that it will change.
The First Days of Spring, as an album, is a pretty sorrowful affair. Noah and the Whale's first album was, and this goes almost entirely without saying, a fun filled romp through golden fields---at least until you started listening to the lyrics and realized every song was about something horrible (be it babies eaten by wolves, unrequited love carried until death, or internet romances turned sour). During the Q&A Hobden and Fink talked about the irony present on Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down and how Five Years Time was probably the most depressing song they've ever written but no one usually pays attention. (A fact, proven by my ex-girlfriend, who routinely berated me for "ruining" the song for her by pointing out the lyrical content.) Is nothing on Spring as depressing as Five Years Time? No, that shit is a lie.
When Charlie Fink was questioned about the motivation behind writing a full length break up album accompanied by what could be interpreted as an incredibly bleak film, he matter-of-factly stated that "My life is not at all interesting, I can assure you," and completely dodged the question. You don't have to go too far to find out Laura Marling, the female vocals heard on their first record, broke up with good ol' Charlie and left him high and dry. Why, after writing an album and filming a movie about it, he still can't talk about it, I don't know. I guess we're not all candid about our anguish.
Regardless of lyrics like "everything I love has gone away" and "This is the last song that I write while still in love with you" the album is quite pretty and not entirely not worth listening to over and over again. I was assuming that the film would be a film, so on the way to the screening I finally listened to Spring all the way through (recently having gone through a break up myself about a month or two ago, I was unable to get much past the first track without feeling like the torrential downpour of longing and loss was going to crush me). My summarized thoughts: pretty, sad, kind of boring at times, and almost shocking with how emotionally honest and upfront it is. The song Stranger, alone, kicks my ass in a lot of ways.
Little did I know that The First Days of Spring, the film itself, is essentially wordless and set entirely to the whole of the album. It's not usual for me to groan at the idea of having to listen to an album back to back, but by the time the film progressed to track two I started to feel like I wanted to get up and leave, but remembering the single upbeat track on the album (Love of an Orchestra), I was wondering what Fink would have in store for that number.
The movie reeks of indie pastiche, and that's even if it didn't have a complete indie album as the score. We've got a lot of things here: a distorted time line, possibly intentionally misleading cuts, breaks in the fourth wall, absurd completely unreal occurrences---including, at one point, a grizzled old man in a suit dancing ridiculously to a firework display that emerges from behind him after the whole room he's in splits in half (aforementioned Love Of An Orchestra number). At one point Fink seems to lift a scene, a feeling, straight out of Wes Anderson's Rushmore---a movie that Noah and the Whale are vocal fans of (often signing their blog posts with "sic transit gloria", a Rushmore reference), so it's understandable I guess to lift a little here and there.
The story itself involves, and this is a big shocker (seriously), not the break up of a relationship but anguish of being stuck in one you want out of. (I don't really understand the pairing of a break up album with a movie about desperately wanting to break up, but I suppose I'm not meant to.) The storyline is entirely non-linear for the most part, and I feel that describing the plot in any way would ruin it, but for the most part we view three "sections" of this guy Ethan's life. Ethan's a writer with a girlfriend who seems to be pregnant (though he unabashedly lights up cigarettes while sitting next to her on the couch) that he seems to hate with a passion that isn't really explained in any way at all as you never see her be anything but pensive and kind. This is "Middle Ethan".
There's also "Young Ethan" and "Old Ethan" (the old man) who each seem to have their own little stories, neither of which I want to describe in the least because they're the most interesting to watch unfold and try to understand on your own.
Charlie Fink said he wanted the movie to feel like a memory, and it some ways it does. It's very dreamy, and the way the story is cut up into sections kind of keeps you guessing, but overall Spring isn't very interesting. If you haven't listened to the album yet, and want to experience it with some visual accompaniment, this isn't a bad full-album music video. As a film, however, I can't say I came away from the experience feeling much of anything about it. There's wiggle room for interpretation (like: is "Old Ethan" simply the creation of Middle Ethan, the story he's writing, or are we really being shown his miserable stupid future as an old man?) but overall it's all pretty cut and dry and the unanswered questions ("Why's the super pretty girlfriend dead?") stay completely unanswered.
Hopefully my incoherent ramblings give you a general idea of what to expect. I didn't know what to expect and I was slightly disappointed---as disappointed as you can be when you go see a free movie screening and sit in an uncomfortable woven beach chair for over two hours, which isn't much.
Before the film they showed a 'short film' beginning with animation by a guy who's name I can't remember, which segued into a Brooklyn (or was it New York?) apartment show Noah and the Whale played. In it they seamlessly transition between several songs off Spring, shifting the arrangements and instrumentation of them so they almost sound like new but familiar songs. The whole thing is beautifully shot, framed, & performed, and the 'audience' of pretty girls and guys smoking cigarettes & lazing around on couches behind them adds a certain emotional dynamic to the performance---at one point the camera catches a girl reach out and rub her boyfriends leg while Charlie Fink sings a romantic line that I can't remember right now and the moment is tender, completely genuine, and totally moving. All in all I'd say I enjoyed this more than the full-length film shown afterward, and I'd definitely show it to anyone looking for a "primer" on Noah and the Whale's new album. (If I find a copy online I'll post it to the Twitter account.)
Song Note: I assumed I'd already posted the song The First Days of Spring, but I haven't. It should accompany this post, but it doesn't.
Site Note: I haven't posted any new music in a while and I'm sorry. I have a backlog I need to motor through but things have been so benign for me lately that the inspiration is lacking. I've got songs but no words. I'll get on it.