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Contents
editorial
KEVIN DAVIDSON
“Soulbrother #1”
TESHOME GABRIEL
Ruin and The Other: Towards a Language Of Memory
MLADEN DOLAR
Singing in Pursuit of the Object Voice
Theme Graham Newcater
STEPHANUS MULLER
Sapphires and serpents: In Search of Graham Newcater
ARYAN KAGANOF
Of Fictalopes and Jictology (2018)
MEGAN-GEOFFREY PRINS
Toccata for Piano (2012): The gift of newness
OLGA LEONARD
The Leonard Street Meetings (2008-2012)
ARYAN KAGANOF
Her first concert - 15 October 2011
STEPHANUS MULLER & GRAHAM NEWCATER
Interview (2008, transcribed 2010)
AMORÉ STEYN
The Properties of the Raka Tone Row as seen within the Context of other Newcaterian Rows
STEPHANUS MULLER
The Island
GRAHAM NEWCATER
CONCERTO in E Minor Op. 5 (1958)
ARNOLD VAN WYK
A Letter from Upper Orange Street, 14th June 1958
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Concert Overture Op. 8 (1962-3)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Variations For Orchestra Op 11 (1963)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Nr.1 Klange An Thalia Myers (1964)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Allegretto e Espressivo (1966)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Variations de Timbres (1967)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
String Quartet (1983/4)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Songs of the Inner Worlds (1991)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
ETUDE I For Horn with Piano Accompaniment (2012)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
ETUDE II For Horn with Piano Accompaniment (2012)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
SONATINA for Pianoforte (2014)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
CANTO for Pianoforte (2015)
LIZABÉ LAMBRECHTS
The DOMUS Graham Newcater Collection Catalogue
galleri
TAFADZWA MICHAEL MASUDI
Waiting For A Better Tomorrow
ILZE WOLFF
Summer Flowers
NIKKI FRANKLIN
Sans Visage
BAMBATHA JONES
Below the Breadline
TRACY PAYNE
Veiled
STAN ENGELBRECHT
Miss Beautiful
ALEKSANDAR JEVTIĆ
We Are The Colour of Magnets and also Their Doing
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Augenmusik & Some Tarot Cards
EUGENE SKEEF
Monti wa Marumo!
borborygmus
PASCALE OBOLO
Electronic Protest Song As Resistance Through the Creation of Sound
AXMED MAXAMED & MATHYS RENNELA
A Conversation on the Bleaching of Techno: How Appropriation is Normalized and Preserved
FANA MOKOENA
A problem of classification
PHIWOKAZI QOZA
Choreographies of Protest Performance:
MASIXOLE MLANDU
On Fatherhood in South Africa
VULANE MTHEMBU
We are ancestors in our lifetime – AI and African data
TIMBAH
All My Homies Hate Skrillex – a story about what happened with dubstep
TETA DIANA
Three Sublime Songs
LAWRENCE KRAMER
Circle Songs
NEIL TENNANT
Euphoria?
frictions
LYNTHIA JULIUS
Vyf uit die Kroes
NGOMA HILL
This Poem Is Free
MSIZI MOSHOETSI
Five Poems
ABIGAIL GEORGE
Another Green World
OMOSEYE BOLAJI
People of the Townships
RIAAN OPPELT
The Escape
DIANA FERRUS
Daai Sak
KUMKANI MTENGWANA
Two Poems
VADIM FILATOV
Azsacra: Nihilism of Dancing Comets, The Destroyer of the Destroyers
claque
ZAKES MDA
Culture And Liberation Struggle In South Africa: From Colonialism To Apartheid (Edited By Lebogang Lance Nawa)
MPHUTHUMI NTABENI
The Promise of genuine literary stylistic innovation
ZUKISWA WANNER
[BR]OTHER – Coffee table snuff porn, or...?
SEAN JACOBS
Davy Samaai The People's Champion
KNEO MOKGOPA
I Still See The Sun/ The Dukkha Economy
CHRISTINE LUCIA
Resonant Politics, Opera and Music Theatre out of Africa
ARI SITAS
The Muller’s Parable
ZIMASA MPEMNYAMA
CULTURE Review: The Lives of Black Folk
RIAAN OPPELT
Club Ded: psychedelic noir in Cape Town
DYLAN VALLEY
Nonfiction not non-fiction (not yet)
DEON MAAS
MUTANT - a crucial documentary film by Nthato Mokgata and Lebogang Rasethaba
GEORGE KING
Unknown, Unclaimed, and Unloved: Rehabilitating the Music of Arnold Van Wyk
THOMAS ROME
African Art As Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson, And The Idea Of Negritude. By Souleymane Bachir Diagne.
SIMBARASHE NYATSANZA
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Making Africa visible in an upside-down World
ekaya
BRIDGET RENNIE-SALONEN & YVETTE HARDIE
Creating a healthy arts sector ecosystem: The Charter of Rights for South African Artists
KOPANO RATELE
What Use Would White Students Have For African Psychology?
NICKI PRIEM
The Hidden Years of South African Music
INGE ENGELBRECHT
“Die Kneg” – pastor Simon Seekoei in conversation.
SCORE-MAKERS
Score-making
off the record
BARBARA BOSWELL
Writing as Activism: A History of Black South African Women’s Writing
MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO
MUSIC AS THE GOSPEL OF LIBERATION: Religio-Spiritual Symbolism and Invocation of Martyrs of Black Consciousness in the Azanian Freedom Songs
IGNATIA MADALANE
From Paul to Penny: The Emergence and Development of Tsonga Disco (1985-1990s) Pt.2
ADAM GLASSER
In Search of Mr. Paljas
TREVOR STEELE TAYLOR
Censorship, Film Festivals and the Temperature at which Artworks and their Creators Burn
PATRIC TARIQ MELLET
The Camissa Museum – A Decolonial Camissa African Centre of Memory and Understanding @ The Castle of Good Hope
IKERAAM KORANA
The Episteme of the Elders
OLU OGUIBE
Fela Kuti
MICHAEL TAUSSIG
Walter Benjamin’s Grave
ANTHONY BURGESS
On the voice of Joyce
feedback
FRÉDÉRIC SALLES
This is not a burial, it’s a resurrection : Cinema without the weight of perfection.
FACEBOOK FEEDBACK
Social Media Responses to herri 5
the selektah
boeta gee
Hoor Hoe Lekker Slat’ie Goema - (An ode to the spirit of the drum)
PhD
MARY RÖRICH
Graham Newcater's Orchestral Works: Case Studies in the Analysis of Twelve-Tone Music
hotlynx
shopping
contributors
the back page
DANIEL MARTIN
Stuttering From The Anus
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    #06
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NIKKI FRANKLIN

Sans Visage

Composer’s Notes

When composing, I always like to work with interesting source material – if the input is rich enough, then the output, to a certain extent, takes care of itself. In this case, the 1959 film, Les Yeux Sans Visage, directed by Georges Franju, provided a rich backdrop from which to draw upon for new musical compositions. In this classic ‘film-noir’ horror movie, the evil Dr. Genessier and his sidekick, Louise, kidnap and torture young girls in order to perform face transplants to save Genessier’s disfigured daughter, Christiane. Through a series of dark misadventures and classic horror-tropes, the film comes to a bloody conclusion with the protagonists getting their ‘just deserts.’

I had a very clear idea of the instrumentation and sound-world that I wanted to use for the Sans Visage E.P. I had long been following the music of accordionist, Laurent Derache, Paris. I reached out to Laurent through social media and he agreed to record the project with me at ‘Studio La Tour,’ Bordeaux.

In an ideal world, I would choose to bring a group of musicians together in the room, to spend time playing together, exploring ideas as a unit and recording the music as a result of our collective consciousness. I have found, practically, that through all my various projects, this idealistic model has often been unachievable. The primary obstacle with a self-funded creative work is of course, the funds. The complexity of the compositions required a very skilled set of performers, in this case from three countries – I simply couldn’t afford to bring them to one place to realise the recording. So, we progressed in stages, I travelled to France in November 2019 to record the rhythm section parts and guide vocals. Then these roughs were sent to the musicians to work with, to build the character with a sense of the sound-world I was creating. Simon Goulding (UK) recorded new bass lines and passed the stems onto Paul Fawkus (Norway) to add the saxophones. Then I joined the French contingent, Manu Feramus, Paola Vera and Laurent Derache at Manu’s ‘Studio La Tour’ near Bordeaux to complete the sessions.

This suite was devised to explore improvisation at a deep level, incorporating complexity in the harmonic and rhythmic material. Derache played a pivotal role in informing the composition as he was already developing jazz repertoire for the accordion, promoting improvisation and the use of the accordion as the primary instrument in a variety of jazz settings. I wanted to create something in a punk jazz style and felt the darkness of the theme of this movie was ideal for this purpose. I drew upon my work with John Zorn as a model for the compositions in this project.

As a starting point, I decided on titles which I felt defined the arc of the plot. I then created three-line sketches which would be the source material for each composition. In my initial conception, composition was complete at the point where the sketches were finished and the transition to full score was a question of arranging, rather than composing. During my work on the Book of Angels, Cerberus project[1]Barnes, Phil, “The Spike Orchestra Cerberus Book of Angels Volume 26” All about Jazz, Dec 18 2015. Accessed Jan 12, 2017, my writing partner at the time, Sam Eastmond and myself, were sent hand-written sketches from Zorn which we were instructed to arrange for our ensemble, The Spike Orchestra, for inclusion in the Masada, book 2, The Book of Angels catalogue. I found that this way of working created a different perspective on the composition process and wanted to use the same model in my own work.

In the sketches there are ‘score starters’ for a total of seven movements and I went on to fully orchestrating five of these for the E.P. If there is an opportunity for a live performance, I will orchestrate the final two scores, extending the duration of the complete work. The titles were inspired by elements of the film or my responses to them. Villa du Dr. Genessier is on a signpost in the background when the villa is introduced, and Ma fille Bien Aimée is written on the order of service at the funeral of Christiane Genessier.[2]Les Yeux Sans Visage. Directed by Georges Franju. (Champs-Elysées/Lux, 1959), film. Le Masque is simply my reference to the mask that the disfigured Christiane wears throughout the film and the two English titles, The Pearl Choker and Doves and Dogs are my own interpretations of two important plot devices.

Villa du Dr. Genessier

This opens the suite with a high impact, fortissimo attack, with fast runs in of a crotchet setting, but with a disruption to its march-like groove at the 3 division. In the movie, the opening scene is of a car driving through torrential storms with a body in the back, which is dumped in the river. The Villa du Genessier is introduced in the movie with layers of horror tropes: driving rain, darkness and high trees surrounding the old villa. To depict this in music, I introduced the high, three-note line in the accordion at [A], starting on beat three to further obstruct audible beat divisions. The first theme from the sketch comes in at (B), in unison at the outset, then against a descending bass line, which is a feature of the whole piece. The transition to 3/4 leads to a sax solo, which is also underpinned by the same descending bass line. When the final theme (line 3 of the sketch) is introduced, it comes back in the accordion, with the sensibilities of the original D minor three-note gesture, a quiet, yet insistent single note melodic line which delivers a sense of foreboding, gradually drawing the ensemble together to the final breath.

Score

A Ma Fille Bien Aimée

In the movie, Dr. Genessier and his sidekick, Louise, kidnap girls who look like the doctor’s disfigured daughter, Christiane Genessier, to transplant their faces. The setting of the piece is at Christiane’s funeral. The high bass in the opening is ethereal and reverent, yet also has tension in this tessitura. The addition of the accordion at [A] connotes Parisian street music, not only securing the French setting, but also signalling where Louise finds her next victim, Edna Grüber, so there is an element of portent. In the previous scene, Dr. Genessier is called to the mortuary to identify what they think is his daughter’s body, with the policeman warning him that the girl’s face is damaged and so to be prepared for a shock. I used a fragment of the French script to create lyrics in this movement: ‘Le visage, est endommagé.’ However, we (the viewer) know that the real victim is Simone Tessot. The ‘jump cuts’ I use throughout [A] and [B] function as the truth that screams through the sombre funerial setting.  The switch to piano at [B] connotes the French salon, as the girl, Christiane, roams the house, wearing her mask, finding no mirrors. The compression of the piano part between the cuts increases tension as the plot becomes clearer. The heavy rock style groove under the solo releases this tension, allowing the reality of the story to come through. In the recording session I suggested that Derache try opening the accordion solo in a low register. This tessitura is less frequently used in soloing, and I felt it gave gravity to the opening of the solo which reflected the arc of the story in the film. The piano coming through at [D] under the vocal solo is a re-iteration of the despair and confusion of Christiane, locked in the villa, a prisoner both within her home and behind her mask.

Score

Le Masque

I used perfect fifths as the foundation for thematic material in this movement. The open fifths on electric piano portray the emptiness of Christiane, who wanders the halls of the villa alone, reminiscing about her fiancé, who visits the villa, but who she is only able to watch in silence, hidden from view. The brief 6/8 interlude reflects moments of nostalgia, but the unsettled, hypnotic 11/8 theme quickly returns. On the second pass, the saxophones add a dream-like quality, with small lilting movements over breathy long notes which increase the feeling of being trapped, but without tension – as if in suspension.

The tension builds very gradually from the second pass at [B] with the addition of the voice and further at b.45 with the chromatic line on the tenor saxophone. The use of the 8/4 time signature makes the transition from the quaver pulse through to the 4/4 in the solos with eight crotchet groupings, marked with a heavier accent on beat one and a clear eight-beat pattern on the bass guitar. Furthermore, the repetition of the eight-beat gesture served to bookend the solos. The limited harmonic movement in the solos expresses the feeling of being trapped, whilst allowing the soloists free expression without the confines of multiple harmonic shifts.

Score

Pearl Choker

This movement is the ‘villain’s theme’ depicting Genessier’s sidekick, Louise. I used an English title as choker has the double meaning here: the demise of Louise is brought about, via a scalpel through the aforementioned choker, by Christiane, who ultimately brings the wicked ways of Louise and then her father, Dr. Genessier, to an end. In the original movie soundtrack, there is a four-bar leitmotif for Louise in the form of a lithe 3/4 jazz waltz with an oompah bass. I transcribed this motif, then composed a four-bar question phrase that preceded the transcription to embed the original theme in a different setting. I also truncated the original theme, taking only two bars for this composition, adding a new two bar ending in the interests of originality. I developed the material by adding a secondary theme in the piano and electric piano, creating a louche jazz waltz, which I instructed the musicians to play with a light sense of pantomime.  This theme continued through the alto saxophone solo at [B], allowing it to be fully presented before the ‘jump cut’ at [D]. The 7/8 motif also takes a small chromatic gesture from the first theme, but with a hard attack and a unison build to the fast groove at [E]. The combination of the irregular time signature with shifting accents provided by the backings, I added to represent an element of cruelty, which I felt depicted the Louise character. I chose the accordion to solo in this section as I wanted to bring back the French connotation of the instrument that I had used earlier, but with the energy and attack of this fast 7/8.  A return to the original material presented the two sides of the character: the respectable French Madame and cold-hearted killer.

Score

Doves and Dogs

This marks the bloody conclusion of the movie; Christiane, finally at her wits end with the evil ways of her father and Louise, releases first the captive girl, and then the animals that were experimented on at the Villa du Dr. Genessier. This results in the death of Dr. Genessier, chased out by the birds then mauled by the dogs. The slow, lilting 10/8 groove captures the confusion and giddiness as Grüber awakes from a near-miss with the scalpel and Christiane decides to let the girl go free and to bring an end to the horror. The intense, repeating attacks at [B] mark the opening of the cages and the saxophone figures, the release of the animals. The voices are as the voices of the girls in the movie, Christiane, Grüber, Tessot. The solos are harmonically simplistic to suit the punk element of the punk jazz setting and further, there is limited harmonic rhythm imposed through chord changes. Instead, the rhythmic impetus comes from the percussive semiquaver hits in the ensemble, building to a driving groove in the backings from [F], which, with the addition of the voice joining the accordion here, enables an improvised collaboration between the soloists. The sound-world for the suite is fully established by this point and the musicians work together to create a high energy, ‘grindcore’[3]Urban Dictionary,“Grindcore,” accessed September 04, 2020. style through [H] and [I], returning to scored material at [J] as a resolution, intended here as a ‘sigh of relief,’ with the demise of Dr. Genessier and the ‘freedom’ of Christiane.

Score

Saxophones: Paul Fawkus
Accordion: Laurent Derache
Voice & Electric Piano: Paola Vera
Electric Bass: Simon Goulding
Drum Kit, Recording: Manu Feramus
Voice, Piano, Composition: Nikki Franklin

Notes
1. ↑ Barnes, Phil, “The Spike Orchestra Cerberus Book of Angels Volume 26” All about Jazz, Dec 18 2015. Accessed Jan 12, 2017,
2. ↑ Les Yeux Sans Visage. Directed by Georges Franju. (Champs-Elysées/Lux, 1959), film.
3. ↑ Urban Dictionary,“Grindcore,” accessed September 04, 2020.
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