Phill Niblock

As the longest night of the year unfolds and the journey of our planet nears the point when Winter commences in the Northern Hemisphere, Phill Niblock stages his annual Winter Solstice concert for the 10th consecutive year at Roulette. Starting at 6pm, the performance will comprise of six sublime hours of acoustic and electronic music and mixed media film and video in a live procession that charts the movement of our planet and the progress of ourselves through art and performance at its maximal best.

A 59 minute extreme close-up long take of ice cubes slowly melting until they become just water in a stainless steel sink to Phill Niblock's composition "Stosspeng".

A day in the life of director Boris Lehman: he wanders from cafe to bookshop, cinema to museum, writer to musician, and into the storeroom of the film archive... He celebrates his birthday in an alleyway, with a friend, and finishes his journey with an escapade to Bruges and a stroll by the North Sea. The camera plays dirty tricks and the sound recorder gets carried away, to the point that both are clearly telling Boris to stop filming. Yet he persists…

A 30 minute extreme close-up long take of the flow of sand trickling from the upper to the lower glass chamber of and hourglass to Phill Niblock's composition "Feedcorn Ear".

A 46 minute extreme close-up long take of a knife point counting grains of white rice, one by one, on a white surface, to the orchestra piece "One Large Rose".

A compilation of non-narrative films shot in the 1970s and 1980s by Phill Niblock concerned with the movement people make when they do menial tasks.

The series of films ‘The Movement of People Working’ portrays human labor in its most elementary form. Shot by Niblock between 1973-91, on 16mm color film and later video, and in locations including Peru, Mexico, Hungary, Hong Kong, the Arctic, Brazil, Lesotho, Portugal, Sumatra, China, and Japan, the series comprises over 25 hours of footage. It focuses on work as a choreography of movements and gestures, dignifying the mechanical yet natural repetition of laborers’ actions.

Unedited concert footage of Arthur Russell playing at Experimental Intermedia Foundation on September 22 and October 27, 1985.

Unedited concert footage of Arthur Russell playing at Experimental Intermedia Foundation on September 22 and October 27, 1985.

A dangerously disturbed Vietnam veteran struggles with life 15 years after his return home, and slowly falls into insanity from his gritty urban lifestyle.

A dangerously disturbed Vietnam veteran struggles with life 15 years after his return home, and slowly falls into insanity from his gritty urban lifestyle.

"In 1984, I returned to Brazil, deciding to travel the coast, closest to the ocean, from Salvador, Bahia, to as far north as I could get in the time I had. That turned out to be Natal, 1000km away. I was the sole film crew, carrying the camera bag and tripod, loading the film, reading the light and occasionally applying sun screen. The film from that trip is the material on this DVD. And it was beautiful to see that country and those people.” ⁠—Phill Niblock

Asylum inmate dreams of freedom before medial reality steps in.

An irreverent take on Mozart's relations with the three Weber sisters: Louisa, whom he loved, but who didn't love him; Constanza, whom he loved and married; and Sophie, who loved him but whom he didn't love. An anthology of arias from Mozart's operas, in which art comments on life through a cheeky use of back-projection and miming to records.

Another short film by Niblock which consists simply of Hannah Weiner reading from one of her texts, initially in close-up and then over footage of her in her office and then in her armchair..

A short film by Niblock which consists simply of Armand Schwermer reading from his epic poem The Tablets with commentary, while strolling about in front of a Staten Island cityscape...

T H I R is taken from "Ten Hundred Inch Radii" an intermedia performance of film and music (1972-1975). Filmed with a Beaulieu 16 mm around Keene Valley, New York in the Adirondak Mountains in 1971-1972. T H I R original soundtrack recorded in 1972. T H I R new soundtrack "One Large Rose" (T H I R edit 2015) recorded in 2008. Recorded in Christianskirsche (Hamburg, Deutschland), May 16 and 18, 2008. Final mix at Experimental Intermedia October 13, 2008. One Large Rose edited at Experimental Intermedia, February 1, 2015.

Rounding off the collection is 'Raoul', whose subject is the painter Raoul Middleman, captured at work in the studio using time lapse photography while an improvised soundtrack (performed by the filmmaker and subject in collaboration) accompanies the rapid influx of images.

Morning begins with performers dressing and preparing for their day to the accompaniment of clashing male and female internal monologues, and subsequently depicts various characters going about their daily business while we listen in on their thoughts and anxieties.

Dog Track (1969) : For Dogtrack a deeply unsettling, bestiality-themed found text is read aloud with alarming detachment by Barbara Porte while Niblock intercuts between static location shots of urban and natural locations.

A blond woman (Susan Marshall) in white pants and shirt interacts with a moving round object and the camera. Camerawork by Phill Niblock.

Annie (1968) : 'Annie' is Niblock's portrait of the dancer Ann Danoff set to the soundtrack of a concrète collage by Max Neuhaus.

Speaking of Neuhaus, he's the subject of the next film, 'Max', which pairs another of his soundscapes against a succession of processed images and heavily edited, percussion-based performance footage.

Two nudes, a man and a woman, interact with each other and a large balloon in a white living room. Performed by Steve Paxton and Becky Arnold. Camerawork by Phill Niblock.

Multi-faceted artist Phil Niblock captures a brief moment of an interstellar communication by the Arkestra in their prime. Black turns white in a so-called negative post-process, while Niblock's camera focuses on microscopic details of hands, bodies and instruments. A brilliant tribute to the Sun King by another brilliant supra-planetary sovereign. (Eye of Sound)

Multi-faceted artist Phil Niblock captures a brief moment of an interstellar communication by the Arkestra in their prime. Black turns white in a so-called negative post-process, while Niblock's camera focuses on microscopic details of hands, bodies and instruments. A brilliant tribute to the Sun King by another brilliant supra-planetary sovereign. (Eye of Sound)