#dan emmerson

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Nia Archives "So Tell Me…" (2022)

director: Dan Emmerson, Nia Archives

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‘A Cold War’.

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Dan Emmerson for Shadow,

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Whippet up.

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actress – “x22rme”

buzzing, fizzing, whirring, hypnotic, probing, tumbling, driving, hypnotic, energetic, arresting, alien, hypnotic, determined, tenacious, unswerving hypnotic.

throughout “x22rme” has an anarchic feel to it, both structurally and sonically, and while the repeating industrial groove that sits at its heart feels suitably direct and unapologetic, it belies a clever sense of dynamic, texture, compression and control. in fact, it’s impressively well constructed and composed.

this video version opens with questioning strings to lure you in via sedative, monochrome, bmx slow-mo and high frequency interference squeakery, gently attuning and sensitizing your aural palate for what’s to come. then you’re into the rough-and-tumble of the main event, in the form of this chugging, churning, pulsing, yearning, pumping, ever-turning engine. and boy is there some smart engineering behind this efficient, well-oiled machine.

the juxtaposition between the shimmering top-end synth and the trundling, echoplex, workhorse grunt in the background is gorgeous and inspired. indeed, it’s this tension between the pristine clarity and murky opacity, between tight precision and reverberating obscurity, between electronic beeps and mechanical growls that makes the whole thing so compelling. behind that cold, hard, ruthless and relentless exterior, there’s an inner warmth and empathetic soul, a playful and mischievous vibrancy and diversity that’s utterly exhilarating.

the third section ultimately dismantles into constituent fragments of bleep, beat and bass alongside snatched, multi-layered vocal snippets of translated observations and shifted, dissonant, lip-(un)sync video. it’s challenging, perplexing, fascinating, thought-provoking and exotic in equal measure.

visually dan emmerson and his d.o.p. ed hubert have created a similarly disconcerting world of cool contrasts, knowing gazes, telling lips and provocative plinth-people, through the heart of which actress, aka darren cunningham, can wander, weave and weld his striking vision. and while i’ve personally not managed to stumble across this world previously, with azd, from which “x22reme” is taken, set to be his fifth studio release across an almost ten-year span, it’s probably about time that i immersed myself in its heady depths.

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Bike Life by Dan Emmerson

It is a short, arty documentary about a group of working class boys in Wales and their biking community. This is a good example of the type of boy I’m studying, the type that maybe don’t play exactly by the rules but aren’t really doing anything wrong either, and are simply following their uncommon passion with ambition, and forming family like bonds because of it. This plays along the lines of art and documentary.