Ben Wiggins made a stunning time-lapse of Burning Man. One of these years I’m going to make the trek to the desert.

As we celebrate Christmas in Sweden on the 24th, Christmas day is a day of contemplation and rest. My father and I have taken up the tradition of making a bonfire. This years project was to burn IKEA sofas together with the wrapping paper from the Christmas presents.

Four Tet hits the aural senses with a steady throbbing beat and repetitious melodies.It may sound like something that defies listening but the end result is utterly beguilling

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As an avid collector of movie posters, I’ve had my eye on the Polish poster for “Solaris” for ages.  Andrzej Bertrand’s poster for the film is an extraordinary piece of graphic art, which captures the disturbing essence of film perfectly.  I am lucky enough to own a few classic Polish film posters , including Klimowski Andrzej’s Pop art masterpiece for  ”Taxi Driver”  and  Jakub Erol’s playful “Love Story” poster..

In this final scene from Andrei Tarkovsky and Stanislaw Lem’s science fiction masterpiece Solaris, 1972, we see a man return home to his childhood house, by the lake he knew as a boy. By the perfectly still water, he pets his old dog. Inside the house, he finds his Father. But something is not right. Needing no real context or knowledge of what precedes it, this scene is beautifully conveyed, made more so by Bach’s haunting, fragile music. The meaning of the scene is both ambiguous and utterly certain. We do not know where the man is, or why, but we know exactly how he feels in this final, transcendent moment.

Paul, my DJ friend from LDN production outfit tape to tape is going to be picking out cool tunes that will be filling the dance floors and mix tapes of LDN..

First up Brooklyn’s psych-pop masters Yeasayer, with their new single O.N.E

Over to Paul:

“O.N.E” is the energetic highlight of Yeasayer’s forthcoming album “Odd Blood“. Clattering percussion, punk funk basslines and playfull vocals all create a near perfect calypso psyche pop gem.

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LDN Music Blogger Skippers Chippers has a fantastic Alan Wilkis remix of Yesayers “Ambling Alp”

Update: I have dug up Yeasayer’s wonderful World music mixtape, that came with the original Rough Trade release of “All Hour Cymbals“. Unfortunately I can’t find the track list, but coincidentally the mix does start with “Mehbooba Mehbooba”

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I’m so pleased that I’ve managed to recruit Scott Jordan Harris editor of The Big Picture to help me cover cinema. Scott is very knowledgeable and a great writer but most importantly he’s a very cool guy.  Scott along with other film biz friends, writers & assorted  film nuts are going to be taking part in a regular series of posts where we describe why a famous film scene works so well

Over to Scott:

Here is perhaps the most celebrated song and dance scene in G.P. Shippy’s “Sholay“, perhaps the most celebrated movie in Bollywood’s history. The song, ‘Mehbooba Mehbooba’ by R.D. Burman, is lyrically limited (‘Beloved, oh, beloved / Roses bloom in gardens / When we meet in the desert’…*) but rhythmically inspired. The dance is an ideal accompaniment, the ever-escalating excitement of the music’s beat exquisitely embodied by the artful undulations of Helen’s magnificent midriff, as her nameless character gyrates for the pleasure of Amjad Khan’s reclining dacoit Gabbar Singh.

The scene is astonishingly sexual. The obvious and aforementioned excitement expressed by the music, that midriff, and the dancing conceals a subtler sexual dynamic: the setting, Singh’s encampment of criminals, stands as a demonstration of his potency, but it is the rivals to his hyper-masculine dominancy – our heroes Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) and Veeru (Dharmendra) who, unseen by him but glimpsed by us, are silently planting explosives – who will hijack proceedings with a daring display of machismo. The symbolism of the climactic, upward explosion they unleash need not be described.

‘Mehhbooba Mehbooba’ is a musical interlude that is not only comic, joyous and arousing but also one that intensifies tension as expertly as any scene in Hitchcock. And aside from all that it is, incidentally, one of the finest song and dance sequences in cinema.

*If this sample is insufficient, the scene can be viewed with subtitles, but without the crucial explosion, here.

One of the areas I want to cover on Touching From a Distance is art and photography. I’m so pleased that my friend and highly respected contemporary art dealer Maria Stenfors has agreed to make occasional posts on the contemporary European art scene. Maria will be highlighting the work of new artists and more established figures as well as pointing readers in the direction of exciting art and photography exhibitions in LDN and across Europe.

Maria is an excellent photographer in her own right and I’m particularly looking forward to seeing her work on the blog.

Leather saddle and acrylic
54 x 60 x 60 cm
Artist Yasmin Müller

Great new track and a stunning video from the old master.  His a new album “I’m New Here” is out next week and he’s playing a one off gig at The Royal Festival Hall on the 20th April with Mercury winner Speech  Debelle.

Update: Since I put the post up, I’ve been listening to Gil Scott-Heron on repeat .. And as someone who as beaten more than their fair share of addictions, this song perfectly explains the misery, frustration and comfort of addiction.

“The Bottle”

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