Shortly before moving to Portland, Thomas Meluch, aka Benoît Pioulard, was a co-conspirator in HOTT LAVA, brainstorming & fleshing out what HL would eventually become. A week preceding the very first HL, Thomas went to New York to perform an original score for Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon commissioned by filmmaker Bill Morrison for the 3rd annual Film-Makers’ Cooperative Benefit where he played alongside Philip Glass & Bill Frisell. He performed the score only once more at the inaugural HOTT LAVA and is releasing variations of the score as part of the cassette-only album Valley this month via FM Dust.
HOTT LAVA: Having played less than a handful of shows at that point, what was the experience like playing the Film-Makers’ Coop Benefit?
BENOIT PIOULARD: My entire experience with the New York Filmmakers’ Co-Op was a total honor & some part of me still can’t believe that I performed for such an audience. It was a gorgeous weekend in New York and I was electric with anticipation. Everything seemed to go off without a hitch & I earned the right to say I shared a bill with Philip Fucking Glass!
HL: What about scoring Meshes? It’s a very different score than the one conceived by Teiji Ito but I suppose it would have to be.
BP: Scoring Meshes took about a month from early notes & ideas to completion. I had the opportunity to test it out on a few gracious friends and wasn’t even sure by the time I left to debut it in New York whether it was any good – but I liked it. It was also a difficult line to walk in my own mind; I didn’t want my reinterpretation to come off as snotty or rude – this 22 year old kid trying to one-up Maya Deren’s husband. I’m glad that several of the bits and pieces from that score finally found a home.
HL: You were very reluctant to play live until about the time of your second album. Where your early sets were rather noisy affairs, you put together a well balanced combination of songs & textures by the time of you toured with Windy & Carl. What changed?
BP: For the longest time I had convinced myself that I wouldn’t be able to re-create my recorded efforts in any reasonable or enjoyable way on stage – and my reticence to sing was a major factor, too – but past a certain point & with some much-needed encouragement/threats I realized that faithful re-creation wasn’t a necessity.
Once I set my gaze on putting together a cohesive performance & got over the vocal apprehensions, it took a little effort but has definitely worked out well since then. The elements of playing a show that used to make me nervous or anxious are easy to ignore, but all the enthusiasm & joy I’ve found in performing persists as strongly as ever.
HL: So it’s been going well?
BP: That Filmmakers’ Co-Op show was definitely one of the best shows but another would be this INSANE and beautiful venue in Paris called Le Comptoir General which was probably my favorite room to play. My Seattle show with Eluvium this year takes top honors primarily for the reason that I met my wife there.
HL: Any gnarly moments? What’s your “least-best” show?
BP: It’s hard to say that anything is the ‘worst’ because generally when things go wrong you can at least laugh and/or learn a lesson. But at the very least I can say that the show with Windy & Carl in New Haven, Connecticut seriously sucked – at least at the time it was happening.
It was already a frustrating day of long driving almost entirely in heavy traffic, then when we got to our venue (the back room of a pizza bistro) we discovered that our load-in and soundcheck were being compromised and waylaid by a young man named Steve, who was regaling a private party crowd with acoustic covers of Billy Joel and various other names I’ve intentionally kept out of my record collection.
We tried to make it visibly apparent that we were ready to take over the stage cos he went over his time slot by almost an hour, but it came to me having to be a jerk about it. So I shouted something snide and he threatened my life – while still strumming in rhythm, which was actually pretty impressive – before launching into god knows what other terrible song.
The awesome part is that Carl just happened to start recording that guy for posterity and managed to catch his whole tirade. So that was hilarious, but on top of all the other frustrations there were only like three paying attendees at the show – but so it goes.
HL: You’ve been interviewed in the past about the relationship between film & music but the aesthetic influence of Harmony Korine and especially Ssab Songs, which always coming up on your list of favorites records, might shock some.
BP: Oh Ssab Songs, you beautiful monster. I don’t know what it is about that album, or Korine’s aesthetic in general, but to my eyes & ears there is a basic truth in everything he does that leads to a more profound and idiosyncratic beauty than almost anything else I can think of. From the brief sample of “Lili Marlène” at the start to the jank Appalachian rape-guitar-ditties (I guess?) that litter the rest of the album, it’s a singular experience to be sure.
HL: What’s been tickling you of late? Food, film, music, books, etc.
BP: I just had the privilege of finally seeing Fennesz play at this year’s Decibel festival in Seattle, which was a long-term wish of mine. My friend Rafael Irisarri even joined him on stage for a final collaboration – I turned a deep shade of green at that point.
I recently watched and loved the Banksy film Exit Through the Gift Shop in all its sarcastic, possibly-a-total-hoax glory; brilliant stuff there.
My favorite film of the year so far has to be Trash Humpers, partly because of its content alone, but also because I attended a screening at which Harmony Korine did an introduction and Q&A thing and I got my first-ever autograph. Dude was totally gracious about it and even made me a little drawing.
HOTT LAVA presents Benoît Pioulard w/ Windy & Carl & Hitoko and Man The Hunter • 10/23 • Yellow Barn • 416 W. Huron, Ann Arbor • $8
