Music for Matthew Barney's - River Of Fundament - Jonathan Bepler

Matthew Barney’s epic River Of Fundament is impossible to discus in the short form available here. However the astonishing score by Jonathan Bepler needs to be heralded for what it is: a blueprint for an altogether new approach in the articulation/integration of sound with image. Indeed the word score seems hardly adequate for what is entirely integral to the total work, quite inseparable, structurally, texturally or causally. Bepler’s music/sound, rather than gently scooping the audience into the fictional spaces depicted onscreen, relocates every event amidst the viewers: squarely inside the space of the auditorium. The sound mix seems to give every speaker equal importance scattering instruments throughout the theatre in a manner which demands and richly rewards an acute level of attention. Compositionally the work learns from the entire cannon of western music while joyously breaking and rewriting every possible convention. It renders musical history, not as pastiche but as transcendent living text. This needs to be heard in the very particular playback conditions specified by Barney and Bepler so I urge readers to find screenings wherever they may happen.