“The Seashell and the Clergyman“ full movie - original soundtrack by the Hypochondriac Resonators

The original soundtrack for this classical silent film, referred as “the first surrealistic film“ has been composed by the “Hypochondriac Resonators“ - an experimental & electronic music duo which involves Dan Gibson (UK/NL) and Vladimir Vlaev (BG/NL). A project of the french critic and filmmaker Germaine Dulac, in collaboration with no less an avant-garde luminary than Antonin Artaud the premiere of the film provoked a controversial reaction. “Advertised as ‘a dream on the screen,’” writes Senses of Cinema’s Maryann de Julio, “The Seashell and Clergyman’s premiere at the Studio des Ursulines on February 9, 1928 incited a small riot, and critical response to the film has ranged from the misinformed – some American prints spliced the reels in the wrong order – to the rapturous – acclaimed as the first example of a Surrealist film.” The film takes place in the consciousness of the titular clergyman, a lusty priest who thinks all manner of impure thoughts about a general’s wife. In another Senses of Cinema article on Artaud’s film theory, Lee Jamieson writes that, in putting this troubled consciousness on film, it “penetrates the skin of material reality and plunges the viewer into an unstable landscape where the image cannot be trusted,” resulting in “a complex, multi-layered film, so semiotically unstable that images dissolve into one another both visually and ‘semantically,’ truly investing in film’s ability to act upon the subconscious.” It capitalizes, in other words, upon the now well-known principle that what is seen cannot be unseen. Inspired by the remarkably gestural and expressive images, carrying a strong musical charge the soundtrack of the electro-instrumental duo aims not only to explore and underline the “unstable landscape” created by the image, but also to trigger the viewer’s own contemplation as an “act upon the subconscious”. With the palette of their setup of modified acoustic instruments and electronics the two follow the dynamic of the images both with precise synchronicity and rhythmic freedom. The duo carefully choses sound material which breaths together with the image as a single audio-visual composition. The soundtrack is available for purchase on Bandcamp: The creators: Dan Gibson Vladimir Vlaev