“Parallax Sounds,” a documentary by Augusto Contento, contrasts a gold-flecked perspective of modern-day Chicago locations with the city’s independent-minded music culture since the 1990s, with piquant and sometimes piercing comments by Steve Albini, David Grubbs, Damon Locks, Ian Williams and others. As Albini puts it in the film, “It was an incredible collection of people. There was a criminal element, there were drug dealers, there were hustlers. The unifying characteristic is that they were unwelcome elsewhere; they were real fuck-ups, total disasters in the straight world. In the punk scene, all these different kinds of people, immigrants and faggots and criminals and intellectuals and people who were slightly insane, all these people came together and were able to crate stuff that was really beautiful and powerful.” The supple score is by Ken Vandermark, who also appears. “Parallax Sounds” debuted as a work-in-progress at CIMMFest 2012. HDCAM. 95m. (Ray Pride)
“Parallax Sounds” plays Friday-Saturday at Siskel.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
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