The Beat is The Law (80′s) is screening as part of the Noise, Affect, Politics Conference at Salford University on 1st July 2010 and will be preceded by a lecture from Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire) entitled ‘White Heat, White Noise: Ambient Noise in Pre-Punk and Post-Punk Music‘
“…what exactly is noise and what conditions these relative thresholds in which sound crosses over into noise? Or are these more organised and polite sonic phenomena merely varieties of noise that have been tamed and civilised, and yet still contain kernels of the chaotic, anomalous disturbance of primordial noise? As a radical free agent, how is noise channelled, neutralised or enhanced in emergent cityscapes?
Such questions are particularly applicable to contemporary forms of music which, based as they are on a variety of noise-making technical machines, necessarily exist in the interface between chaotic, unpredictable noise and the organised and blended sounds of music and speech. Does modern noise seek to lead us to new, post-secular inscapes (as with psychedelia and shoegazer), or defy the lulling noisescapes of processed background muzak with punitive blasts of disorientating, disorderly noise? And why the cult of noise – in term of both volume and dissonance – in which low cultural practices (metal, moshing) meet those of the avant-garde (atonalism, transcendentalism)?”
Its official! The date for release of the Beat is the Law 80′s special edition on DVD available to buy from this website is … 29th April 2010
Pre-order the DVD from our SHOP before the release date for discount and entry into prize draw.
To celebrate this glorious occasion, there will a launch event held at The Leadmill, Sheffield on 29th April featuring:
RuthJoy (Krush)
Winston Hazel (Jive Turkey/Forgemasters) two Sheffield artists who played an influential role in the birth of the UK House movement, playing House Arresting tracks that shaped their own sound and in turn playing tracks by current UK artists influenced by the Fonetic beats mastered all those years ago that continue to resonate to this day.
Ralph Razor (Razor Stilleto/Space Cabaret) will also be in the mix playing more essential 80′s tunes.
Sensoria folk will also be joining us to celebrate the closing night of what will no doubt be yet another successful festival
The Beat is The Law will be screened at Leeds University (25th-27th March) as part of a 3 day conference discussing the 84/85 Miners Stike including a rountable discussion about the film and the broader issues associated with the strike, Thatcher and the role music played in that period. This conference coincides with the 25th anniversary of the end of the strike.
Hopefully Russell Senior (Pulp) will be attending the conference. Others include David Peace (author of The Red Riding Trilogy and Damned United) and the photographer Martin Shakeshaft (who’s work we have incorporated into the film – see photo above)
Here’s a clip of Russell talking about the NUM leader Arthur Scargill:
