At VIDEODROOM, Stetson played an exclusive live suite of music based on these scores, complemented by his soundtracks for other films and TV series. Next to his much lauded solo work, Stetson has made contributions to albums by major artists, including Tom Waits, Bon Iver, Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, amongst others. After his (solo) breakthrough album New History Warfare Vol. 1 (2007), he was enlisted by bands such as Arcade Fire, Timber Timbre and TV on the Radio. In between, the indefatigable Stetson completed his New History Warfare trilogy and the man's All This I Do for Glory was awarded multiple times as Album of the Year in 2017. Although he mainly gravitates towards the saxophone - mainly bass and alto, but also soprano, tenor and baritone - he also mastered clarinet, flute, French horn and cornet.
Premiere of 'GUT'
Before Stetson astounded us with his saxophone performance, there was the premiere of the short film GUT (2023), a series of black-and-white portraits directed by Brady Corbet in response to Daniel Blumberg's new solo album of the same name. The album, which Blumberg presented in our Ballroom on November 30, refers to the autoimmune disease that the British musician-artist has been battling in recent years. In six raw, personal songs, Blumberg channels his inner world with emotional directness.
Corbet's short film is an extension of this. We see Blumberg naked and vulnerable, the mind defeated by the body: tense tendons are depicted in grim celluloid, while ballads resonate with pain, frustration, and fatigue.
Brady Corbet made his directorial debut with The Childhood of a Leader (2015), a historical drama starring Bérénice Bejo and Robert Pattinson, for which he immediately received two awards at the Venice Film Festival. His follow-up, Vox Lux (2018), a music drama featuring Natalie Portman and Jude Law, premiered at Venice. His next film, The Brutalist, is currently in post-production.