The latest in a  series of highly collectible rocking lathe cut vinyl curios and downloads, Nick Hudson presents The Derek Jarman Super8 Scores.

The inaugural release on new label imprint, Super8Sync Recordings presents 2 powerful and beautiful pieces by composer Nick Hudson, commissioned to accompany 2 of Derek Jarman’s experimental Super8 short films.

Although the recordings of Sebastian Wrap and Garden Of Luxor were produced back in 2018, they have, until now, remained unreleased and only those fortunate enough to have seen the films will have heard them. The pieces themselves mirror the fragmented, experimental nature of the films and are produced like musical collages, held together by evocative organ and string arrangements. Atmospheric, slightly eerie and (naturally) cinematic, the former glistens with a fragility while the latter piece stands as a more stately homage with a mid-section passage that veers into gathered sounds.

Viewed by Paul Pascoe of Supper8Sync as more of an EP than a single, this release is very much a celebration of the great Derek Jarman as a film-maker and cultural icon of our times. It’s a fitting debut for Super8Sync Recordings who aim to present and celebrate the art of music for picture.

In early 2020 Nick and Paul hatched a plan to release these works on a special limited edition 8” vinyl record, to coincide with a planned Jarman retrospective (featuring screenings of both films), scheduled for May 2020 in Manchester. Needless to say, that event was cancelled due to Covid-19 and the project remained shelved until now. There are just 23 individually lathe cut, 8” vinyl records to accompany the release.

The sleeve art features on-set photography and sleeve notes by Jarman’s producer and archivist, James Mackay

Buy (or at least download) here – at the time of writing only 9 remain!

“It was ‘The Garden’ (1990) that I saw first – a late Film Four broadcast after my parents had gone to bed,” says Nick Hudson. “Growing up queer, closeted and creative in a rural hinterland in the nineties brought its (un)fair share of difficulties, and discovering the films, diaries, paintings and designs of British polymath Derek Jarman in 1997 made these tensions and conflicts easier to traverse and transcend: I and many others are forever grateful for his pioneer spirit as an artist, human and activist As a composer my first loves were Ennio Morricone and Ryuchi Sakamoto. I don’t think I listened to nonfilm or non-classical music until I was eleven. So when producer James Mackay invited me to compose scores for these hitherto silent Jarman Super-8 films, it felt like a homecoming in so many ways.“

He adds: “It is a humbling charge and one with no little cultural weight. I hope the assemblages of field recordings, organ music, string arrangements and foley gathered here compliment Derek’s beautiful, luminous films well. Likewise I hope they stand alone musically. I can’t think of a better-suited medium for these two compositions. We honour Derek – and Ennio and Ryuichi – all of whom have dropped their bodies to leave eternal legacies.”

Nick Hudson: Bandcamp

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