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Reviews.. Voted “Best Undistributed Film” by Noel Murray for the IndieWire Far Off Town reveals a Nashville outside the music row mainstream of the major labels, an independent-thinking parallel world. Of course Nashville has always had a strong tradition of independent music production, but it’s rarely unearthed. Operating on many levels, Far Off Town offers a journey worth taking. (Raindance Film Festival, London, 2006) http://www.raindance.co.uk/OLD_festival/programme/documentary/faroff.htm Nashville Scene Though this documentary is ostensibly about New Zealand music legend David Kilgour’s recent trip to Nashville, where he recorded the fine Frozen Orange LP with members of Lambchop, director Bridget Sutherland is mainly interested in the clash of old and new in Music City. Sutherland shuffles impressionistic imagery of decaying 20th century Americana while Nashvillians wax rhapsodic about the heyday of country music, when legends would work their way from the Ryman to Tootsie’s to Ernest Tubb’s in a single night. Then she watches The Clean co-founder Kilgour as he walks Nashville’s current path of legends: from Kurt Wagner’s basement to producer Mark Nevers’ studio to Grimey’s.….it’s hard to miss the inspirational message delivered by interviewee Dan Tyler: “Bad music can kill a culture.” Noel Murray, Nashville Scene, April 20, 2006 http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2006/04/20/ Real Groove Nashville Skyline Sutherland chose not to create a standard issue music documentary, instead telling the story of the making of Frozen Orange in a more ethereal frame. There’s none of the harsh editing and in-your-face camera work of MTV-style documentaries here. Instead it’s a lot more observational, interspersed with candid interviews, and dreamlike sequences that evoke Kilgour’s music. Also, the director works in some effective allegories about the state of the Nashville music business. In particular, a church being demolished just down the road from Lambchop producer Mark Never’s studio marks the change from a respect for heritage, and the new, crass commercial approach. Gavin Bertram, Real Groove, issue 152 Sept 2006 www.docnz.org.nz/news/docs/060930-realgroove-press.pdf
New Zealand Listener Far Off Town is less a Kilgour biopic than a valuable portrait of a music-infused city. [With] insightful interviews and some fine performances – not just from Kilgour, the Clean and Lambchop, but also folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Philip Matthews, New Zealand Listener, Sept 9-15 2006
Wintec News A psychedelic journey into the creative milieu of Nashville's coolest recording studio, full of the rich and haunting music of David Kilgour and Lambchop. Far Off Town is a colourful experiment in the rock documentary form; it does not attempt to contrive conflicts but rather gives us unprecedented access onto the creative inner world of this group of musical collaborators. Focusing on the making of Kilgour’s album Frozen Orange, we get an intriguing portrait of this enigmatic musician from New Zealand whose sixties-inspired music is irresistible. Wintec, Sept 7 2006
New Zealand Music Magazine “The melodies and the music come fairly easily,” he says. “But lyrically, I’m a minimalist.” Which is the essence of a David Kilgour song. It would be a documentary in itself if this gifted and thoroughly natural musician was ever taken to Nashville’s Music Row and thrown in a room with a completely different songwriter for a few hours. This is the way much Nashville music is written these days, and while the record company executives have statistics to show it works, the musical results do often smack of passionless, made-to-measure, market-aimed industry urgency that is the absolute antithesis of everything Kilgour has done since he picked up his first guitar. Sutherland’s film is loose, pressureless, laid-back and floaty – fittingly, largely the persona of Kilgour himself. Roi Colbert, New Zealand Music, 2006 Otago Daily Times ..Clips of the “Carousel of Time”, a beautifully detailed fairground ride built by Red Grooms which depicts famous characters from Nashville’s colourful past, mirror the “carnivalesque” nature of the Lambchop environment, evident elsewhere in glimpses of the good-natured, leg-pulling, spontaneous jam sessions, and late-night listening and drinking sessions that prevailed. This camaraderie, and the parallels between Kilgour’s world and that of his collaborators and friends, are themes that pervade the documentary, shrinking the physical distance between Dunedin and Nashville. (Jeff Harford, Editorial Artist, Otago Daily Times) http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm? fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=91885153&blogID=184343219
The Guardian David Kilgour must be rock music's best kept secret. This film sets up a groove that seems to match his drifty expressive pop and takes the viewer on a journey into the heart of indie rock in Nashville and then through the Appalachian mountains to North Carolina, where Kilgour slams out his guitar driven melodic songs with members of Yo La Tengo and Lambchop in tow. The film's subject is songwriting and it doesn't shy away from showing us the songs. And what great songs they are. The climax performance is a six-minute masterpiece of guitar driven yearning and desire, a song called Shivering Again. And who is this band The Heavy Eights? Kilgour's Dunedin band, it seems, with a rhythm section to die for and able to match anything the Lambchop team come up with in this magnificently musical film. An insight into what makes real musicians tick... the music itself. A pleasure from start to finish. Where is the soundtrack CD Ramblin Rod
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