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Jandek on Corwood USA
The musician known only as Jandek has never played live, was interviewed once'over the phone'and only one person claims to have ever met him, and she's not sure. He has released 35 albums in 25 years. The music is agonised, confessional, unschooled, deeply personal and difficult listening'untuned acoustic guitar and cracked voice, occasionally a distant piano or skeletal percussion. Kurt Cobain was a fan and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Beck count themselves as devotees. Jandek has a rabid cult following, and fanciful theories on his identity and background range from the paranoid (a tortured genius serial killer at large, releasing criminal confessions via his music) to the more humorous (a two decade prank perpetrated by a bored music industry type).
This brilliant documentary assembles all the scant evidence, rounds up celebrity fans and combines it all with haunting imagery into a thorough investigation of the enigmatic phenomenon that is Jandek.
'so beautiful and so rich and so deep you can barely stand it. Then it's gone. That's what Jandek's like. I guess it's enough.' -Byron Coley, Forced Exposure
D/WS Chad Freidrichs P Chad Freidrichs, Paul Fehler, Jaime Freidrichs TD Video/Col/2003/89mins
Chad Freidrichs was born in New Ulm, USA. Films: Jandek on Corwood (MIFF 2004).