George Vjestica's Bandante shares new collaboration with artist Timothy Shepard

When not performing with the Bad Seeds, George Vjestica is the driving force behind Bandante, a moveable feast of a band, recording and performing George's music for which other musicians, artists and film makers, are brought in to contribute. It is the experimental nature of Bandante and in particular his work with Tim Shepard – the overlapping of lenses through a collaborative process - that allows George to develop new, interesting and unexpected creative dynamics and outcomes.

Timothy Shepard is an American contemporary fine artist based in London who uses collage (in a very broad sense of the term) working in 2d, film making and music composition. He has been a regular collaborator with Bandante, creating videos for Bang Bang/My Friend as well as super 8 films projected at Bandante’s immersive shows. He has previously worked with other musicians including Paul Weller (a series of country walks which resulted in the cover for 22 Dreams), the quite possibly deceased enigmatic film maker CS Leigh, and a very close collaboration with Kevin Ayers on the making of his swan song album The Unfairground.

Bandante’s debut limited edition vinyl single (Bang Bang b/w My Friend) earned critical acclaim – a vinyl of the year at Rough Trade and a UK Official Vinyl Singles Chart entry.

So This Is Now is the latest offering from Bandante where music and imagery are seamlessly combined in a video piece made by the artist, Timothy Shepard.

Work on So This Is Now began at Vale Studios with the recording of an instrumental piece written by George. Joining him were musicians, Ian Matthews (Kasabian) on drums, Nikolaj Torp (The Specials) on Hammond and Mellotron, and Tim Hutton (Dub Pistols, Prodigy) on horns. From this session came an intense 5-minute blast of killer riff-driven music, inspired by 60's American psychedelia, Arthur Lee’s ‘Love’ and the Haight-Ashbury/Monterey scene – a soundtrack that George had always imagined being set to film.

“I wanted the chorus to feel like a call to arms, to hear a cacophonous fanfare of blaring trumpets – a massive release, with a verse I wrote to be full of tension and suspense.” George explains.

So This Is Now is truly an exceptional and immersive audio/visual performance. Musically, as you would expect from George Vjestica, the piece is wonderful. Powerful guitar riffs underpinned by excellent drumming from the talented Ian Matthews (Kasabian). I loved the subtle 1960’s Hammond organ/Mellotron styled elements. The piece stands alone well, building the feeling and atmosphere effectively. The verse sections really are full of tension and build your levels of suspense, and the chorus sections of blaring trumpets really do feel like an audio calling to arms.

Although musically it works so well, what really makes the track stand out is the visual part of the performance. In a way, similar to the solo work from Tom Morello that uses powerful images to enhance the musical message, what Tim Shepard has produced is simply a stunning piece of art, that fits the track perfectly. If the music is the soul of the piece, then the accompanying film truly is a ‘visual lyric’ and is the conscience of the piece. The fast paced visual images, produce the depth of emotion to accompany the music, the regular graphs indicating domination by profit and globalism, clothing mannequins and containers representing mass consumerism and production, military boots representing oppression and of course and paper production lines representing the power of mass media, juxta positioned so effectively with protests, symbols of peace and people power. Finally, images showing the impact on our environment, fire, drought, intense farming, immigration of peoples and destruction.

The film ends simply with the words “The power of the people is greater than the people in power” (quote from activist Wael Ghonim ?) before the track ends with a simple slide saying “So…..”

I found myself sitting back in my chair glued to the screen feeling like….. wow…the future isn’t fixed, it’s up to us.

As a complete audio/visual piece So This Is Now is in some ways visceral, and difficult watching as it truly reflects the times we are living in right now, and is a dystopian window on the now, a world teetering on collapse and ruin, and permanent damage. What’s great is there is no swearing, or uncomfortable imagery. The images used are simple but incredibly effective and don’t turn you off with being too in your face. Yes, it is sad, but yet it is also so hopeful, and draws on the belief that “the power of the people is greater than the people in power”.

As George put it himself….. “We are at a moment of choice”.

The result is a wonderful attention grabbing piece of work. The music never lets up. It’s full on and powerful throughout, and the video really hits you hard with its powerful imagery and challenging messages.

I loved this. Powerful, and yet hopeful. A stunning performance and worth a near perfect score of 9.5 from LiveWire Music.