Piece of magic from mime and shadow antics....

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Live soundtracks to silent movies have become all the rage over the past few years. This year Edinburgh has already seen former Siouxsie and The Banshees guitarist Steven Severin playing a quartet of laptop generated scores to The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, while a trio of Edinburgh bands hosted an evening at which they played along to some found footage from the Scottish Screen Archive. As part of The Grey Gallery's programme at upmarket bar Hawke and Hunter, where Bob and Roberta Smith are exhibiting, Little Sparta's live accompaniment to The Adventures of Prince Ahmed (*****) is the most cosily sublime offering of all of these.....

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Lotte Reiniger made this first ever feature-length animation in 1926, and this magic carpet ride of silhouette puppets, flying horses, black magic and dusky princesses is a beautiful work of art in itself. Add to this Alan Boyd's electric guitar, Scott Skinner's drums and especially Susie Honeyman's violin, and a gorgeous maelstrom of rolling thunder is conjured up. Over the film's 70 minutes, intricate little repetitions give way to rising crescendos as onscreen Ahmed teams up with Aladdin like a pair of fairytale super-heros. Musically, this is akin to a warmer, less apocalyptic Godspeed You Black Emperor, and is a joy to watch and to listen to.....

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By Neil Cooper....

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http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.2528250.0.Piece_of_magic_from_mime_and_shadow_antics.php....

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