Marc Ribot "Silent Movies"

Silent Movies, the new release from guitar great Marc Ribot, finds him taking another surprising step in a career filled with unexpected turns. The album reflects Ribot’s fascination with movies and contains pieces intended to function as music for films: some are adaptations of music he has actually written for films, others for classic silent movies that he scored for his personal amusement, still others for films of his own imagination. His goal is to explore, as he says “the strange area between language and spatiality that exists partly in between music and visual image, and partly as a common property of both.” 


Marc Ribot - The Kid
Marc Ribot - Delancy Waltz

Marc Ribot's "Silent Movies" is due out on September 28th via Pi Recordings.


Performed in complete takes, with only minimal atmospheric overdubs, Silent Movies was partly inspired by his experience preparing for a live accompaniment of the Charlie Chaplin film The Kid at Merkin Concert Hall in January 2010 as part of the New York Guitar Festival. Some tracks were composed for “El General,” Natalia Almada’s documentary film about Plutarco Elías Calles who ruled Mexico with an iron hand from 1924 to1935 and still others for the unreleased movie “Drunk Boat.” All of the compositions were written by Ribot except “Sous le Ciel de Paris,” the title song from the classic French movie by Julien Duvivier that was made a hit by Edith Piaf among many others.