AmosAnon DVD Review

There aren’t a whole lot of musicians in New Zealand releasing DVD’s of their work, for whatever reason – cost of production, the hassles of making enough videos to fill a whole DVD, or people aren’t generally into buying DVD’s of local artists. Or probably a combination of all three I suspect.

Palmerston North’s AmosAnon has taken the gamble and just put out a self-titled DVD spanning several prior releases (theLachrymist, my Schizophrenic Acoustic, and Darkness From Light, plus one previously unreleased track), featuring what appears to be a lot of home video, found footage and material shot exclusively for the DVD.

It’s an interesting concept, which for the most part works well with the music; a sort of stripped back Nine Inch Nails, industrial sort of sound. There are plenty of grainy, black and white shots of various people just hanging out, doing seemingly ordinary things, until you add the music in, at which point it becomes, at times, creepy, ironic, unsettling, or very occasionally dull.

This is clearly a budget release; there’s no NZ On Air taxpayer funding here folks, but the man behind the music has done a great job with what he’s got. Having some pretty strong songs helps, but it’s no easy feat to pair 12 songs with visuals and maintain the viewer’s interest throughout, so the fact that there were only a couple of short moments where I felt my attention drifting (and my attention is prone to drift quickly if I’m not being entertained) is a sign of a good product.