***Natalie Hoffmann, Ben Bauermeister and Keith Cooper are back after their benchmark third album, Lucky Number (for FEEL IT RECORDS) with this long-percolating project of original compositions for the short films of mid-20th century filmmaker, Maya Deren (also an adroit dancer, writer, and general badass.) Experience over 40 minutes of aural and visual mind fry, translated sonically for the body and soul, as only this southern post-punk trio dare deliver.
"I was fortunate to have two of my favorite professors at Memphis College of Art, Mary Molinary and Jill Wissmiller, show me Maya Deren’s work while I was a student. I was in a poetry class with Mary and an experimental cinema class with Jill. Both perfect and very different contexts to see and discuss Deren’s work.
Meshes of the Afternoon redefined how I thought about both film and poetry. The framing, the pace, the repetition, and her strong use of the body and its contrasting movements were all so new and revolutionary to me. Her films were poems, they were choreographed dances, and they were hugely avant-garde and experimental, especially for the time she was making them. (Meshes of the Afternoon came out in 1943!)
Crosstown Arts asked Optic Sink to score her films in 2022, and we were honored to be part of bringing her work to a bigger crowd in Memphis. After the show, people from the crowd enthusiastically discussed how incredible her work was and questioned why they had never heard of her, even though she was such a clear influence on so many notable filmmakers. We performed our live score again in Oxford in 2025 and a similar reaction bubbled through the crowd as they left the theater.
I’ve seen her films countless times now, and they still surprise and inspire me. Her work is timeless. I hope that you’ll buy her DVD and sync this record up to the films to experience this cross-dimensional collaboration. And I hope that you watch them again with their original scores and again with their silence. Something new reveals itself in every viewing. A true Relentless Metamorphosis.
I’d like to dedicate this LP to Mary Molinary, who passed away in 2025, but who will forever inspire me and countless others. She understood the power of deep resistance in poetry and art, and expressed it all with nuance, humor and a razor sharp wit. I wish we could share this with her and collaborate with her on more versions of this and other soundtracks. I’ll forever miss our conversations about our ideas, ideas, and more ideas no matter how far-fetched. Maybe one day I’ll be able to open a small theater in her honor. Whatever form the future takes, the dance will continue."—Natalie Hoffmann
