Graeme Stephen: Live Score for ‘The Penalty’
Leith Depot - 18/12/23
Graeme Stephen, guitar | Elie Afif, double bass | Davide Rinalde, drums
If there is any real magic to be found in the world, it is surely channelled by music and art of the kind that emerges from the shadows and takes us by surprise. That is very much the feeling communicated by listening to award-winning Scottish guitarist and composer Graeme Stephen, along with double bassist Elie Afif and drummer Davide Rinalde, performing his vividly varied soundtrack to the 1920s silent movie ‘The Penalty’.
On this occasion, the experience was viewed and heard a few feet away from the musicians and shared with no more than a dozen other people in the intimate surrounds of Leith Depot’s performance room. That reality embodies the paradox of operating in the shadowlands of jazz and experimental music. The numbers do not necessarily follow the quality, although thankfully Graeme Stephen has achieved a fair bit of international as well as local acclaim in a playing and writing career which has included numerous stellar collaborations, his own ensembles, the Playtime residency, many festival appearances, creative Dutch string quartet Zapp4, and much more.
Scoring for films is something that has interested Stephen for some time. His roster includes ‘Nosferatu’, ‘Sunrise’ and ‘Metropolis’. ‘The Penalty’ (Goldwyn Pictures) is a curiously noire psychological crime movie, seen by many as a proto-horror film. It is essentially a morality tale about a disabled crime boss of the Barbary Coast underworld caught up in revenge. He eventually repents (after his terrible past comes to haunt him in the aftermath of surgery), but is killed by anxious rivals before he can enjoy lasting happiness with his wife.
Graeme Stephen’s absorbing score blends strong melodic and rhythmic ideas with the artful use of looping and guitar effects to create a musical narrative that matches, but does not simply copy, the emotional and plot shifts and sequences of the film. Originally performed with a cellist in 2019, to some considerable acclaim, the composer has reworked ‘The Penalty’ for double bass and drums, with the latter alternating between more driving patterns and many moments of textured percussive beauty and subtlety.
Although the whole work is carefully structured and written, there is necessary room for improvisation. Throughout the performance the three musicians were sight-reading, following the film from a laptop at the front of the stage as it was projected behind them, and carefully tracking what the others were doing. This took immense skill and concentration.
Graeme Stephen’s guitar remains central throughout the performance. But he does not grab musical space gratuitously, allowing plenty of scope for his talented and thoughtful collaborators, Elie Afif and Davide Rinalde. The score is really well paced and varied, with themes and fragments re-emerging and developing, and a few puzzles thrown into the mix for music nerds.
As a musician, Stephen is very much his own man. But he listens and absorbs widely. Perhaps his most noticeable influence (especially in a context like this) is famously eclectic and effects-driven American jazz guitarist and composer, Bill Frisell. ‘The Penalty’ duly draws on Americana and a whole range of musical styles. Yet it also coheres and propels.
All told, a fascinating and energising evening. Graeme Stephen is planning other live film score performances in 2024, including the new scores to Buster Keaton movies that he presented on New Year’s Day in Edinburgh. They will be well worth looking out for. See: Graeme Stephen’s Facebook and website.
