2020s 142 Items

From small beginnings in 1974 as a local cinema and university event, Film Fest Gent has grown yearly in stature and is now recognised as one of the major destinations for the film industry.

A vital component is the celebration of film music in the shape of the World Soundtrack Awards which honours the very best composers at work in the world of cinema.

In 2016 the award went to one of the most brilliant composers of his generation, Ryuichi Sakamoto. This is the first overview of his remarkable catalogue of film scores,

fully approved by the composer and performed by the masterful Brussels Philharmonic under the baton of Dirk Brossé. Sakamoto was already a celebrated pioneer in

electronic music and composer/pianist/singer in Japan when director Nagisa Oshima asked him to write the score for Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence in 1983 and also

to star alongside David Bowie. In a 30 year plus career since then he has worked with the cream of film directors including Bernardo Bertolucci (The Last Emperor),

Brian De Palma (Snake Eyes), Pedro Almodovar (High Heels) and most recently Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (The Revenant). This compilation is a fitting tribute to his status as one of the greatest living musicians and film composers.

Drum-machine soul, funk, disco and boogie from Buffalo, NY. Rare 7" singles and previously unreleased tracks presented as a complete album. In the early 70s, Jessie Key and Sylvester Cleary - two passionate idealists living in Buffalo, New York - formed a close friendship based on a mutual mission to better their city. The Attica State Prison Riot of 1971 was a burning memory, and the Arthur vs. Nyquist lawsuit - brought against the City of Buffalo for creating and maintaining a racially segregated school system - was on the docket. Key was once a cotton-laborer in Mississippi, who journeyed north for school where he met his kindred spirit, Cleary. The two struck up an intense friendship, bought a drum machine and recorded their first 45, "A Man," a paean to self-actualization and Black American empowerment, which they custom pressed and issued privately. Dozens of recordings followed over a decade long span, issued on local labels and warehoused on cassette tapes. Perennial optimists, Key & Cleary tried any - perhaps every! - path they could demarcate in hopes of forwarding their agenda of self-effected, positive change. They formed Buffalo’s first minority-owned construction company, opened a health food restaurant in a building previously occupied by a fast food chain, and even concocted a candy bar called "The Buffalo Treat," which they manufactured and sold locally. Eventually they started their own label, Buffalo’s Reflection. On it they released their masterpiece, "What It Takes To Live," a sought-after disco and Northern Soul classic, which previously appeared on Now-Again”s Soul Cal anthology. This album collates the breadth of Key & Cleary’s recordings from 1970 until the mid 1980s, both with songs issued on rare 7" singles and previously unreleased. It presents a conjoined musical vision and tells the story of a duo years ahead of their time, both musically and culturally. Love Is The Way was their ethos - their goal was to enlighten humanity and to bend history in a more loving direction through communion.