Portrait by SG
Latest Updates:
10/12/24—"Nosferatu Boogie" (from Aphonia ) on Currents with Brian D. (WFMU, Jersey City, NJ).
10/3/24—"The Marrying Sort" from Aphonia on Don Campau's No Pigeonholes EXP (KOWS 92.5 FM, Occidental, CA).
9/23/24—"Fig Newton of My Imagination" from Aphonia on Surface Noise with Joe McGasko (WFMU, Jersey City, NJ)
9/21/24—"Nosferatu Boogie" from Aphonia on The Hotwire Mandate with Mike Lupica (WFMU, Jersey City, NJ)
9/10/24—New video up, a remix of Segundo De Chomón's 1908 film La grenouille (The Frog). The music is a sneak peak of 2024 album #6.
9/8/24—"The Marrying Sort" from Aphonia on Audio Collision with Cadmium Red (WOZO 103.9 FM, Knoxville, TN)
9/5/24—Aphonia featured in A Closer Listen's "Fall Music Preview 2024."
9/1/24—First review of Aphonia: "Very pleasant album where the sounds make synergy, create landscapes of yesteryear."—A3XN
9/1/24—Aphonia is released!
8/30/24—"The Moving Coffin" (from Anemic Music) on Six Degrees with Alan (WFMU, Jersey City, NJ)
8/29/24—"Spitting Images" (from Anemic Music) on Scott Williams's Show (WFMU, Jersey City, NJ)
8/23/24—Added Songkick widget to Events.
8/22/24—"Cinema Liberation" (from Forbidden Frames Soundtrack) on Chuck Nicklow's Popular Culture Process Filter (WRUW FM91.1, Cleveland, OH)
8/21/24—Interview in Vents Magazine.
8/20/24—Two upcoming Events: Le piano irrésistible at Millennium Film Workshops (Brooklyn) on August 30; and a live score to The Astronomer's Dream (1898) with Phenakisto at Normal's (Baltimore) on October 11.
8/17/24—New video. Le piano irrésistible (1907, directed by Alice Guy-Blaché; remixed and new score 2024).
8/15/24—Somehow I missed this review of Passages X–XXI from March at Arcane Candy. "The perfect lo-fi rainy day disc."
8/13/24—Two new silent film scores posted. Composed and performed in collaboration with Phenakisto. Drama at the Bottom of the Sea (1901) and Loie Fuller (1901).
8/9/24—"George Kaplan Suite: Mezzo Forte" (from The Cinema Detective) on Gaylord Fields's Show (WFMU, Jersey City, NJ)
7/23/24—Anemic Music reviewed at Monolith Cocktail. "Anemic Music reverberates, resonates and shakes to a range of psychedelic, post-rock, krautrock, scuzz and fuzz influences across a myriad of soundtrack-like instrumentals."
7/10/24—Anemic Music reviewed at This Is Darkness. "With gorgeous dark ambient and drone undertones... this is an album that will definitely appeal to those listeners looking for something a little different from the usual dark ambient fare. This is dark and edgy stuff, with eerie soundscape elements that compliment the guitars perfectly. Fantastic stuff!"
7/8/24—The Cinema Detective reviewed at Minor 7th. "Unapologetically anti-virtuosic and sparse... Simultaneously thoughtful, weird and creative... Has a minimalist appeal as the recordings of John Fahey on the Takoma label in the 1970s."
6/26/24—"A Life of Constant Aberration" (from Anemic Music) on Bruise on Silence with Jean D.L. (LYL Radio, Lyon/Paris, France)
6/26/24—"Death Whistles the Clues" (from The Cabinet of Modern Silent Cinema) on The End of Radio (WUSB 90.1 FM, Stony Brook, NY)
6/16/24—"George Kaplan Suite: Fortissimo" (from The Cinema Detective) on Radioactivity with Abbie From Mars (WFMU, Jersey City, NJ).
6/10/24—The Cabinet of Modern Silent Cinema reviewed at Rosy Overdrive.
6/7/24—Anemic Music featured at One Track at a Time.
6/6/24—"George Kaplan Suite: Fortissimo" (from The Cinema Detective) on Scott Williams's Show (WFMU, Jersey City, NJ).
5/29/24—Added Videos page. Now I just gotta make some new videos :)
5/29/24—Totally forgot I did this interview for Approaching Oblivion back in 2011.
5/25/24—Interview in Asphyxium Zine.
5/24/24—"Rudolf Arnheim" (from The Cinema Detective) on Obladada Soniko #31 (CAMP Radio, France).
5/20/24—"Come Back to the Corral, Fuzzy St. John" (from The Cabinet of Modern Silent Cinema) on FFFoxy Podcast #242 (Free Form Freakout, Mankato, MN).
5/5/24—"George Kaplan Suite: Fortissimo" from The Cinema Detective and "Blues for Colonel Brewster" from The Cabinet of Modern Silent Cinema played on Mixed Bag Sessions (Eternal Radio, UK).
5/4/24—"Forest Warrior" (from The Cabinet of Modern Silent Cinema) on Currents with Brian D., WFMU (Jersey City, NJ).
5/3/24—New album! The Cabinet of Modern Silent Cinema is released.
5/2/24—Theatrical premiere of Matt Barry's The Cinema Detective at Normal's in Baltimore.
4/28/24—The Cabinet of Modern Silent Cinema reviewed at Lost in a Sea of Sound.
"The perfect lo-fi rainy day disc."–Arcane Candy
"Beautiful sounds, both raw and polished... There is a feeling this is a lost Fahey or Basho recording."–Lost in a Sea of Sound
"Reverberates, resonates and shakes to a range of psychedelic, post-rock, krautrock, scuzz and fuzz influences across a myriad of soundtrack-like instrumentals."–Monolith Cocktail
"From quiet, forlorn electric guitar and bass duets to solo heavy electric guitar riffs. From bluesy workouts to distorted yet melodic songs that strongly recall the likes of Roy Montgomery."—Arcane Candy
Modern Silent Cinema makes soundtracks for imagined movies (and sometimes real ones). Lo-fi electro-acoustic experimental instrumental guitar music equally indebted to artists as disparate as Michio Kurihara, Jandek, Rhys Chatham, Leo Brouwer, Pelican, Gyorgi Ligeti, Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, Sun City Girls, and Paul "Wine" Jones. The project began in 2004 as a side project for Cullen Gallagher and has evolved into a two-decade songwriting exploration. Gallagher currently resides in Brooklyn, NY, and works as a library cataloger when he is not making music. His other endeavors include the hardcore bands Demoted and steve carface, and playing lap steel in Hard Job.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the project, Modern Silent Cinema is planning to have its most prolific year yet, releasing six albums that explore its past, present, and future. These works—culled from both new and archival recordings—capture the breadth, eclecticism, and growth of MSC over the years. The albums will be released throughout 2024 by Bad Channels Records.
•Passages X–XXI (for Solo Piano) (BCR-003, Jan. 2024)—MSC's second collection of impressionist lo-fi solo piano music.
•The Cinema Detective (BCR-007, Mar. 2024)—A soundtrack to the 2024 Orwellian experimental essay-film by Matt Barry, primarily solo acoustic guitar or synth.
•The Cabinet of Modern Silent Cinema (BCR-008, May 2024)—An archival mix of lo-fi experiments, micro-cassette demos, and three guitar duets with Boru from their project Siodmak.
•Anemic Music (BCR-009, July 2024)—Another archival mix that includes several of MSC's soundtracks, including scores to silent classics like Anemic Cinema and Gertie on Tour.
•Aphonia (BCR-010, Sept. 2024)—MSC's third collection of archival recordings.
•Capping off the year will be a sixth album of classical guitar works (presently untitled) in December.
Gallagher's personal statement: "I started Modern Silent Cinema in 2004 as a stop-gap between bands, intending just to record a few guitar chord progressions so I could practice bass. Outside of a few stray songs for bands where I wasn't the primary songwriter, this was the first time that I was truly in control of the music I was making. This is what made me realize that I not only love playing music—but that I love making it, from conception through performance all the way to the mixing and final release. There's a hand-made sensibility that is crucial to my practice as a musician and artist. The six albums being released in 2024 reflect who I've been as a musician, how I've grown, and where I'm going. There's no such thing as a typical Modern Silent Cinema album. The Anxiety of Indolence is more post-rock; Flesh Mother explores noise, feedback, and metal abstraction; The Passion Killer Whose Prison Romance Set Off a Scandal is sort of punk-surf; and Ghost even includes shoegaze ballads with vocals (even silent pictures learned to talk). The one constant in MSC is its growth. The December album will be my first collection of all classical guitar work—it feels great to culminate a year of new and old work with a fun challenge and fresh direction."
Buy Merch Online through Bandcamp
CDs also available from Bad Channels Records
Subscribe to MSC's YouTube channel
Listen to all the albums on Bandcamp
Visit MSC on Facebook @modernsilentcinemamusic
Follow MSC on Instagram @modernsilentcinema
Contact: modernsilentcinema@gmail.com
Bandcamp: www.modernsilentcinema.bandcamp.com
SoundCloud: www.soundcloud.com/modern-silent-cinema/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/modernsilentcinema/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/modernsilentcinemamusic
Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/hNkwQ5
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFdhJ4zHE_C5TL637axHbkA
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3kSVAsE1P06a8WawbE7ea7