Edward Mordrake was reportedly a 19th century heir to an English peerage that was born with a second face on the back of his head. Removal of the face was impossible without killing him. The story goes that the face could not speak, but its eyes would follow people's faces and its mouth could tremble and whimper. Edward said the face would talk to him in the night and torment him, and apparently when he would cry the face would sneer or smile. Eventually it grew too much and Edward killed himself by putting a bullet between the eyes of his 'devil-twin.' Edward left behind a letter requesting that the ‘demon face’ be destroyed before his burial, ‘lest it continues its dreadful whisperings in my grave.’
In some versions of the story the face is that of a girl, such as Tom Waits' retelling go the story in the song Poor Edward from his record Alice – where he twists it a little and uses it to express the themes of love, lust, romantic obsession and destruction that permeate the entire record. It's one of my favourites of his, although it's not the sort of thing you throw on the stereo on a lazy Sunday morning. He has a new record coming out soon. !
Below is a picture of a wax rendering of Edward made long after his demise. Its accuracy is dubious. The interwebs would have you believe this is a photo of Edward himself, but do a little digging and you soon find that no such photo exists. The entire story is somewhat dubious. Parasitic twins are definitely real, but the twin and the host are always the same sex, and the fact that there is precious little literature about this case from the time of the events, combined with the fantastical nature of the story, would lead one to believe that the facts have become distorted and exaggerated over time in the service of a good yarn. Not that I'm complaining.
Here's the new video for "Go Outside", by the band Cults. The Cults record has been one of my favourites of the year. Some nice sunny melodies, with lovely echoey spacious production, and then a serious, unnerving undercurrent in some of the lyrics throughout. Some of the lyrics are actually quite menacing in the way they talk about power dynamics and sinister themes in such a naive, sunny way. They have also spliced in recording of speeches from actual cult members/leaders throughout the record, although not in a way that is invasive or jarring. it just slides into the mix, you might not even notice it. I think that's what i like about the record. You can just slip it on and listen to the sunny carefree melodies, or you can listen harder and discover the hidden darker themes. I like that.
In this clip, the two band members insert themselves into archival footage of the Jonestown cult. A friend emailed me this and wondered if I thought it was inappropriate to use footage from such a tragic incident in a music video. For the reasons I've stated above, I can understand why he might have thought this. It's just a sunny pop song! But when you take it in context of their other music, their subject material, and, well, their name, I think there's definitely artistic merit. And the video doesn't use any overly dramatic or sensational images. It's all quite tastefully done, and I think it culminates in a fantastic video.
This animated short was completed by four students from the School of Arts of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Very impressive. I especially enjoyed the painterly quality of the character design and the sound design is awesome through headphones.
