(Eagle Vision,  90 MINUTES)

www.eaglerockent.com

 
Music used to be made in people's basements, and maybe it still is, a sacred site like the garage, where raw, embryonic musical inspiration could take shape unfettered and unpolluted by the thrush of the mainstream, hard to escape in the outside world. From the Basement is a new series of live performances broadcast on IFC late last year. The DVD comprises excerpts from appearances by seventeen of the brightest lights of the indie rock world, some gone major label but none compromising their musical visions.

From the Basement was originally made available in the UK beginning in late 2006 as a podcast and broadcast, and it's the brainchild of Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, who oversees the sound mix. The studio session setting heightens the presentation of these songs as music for its own sake, without even an announcer (Godrich envisioned the show along those lines, including the absence of a studio audience), so refreshing that's it's almost jarring to eyes used to music videos. Besides that it's just a great song compilation, with participants including the White Stripes, Beck, the Shins, Jarvis Cocker, the Eels, Super Furry Animals, Jarvis Cocker and Albert Hammond Jr. The full studio treatment is afforded numbers like Beck's "Motorcade" and "Cellphone's Dead" complete with DJ scratching.

The studio setting also means that sonically every nuance is accentuated, so the disc is perfect for expensive sound systems hooked up to the TV. Sonic Youth's songs lack the energy and sheer noise of their live show, but still illuminate the sound inside their heads. Acoustic numbers from Neil Hannon, Laura Marling and PJ Harvey attain added intimacy. It's fitting that the volume is bookended with Radiohead - openers "All I Need" and "Reckoner" and closing with Thom Yorke's renditions of "Down Is The New Up" and "Videotape" (Yorke was the show's very first guest, in December of 2006, along with the White Stripes), since the group is in the forefront not only musically but exploring new distribution methods.

Special features: Sound options: Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS Surround Stereo BRIAN STAKER