When he wasn’t busy changing the world forever by compiling the Anthology of American Folk Music, forging new ground in the fields of anthropology and ethnomusicology, engaging in Thelemic magickal practice and the wider world of occultism and generally making the scene as all-round godhead of mid 20th Century beatnik weirdness, Harry Smith liked nothing more than knocking out tripped out experimental films such as the ones that follow.
Most of his earlier stuff was entirely abstract, though no less captivating for it:
It seems it was slightly later that animated figures and symbolism started to find their way into his work, resulting in some truly incredible stuff; mindbending esoteric psychedelia, years before anyone even came up with the term ‘psychedelia’:
Sixty seven minutes of his quite unbelievably strange “Heaven and Earth Magic” can currently be seen on Youtube. Apparently his original cut ran for over six hours! Here’s part # 1:
I dare you to get to the end of part # 7 in one sitting.
Finally, here’s some words of wisdom(?) from the man himself in his later years. I wonder if he and Burroughs ever got together for a grumpy old coot counter-cultural griping contest? God, I hope not. My money’d be on Harry anyway.
I had a very strong sense of deja-vu during the bit where he starts going on about two books someone sent him to review – sure I’ve heard that sampled/quoted somewhere…
The music in some of the above videos is interesting too of course. “Heaven & Earth Magic” may just have a load of cat noises, and “No. 11” has been fitted out with a nice bit of Thelonious Monk, but the music accompanying the first ‘Abstractions’ video could easily be a LaMonte Young or Tony Conrad piece, and you can clearly hear Angus Maclise banging away on some of the others… interesting stuff.
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