Joseph Van Wissen & Jim Jarmusch: The Misery of Heaven

ou probably know Jim Jarmusch. He’s the idiosyncratic, white-haired director of Stranger Than Paradise, who’s been known to write iconic rock royalty such as Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Jack & Meg White and The Wu Tang Clan into his movies.
But unless you’re a Wire magazine subscriber, you probably have no idea who on earth Josef van Wissem – a Dutch minimalist composer and renowned lute player – is. No matter. For this collaboration, Jarmusch has traded in his director’s chair for an electric guitar, creating gentle but discordant waves of sound along the lines of Neil Young at his most adventurous, or Kevin Shields’ dreamy and atmospheric work with Patti Smith on The Coral Sea.
This is predominantly dark, staunchly avant garde and slightly unsettling stuff, but not without some genuine glimpses of genius. In particular, ‘The More She Burns The More Beautifully She Grows’ is gorgeous, featuring actress Tilda Swinton’s voice offering some precious respite from the challenging compositions that preceed it. When it comes to directors reinventing themselves as quirky musicians, David Lynch’s brilliant 2011 album Crazy Clown Time tops the pile. But this too is interesting. At the very least, Van Wissem and Jarmusch have concocted a curious sonic brew.