 | | Paper Rad - Talking Trash DVD |
I was very happy to find this day-glo bundle in my mailbox. Recently reminded of the kinetic potency of Paper Rad video streams after witnessing footage live with Extreme Animals, I was primed for a wholesome home viewing experience.
But firstly, if you have never had a Paper Rad encounter before, may I first direct your attention here:
www.PaperRad.org
Yes...you needed that didn't you? Perhaps not. Did it blow your mind or annoy your mind? You can probably make that decision for yourself and choose how to proceed. Choose your own adventure, if you shall.
By now many have an audio/visual sync of the Paper Rad/Load tag-team. Famously, Paper Rad and Load helped detonate a huge color bomb over New England. Though Paper Rad launched from Boston, the mushroom cloud rose over Providence, amidst such names as Fort Thunder, Lightning Bolt, Black Dice, and Load. Seems like just yesterday there really were tazers at the parties, then the mutation soon spread into households, galleries and publications spanning the globe. Yet still, righteously, new corneas are exposed to their projects everyday.
Following segments on the Lightning Bolt and Pick A Winner DVDs, this is their own official Load title. The DVD program delights for the most part. There is a beguiling menu, plenty of churning hyper-color flux, a Wizardzz (Bolt side project) music video, innumerable shards of 80s VHS footage that probe nostalgia nodes with humorous yet unsettling compulsion. An extended "Alfe TV Pilot" chapter that honors the Muppet Babies is perhaps the only momentum lag, and it wraps things up fairly quickly after that. But around 1.5 hours of entertainment is an ideal amount and a sound value.
Please wait until after viewing to indulge the restless mind with lofty concepts of meaning behind this work. Paper Rad invites relentless abstract multi-tasking like few others, but seriously just go limp, it's much more enjoyable. Ideally this DVD is best consumed with friends anticipating a unique ingestion of LCD, SGB, VGA and CRT expanding animation.
- Andy Tefft | 2006-09-13
