Arcade Fire: The Reflektor Tapes — DVD

Arcade Fire
The Reflektor Tapes — DVD
(Eagle Rock)
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Bono once said it was fortunate U2 became successful since they would have made a terrible bar band. The same can be said of Montreal’s Arcade Fire whose combination of indie rock with dance/disco, world music, EDM, art, prog and a few other genres is nothing if not audacious. It’s an approach that begs for visuals to enhance funhouse mirror music that can’t be confined, boxed in or even easily described. All of which explains the belated release of The Reflector Tapes, a 2015 documentary (of sorts) that follows the standard definition of that concept about as closely as the band adheres to any particular expectation of what they’ll do next.

Whether you’re already a fan or a newcomer to Arcade Fire’s bold 360 degree sound, the hour and a quarter film is a unique and daring attempt to capture their difficult to pigeonhole vibe. Clips of frontman Win Butler and wife Regine Chassagne both on and off stage during the tour for their successful 2013 Reflektor album, in the studio with its producer (LCD Soundsystem auteur James Murphy), in Haiti (where Chassagne has family roots) and carousing with the rest of the band in bizarre, almost unnerving paper mache oversized head masks are sliced and diced to dizzying effect accurately capturing the group’s similarly hyper and often kinetic music.

The footage shifts from handheld to steady, grainy black and white to sparkling color with wonderfully innovative surround audio — the film should definitely be experienced in 5.1 — that adds to the sensory overload effect with its swirling mix. Director Kahlil Joseph uses every editing trick to capture the already outsized, larger than life Butler and his expanded band. At about 75 minutes, it’s on the short side but since it’s packed with attention grabbing visuals, any longer would dilute the effect which already dissipates from hypnotic to somewhat wearing as it rolls on. Who needs drugs when you can push play to let the music and images transport you into a psychedelic space that’ll equal the effects of most contraband?

A second DVD presents a single Arcade Fire show (also directed by Joseph) recorded on the group’s June 6^th, 2014 date at London’s Earl’s Court arena. With 19 thousand seats, this is the size setting that Arcade Fire, with its sprawling 15 member line-up, needs. It feels appropriate that the venue which presented Pink Floyd performing Dark Side of the Moon for two sold out nights in 1973 should also host the equally dazzling spectacle of Arcade Fire. Most members play multiple instruments, there is a two piece brass section, another two violins, enough keyboards and percussion for a half dozen other bands and a spectacular light show to bring home the over-the-top, nearly two hour set that has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

Butler, whose black raccoon eye make-up (seemingly borrowed from Michael Stipe on R.E.M.s 2006 Around the Sun tour) commands center stage even when he’s not singing, the music is as grandiose as the instrumentation suggests, and even if the editing is on the caffeinated MTV side, it effectively captures one of the more jaw-dropping acts around. A collision of Flaming Lips, Peter Gabriel and later Talking Heads only starts to describe the overall effect. To borrow an expression from early fan and Reflektor title track contributor David Bowie, this DVD package is a gift of sound and vision.