Alloy Orchestra

The Alloy Orchestra is a truly original concept, creating new music (and sound effects) for old silent films using computers, synthesizers, and a wide variety of found instruments. Their incredible repertoire of music-making devices allows the group to reproduce any and all sounds, from toddlers giggling, to trains chugging along, to cars crashing. In addition to their incredible abilities (and innovations) as musicians, the three-man orchestra also has impeccable taste in film. They have scored classic German silents (Nosferatu, Metropolis), avant-garde soviet films (A Man With a Movie Camera, Strike), early American pictures (The Unknown, Steamboat Bill, The Wind, and Lonesome), and a French film from 1904 (A Trip to the Moon), as well as American slapstick films from Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and Charlie Chaplin. The orchestra also tours frequently, visiting large theaters and accompanying the films as they play.

In addition to an obvious knowledge of great cinema, the three group members are music veterans. Synthesizer-person Roger Miller was the guitarist for the prototypical Boston punk group Mission of Burma through the 1980s and the early 1990s, while percussionist Ken Winokur has played with Bim Skala Bim, No Man, and Morphine, among others. Terry Donahue was in the Fairport Convention in the early 1970s, and more recently in the Concussion Ensemble. Miller has since formed the group Binary System, who have recorded for the experimental Atavistic label.

The effects of the Alloy Orchestra can be strange, and for those accustomed to silence during silent films, can also be shocking. Not only does the group provide music and sound effects, but they comment editorially on the films. Cheerful and optimistic segments give way to dark stretches, which give way to triumphant outbursts. Is it always as the director would have intended it? ~ Ben Tausig