Disaster Passport (“Koyaanisqatsi” screening with live score), Faux Fawn at Bur Oak

Madison band Disaster Passport has built up a dedicated local following by doing something that looks downright absurd in theory: writing its own score to a film (Koyaanisqatsi) that already has a score (by Philip Glass)—one so iconic that it’s hard to separate the music from the core experience. Back in 2018, the four-piece began playing live shows accompanying Godfrey Reggio’s experimental 1982 docu-portrait of a world barreling toward environmental collapse.

Rather than re-interpreting the towering choral themes and kinetic orchestration of Glass’ original score, or even particularly taking cues from it, Disaster Passport started from scratch. Banjos (Andy Moore and Colin Crowley), baritone guitar (Karl Christenson of Cribshitter), drums, and loops (both from Luke Bassuener of Asumaya) offer viewers a more rambling, ruminative path into the film. (Full disclosure: Moore is a Tone Madison contributor.)

Reggio’s editing style moves Koyaanisqatsi along at a nimble and at times fevered pace. Sure, it was initially intended to go along with Glass’ music—but when a film is so packed with rhythmic cues and powerful, wordless messages, why shouldn’t other musicians offer a different kind of interplay entirely? Disaster Passport composed the score over the course of eight months, but audiences can hear improvisational elements evolve and shift from one performance to the next, as the musicians respond to  the film’s rich layers.

At this show, Stoughton-based singer-songwriter Paul Otteson and his band Faux Fawn will open things up. Expect a set of tender, poignant folk songs with their own kind of cinematic scope.

—Scott Gordon

Score by Disaster Passport

Photo by Audre Rae Photography.