The final diptych of connected songs comprises the sixth, “Porthcurno,” and the ninth and last, “Night in These Rooms.” In each, death now seems longer ago, and now Wright seems like she’s thinking about the future and the nature of mortality. The idea, it seems, is to slow down time, reduce the half-life of decay while simultaneously reveling in the beauty of transformation. “Let’s just breathe and see for a while,” Wright sings on the former track over piano and bass, and it’s such a fantastic line, the confidence of it, knowing we’ll recognize quiet blankness as a momentary state of bliss. The closing track is jazzier and folkier, with Coe’s clarinet taking on a new warmth. Wright can still hear the waves crashing outside, grief is still a weight pressing down, but the tune is sad and pretty, but the tune is sad and pretty, and she seems to have found some peace and acceptance: “Tonight I’ll let the ocean in/And these dark corners, I’ll just let them be.”
The Blossom Filled Streets entered the world in the summer of 2000, and Domino gave Movietone a small push, securing more press and even a brief tour of America. Notices were good, with many writers noting the group’s unusual mix of genres. In The Wire, the outlet that always championed the band, David Kennan hailed the record’s rare beauty and connected it to eccentric English artists like Robert Wyatt, Syd Barrett, and David Tibet. Others were less kind. The NME described the Movietone’s aesthetic as “Maybe there’s an old jazz record playing in the house across the bay, or a broken guitar feeding back almost out of earshot. It’s hard to tell.” But Wright found the description amusing and even inspiring—the band’s excellent final LP, 2003’s The Sand and Stars, was partly recorded on a beach in tribute.
After that, life intervened. Coe started a family, Matt and Sam Jones continued with Crescent. Wright has been working on an archival book and slowly recording songs for a new project called 1000 Dawns, which features members of her former band. But Movietone remains in the air, an overlooked band ripe for rediscovery. “One of the great unknown English groups, who were so obscure compared to what they should be,” said Stephen McRobbie in a Quietus Baker’s Dozen. “Perfect music,” said Carla dal Forno about The Blossom Filled Streets in another.
One of the beautiful things about Movietone is that they’re almost always written about as a spoke in their local scene’s wheel. The connections between the groups, offer a welcome vision of community in action. People discuss the Bristol post-rock scene as a whole because no one band eclipsed the others. They were all “small,” strictly speaking, and they all mattered. The crew that came together in a record shop turned their dreams into something real.
I knew none of this history when, by chance, I saw Movietone play in late 2000. I had just moved to Greensboro, N.C., and other than my partner, Julie, I didn’t know a soul. But I was on the path to becoming a regular at Gate City Noise, a record and skate shop on Tate Street next to the university. I’d pop in after writing at a nearby coffee shop, check out the new arrivals, and talk music with Andrew, the owner. One night I walked in and Movietone had just started playing. I’d lucked into an in-store performance, and I was immediately transfixed. This was strange and thrilling music—it was loud, I can still hear Coe’s clarinet snaking between the rafters—and I could sense that I was among my people.
