A former D.C. resident, Luke Wyatt didn’t change much about his aesthetic when he left town. The video craftsman and musician — whom I came to know several years ago, when he still lived here — has remained remarkably consistent, even while working with different labels and soaking up influences in New York, then Berlin, where he currently lives.
Wyatt, who performs under the name Torn Hawk, calls his visual work “video mulch.” His is a messy style that invites a lot of adjectives, but I think Bandwidth’s Joe Warminsky nailed it when he described Wyatt’s approach as “skewed, collaged VHS-vault footage combined with sometimes nutty winks and nods to decaying cultural memory.” Pitchfork’s Andy Beta called Wyatt’s videos “bizarre.” He’s correct, too.
Now Torn Hawk has a new, exquisite pile of mulch to pair with “There Was A Time,” the Ambien-like coda from his recent Mexican Summer debut, Let’s Cry And Do Pushups At The Same Time. It seems like stories are being told here, but that could be my attempt to bring a narrative to a lot of entrancing flotsam and jetsam that’s better observed than scrutinized.
Miss our recent interview with Torn Hawk? Read on.