Kick That Habit

Kick That Habit is neither a conventional portrait of a musician nor a psychedelic illustration of Recycling Noise Music or video-clip tarted up with documentary frills. It is a subtle attempt to mesh a visual and an acoustic world of expression that ends up creating a fine-spun synthesis. The portrait of two musicians (Norbert Möslang and Andy Guhl) who recycle discarded electronic equipment to produce innovative sounds is the starting point of an enigmatic search for lost, destroyed, deranged experiential worlds. Footage of the two musicians’ rehearsals and concerts is juxtaposed with visual shards of the film-maker’s own memory. The sense of doom that Peter Liechti can coax out of everyday occurrences is vitally present in the music, too. These autonomous parts are interwoven with a “Trip to the Mountains”, to the Alpstein, and down to Lake Constance – two magic pillars delimiting eastern Switzerland, the native region of both the film-maker and the musicians. —Crossing Festival Beijing 2008