This video, published in February 2019, explores the temporal features of the video essay and the needle-drop sequence in American Independent Cinema. Its first multi-screen section features the needle-drop moment of 36 song sequences from films also compiled in my Indy Vinyl supercuts. The second multi-screen (occupying the right-hand side of the screen) shows the rest of these sequences, up until the moment that the song associated with the needle-drop ceases to be heard.

I discuss the academic value of this video essay in my NECSUS ‘Indy Vinyl as Academic Book’ article, in the latter part of the section entitled ‘The scholarly value of the supercut: ‘Simple’ compilations and ‘critical’ montages’. The article can be found here.

The video features in the Sight and Sound poll of best video essays of 2019. In the poll, film theorist and curator Jiri Anger notes:

“Garwood’s research project on record-playing moments in American independent cinema keeps growing, with the aforementioned video being the most exciting instalment so far. Not unlike its role model, Christian Marclay’s 24-hour museum blockbuster, the video essay plays with the ambivalence of cinematic phantasmagoria, deconstructing it yet affirming its mysterious pull. Nevertheless, the way Garwood organises the clips into convoluted multi-screens and editing software interfaces makes this video so much more than a supercut-by-numbers, turning it into a poignant example of reflective videographic nostalgia.”