Parallel Planes

The German word for a catchy tune is Ohrwurm. When translated directly into English it means ear worm. What this German term has over it's English equivalent is that it gets far more quickly far more directly to the point: music can crawl into holes in your head, touch your thinking and change who you are forever. Nicole Wegner's "Parallel Planes" doesn't take us on a tour of music, she lets us go "on tour" with her in and around music. Her filmmaking troupe becomes our band as we touch down and into various sites and cities in the United States, meeting musicians along the way. As with any tour, this film could be a road movie, a travelogue, even a diary. While it remains all of these things, what it is most strongly is a carefully-crafted mixed-tape. After all, a glimpse into the undercurrents of the last 5 decades of US music is not meant to be exhaustive, it's meant to be mixed. Wegner is giving us this particular selection for the same reason that many artists in the film form their own labels, to "document" what they've uncovered going on around them because they feel strongly about it. A mixed-tape is a way of simultaneously holding onto and sharing a subset of music, like writing something strange and exciting in a strictly sonic language and passing it on in the world trusting that others will hear it too. This film is a proof that music does that, reminds us how and why, and thanks sincerely a handful of its unrelenting players.