David Thomas Broughton is a musician. He hails from Otley, West Yorkshire; he now lives in North Korea. He has released four full-length records under his own name, the last of which Crippling Lack is a triple album featuring Beth Orton and Aidan Moffat, and was recorded in the UK and France, and by email from Pyongyang. His live performances are unpredictable, anarchic yet strangely absorbing events characterised by his use of rape alarms, radios, loop pedals and a strong element of confrontation. He also loves ornithology. This much we do know about David Thomas Broughton. The rest is open to speculation.
Three years ago English film maker Greg Butler set out to make a music documentary that might unravel some of the mystery surrounding Broughton, the way his mind works and his creative processes. But Butler first had to try and raise £10,000 to fund the project, the majority of which he eventually acquired through a successful crowdfunding campaign. He then created a feature length film about his subject that weaved together archive live footage of Broughton, a series of candid interviews with his friends and family, surreal cartoon sequences and some discreet, lo-fi camera work following the man himself.
Tonight at The Crescent Community Venue In York, The Ambiguity of David Thomas Broughton was given its 10th public showing. For 60 minutes we follow Broughton on a trajectory of sorts from his second ever solo live performance in January 2012, where he supported the American singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds, to an appearance at the End of the Road festival in September 2014.
There may be no triumphant Hollywood ending to this story but what we do get is a compelling, deeply compassionate portrait of a most enigmatic and experimental artist. David Thomas Broughton is revealed as a man who walks an artistic tightrope, apparently holding the balance between subversion and self-sabotage as he twists his beautiful folk ballads out of all recognition in a live setting.
Yet, as the film progresses and various friends, collaborators and family members – including Jonathan Meiburg of American indie-rock band Shearwater; fellow American, the independent folkie Sam Amidon; English visual artist David Shrigley; Simon Taffe, the founder of the End of the Road Festival, plus his father and siblings – offer their individual perspectives on Broughton it becomes abundantly clear that nobody really knows what is going on in his head.
At the end of the screening you may leave none the wiser about who David Thomas Broughton really is. But you do depart knowing that you have just spent the most rewarding hour in the celluloid company of one of the last remaining truly original and exciting English artists who is around today.
The Ambiguity of David Thomas Broughton was shown at The Crescent in York on 7th August 2016, hosted by Claire Kafker and Please Please You
The film will next be shown at this year’s End of the Road Festival
