Buster Keaton’s The General with Live Score By Haiku Salut

We are very excited to be a venue partner for Hinterlands International Rural Film Festival 2022. There are three events happening at Skipton Town Hall over the festival weekend. See that What’s On page for more details.

Cult instrumental group Haiku Salut perform an original contemporary live score to Buster Keaton’s 1926 legendary comedy classic, ‘The General’, regularly named as one of the greatest films ever made, and a landmark of silent cinema.

Hapless railroad engineer Johnnie Gray faces off against Union soldiers during the American Civil War. When Johnnie’s fiancée, Annabelle, is accidentally taken away while on a train stolen by Northern forces. Johnnie pursues her across the Great American Midwest using various modes of transportation in incredible comic scenes showcasing Keaton’s enthralling wit and dexterity.

Haiku Salut

Haiku Salut are an instrumental dream pop and electronica trio from the Derbyshire Dales. The group consists of multi-instrumentalists Gemma Barkerwood, Sophie Barkerwood, and Louise Croft. Between them, Haiku Salut play accordion, piano, glockenspiel, trumpet, guitar, ukulele,drums, and melodica. Their music also features electronic elements, which they refer to as “loopery and laptopery”.

Haiku Salut’s score for the film was released as a double album – also entitled The General – in 2019. The album was met with widespread critical acclaim. In October 2019, the trio performed the live score at the Albert Hall film festival. Lucy Noble, Artistic Director of the Royal Albert Hall, said: “New scores from the likes of Haiku Salut show how the genre can be taken in extraordinary new directions.”

“For a band consistently creating experimental yet deeply melodic music Haiku Salut’s score for The General is yet another success. Not only do they find new ways to immerse the audience into this cinema classic, but in doing so have shown themselves to be among the most artful composers of the moment.” – Loud And Quiet

“The General is simply breathtaking. It presents Keaton’s masterpiece in a brilliant new light, imbuing the classic images with a combination of moody melancholia and industrial modernity” – Popmatters.

‘This isn’t just a great soundtrack, it’s an incredible ambient album to get lost in time and time again.” – God Is In The TV

Short film – Soundtrack to Skipton

The premiere of a short film, commissioned by Hinterlands, will be shown prior to the main screening. This is a collaboration between local musician, Rose Wheeler, and Yorkshire-based filmmaker, Juliett Klottrup, inspired by crowdsourced sounds from our growing soundmap of Skipton.

Find out more about this project

View the Soundmap