Matt Johnson hasn’t written new songs for his band THE THE in years. Rather, the Brit conceived of a new project, »Radio Cineola«, a critical radio programme about the current state of democracy. Johnson would like to inaugurate it with a twelve-hour live broadcast full of interviews and other formats. The only problem: earlier, he’d promised his former partner, the Swedish documentary filmmaker and artist Johanna St Michael, that he’d write at least one new song for the show.
But he when he is overcome by the old lethargy and a sudden tragedy, his own failure is suddenly hovering in the air. St Michael has captured this story in the sensitive documentary film »The Inertia Variations«. It is as much a portrait of an ambitious musician as it is a portrait of our contemporary societal discourse.