@ Cineworld, Edinburgh, Wed 24 Jun & Odeon, Edinburgh, Sat 27 Jun 2015

Stefan Schwietert / Switzerland, Germany / 2015 / 86 min

As half of the KLF, rock renegade and situationist prankster Bill Drummond was once the biggest-selling pop star in Britain. But since his former outfit committed career hara-kiri in a Brits-sabotaging, million-quid-burning blaze of glory in the mid-90s, he’s turned to more sedate pursuits, most notably his conceptual choir, The17, the focus of this documentary.

The17 comprises anyone Drummond can get to sing for him – untrained and often unwilling volunteers cajoled into song using unconventional written scores like “Listen. Listen hard. Then go about your day.” For this particular score, Drummond follows a line of latitude across the British Isles in a Land Rover, recording people he finds on the way. There is to be a single playback of the finished output on an Atlantic coast hilltop, and then nothing. Delete file. Empty trash.

Parts of the film are beautiful. Forgotten corners of England are captured in all their unadorned rawness: the wind billowing through east coast fields, shop signs flickering in Lancashire mill-towns, crisp packets and beer bottles rattling along a Liverpool street. Drummond marches around them all purposefully in a prehistoric leather trench coat, often with a sign or a poster under his arm, looking for choristers. In Gogglebox fashion, it is these members of the public that provide the unscripted highlights. Welsh nuns, Asian taxi drivers, tough-talking roadmenders all admirably ditch their inhibitions and do what the mad Scottish guy tells them.

The film frequently threatens to open up a discussion about the nature of music, and would be better for doing so. Its most arresting sequence is Drummond explaining his inspiration for the choir – the hum of his Land Rover on long journeys transforming into a primal-sounding Viking horde. But the effect is undermined by biographical passages. We see Drummond’s photo albums, his KLF memorabilia, a clip of him explaining why he burnt a million quid to Irish chat show host Gay Byrne. All interesting in its own way, but for a different film. If The17 is about time, place and reuniting people and song, Drummond’s backstory is irrelevant. He’s the conductor, not the prima donna.

It is good to know that Drummond’s maverick spirit and desire to explore is undimmed, but Imagine Waking Up… misses out on saying something universal about the nature of music and song in favour of fans-only fare.

Showing as part of Edinburgh International Film Festival 2015