The Man from Mo'Wax

A profile of British record label founder and dance music magpie James Lavelle might have ended on a dizzying high or at rock bottom, depending on when in his rollercoaster 28-year career director Matthew Jones called "Cut!". What's illuminating about this music-biz hagiography is its similarity in self-parodic tone to the conventional rock bio. The self-starting teen prodigy from Oxford, who was taught the cello by his grandmother, fell in love with hip-hop, frequented record shops and landed a specialist magazine column that grew into the label Mo'Wax when he was 18. Lavelle might have been achingly hip, but he was also, as one acolyte puts it, a nerdy "kid with glasses". He later became Stalinist in his ruthlessness and many of the talking heads are grudgeful, lamenting the loss of Lavelle's early "spliff and a handshake" approach. Scoring a hit with San Francisco's DJ Shadow, success went to his head: overreaching financially, believing his own press, sinking money into clothing lines and action figures, he was laid low - or high - by a "cocaine epidemic". Priceless footage abounds, from Shadow's surreal basement, floor-to-ceiling with vinyl, to tense recording sessions for projects that gave Lavelle little to contribute beyond "editorial". The film's graphics are slick and funky, in the Mo'Wax house style, but sit in contrast to Lavelle's Dorian Gray-like disintegration. Salvation comes with the invitation from London's Southbank to host 2014's Meltdown festival, which leaves Lavelle "publicly validated". A compelling portrait of a superstar without a clear job description.