Snapshot (aka The Day After Halloween) is a late 70’s Australian drama featuring light touches of thriller and horror genres. It regards a naive & hen-pecked twenty-something hairdresser- who gets pushed into topless modelling and is been stalked by an ice cream van-driving ex. It’s an engaging enough drama- that’s well enough acted, with the other genre touches adding a few surprises to the mix- though in no way is this a fully realized horror film or thriller, as its other title may suggest. Here from Powerhouse as either a UHD or Blu-Ray, is a recent release of film- featuring two 4k versions of the picture, and a good selection of largely archive-bound extras.

Black Flies, also known as Asphalt City in some territories, is the latest medical thriller from director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (Johnny Mad Dog and A Prayer Before Dawn). Fresh from the world of medical college, rookie paramedic Ollie Cross (Tye Sheridan) finds himself paired with hard-faced veteran Gene Rutkovsky (Sean Penn) as they trawl the streets of New York City helping where they can, despite their own prejudices. But how long can Ollie keep a strong exterior? How long can his mind hold up against the stress?

Maniera is the debut album from Italian Contemporary classical composer Marco Baldini. It features seven chamber pieces for strings played by the respected modern ensemble Apartment House. The album's tone moves from the forlornly rising, onto the soberingly grand & harmonically touched, to the shimmeringly & earthily droning.

Originally released in 1991 Psycho Savant was the third and to date final album from Nashville, Tennessee Thrash band Intruder. It’s an eight-track affair which sits on the technical and harmonic side of the genre. And if I were to compare their sound to anyone- it would be Anthrax, with maybe a few Death Angel touches- but with more soloing/ technical leanings.

Hot Spur is an extremely mean-spirited and nastily misogynistic late 1960’s US Western. It’s full to the brim with sleaze and abused female flesh, with more than a few touches of bloody ‘n’ whipping brutality. Here from the fine folks at Severin is the first ever fully uncut release of this true blue & nasty western roughie. With a new 4k scan of the film, and a few bloodily juicy extras.

Happy End (aka Šťastný Konec) is a late 60’s Czech dark comedy regarding a man's life moving backwards from his execution. It’s a wonderfully unbalancing, at points witty & clever film- which really gets the grey matter going, both in its structure and spell-binding use of backwards filming. Here from Second Run is a new region-free Blu-Ray release of the film- featuring a 4k scan of the picture, a commentary track, and a few other things.
 

Electronic rock? Electronic roll? However you'd like to categorize it, Electronicat's Saturation sees this French artist (aka Fred Bigot) continuing his journey to bring together noise, pop, rock, and easy listening into one vibrant, electronic soup, fit for modern robotic consumption. Mixing comfortability with surprising and jarring gruffer elements, the album keeps the listener on their toes and awaiting the next curveball to come. Refreshing to hear, Saturation comes at a perfect time when the Northern Hemisphere is starting to come out of its cold slumber and for that brief period when we forget what birds sounded like, Electronicat can start our days off right.

German imprint Dunkelheit Produktionen presents Me Dais Mucho Asco by Soma. This is my first foray into this Spanish sound artist who evidently has been around the block for a while producing several releases on such imprints as MARBE NEGRE and L. White.

Onna-musha severs up two slabs of wall noise brutality from this long-running & prolific California-based project. The release takes its name/ theme from Onna-musha (女武者) which refers to female warriors in pre-modern Japan, who fought in battle alongside male samurai's.

This rather lengthily titled release takes in a fourteen-and-a-half minute-long example of layered/ detailed walled noise with decidedly industrial leanings.  

Ours is a moment of unbridled optimization – of our bodies, careers, relationships, the list goes on. Experimental music is largely ambivalent when it comes to the performative demands of a well-tempered subject, gloriously free of the strictures of representation, imageless, some might even argue, obsolete. With this in mind, enter Andrea Taeggi’s latest release, Nattdett, which squats quite contentedly in obsolescence, at least in terms of its source material. Sounds culled and coaxed from bygone eras of electronics – including instruments that were never, strictly speaking, destined for musical uses – Nattdett is a percussive exploration, with an intentionally reduced palette. Over six long tracks, Taeggi sequences his outdated technology into mostly cyclical patterns, a grid of repetition that allows the subtlest variations to be experienced.

Seedpeople is a 90’s take on when aliens invade small-town America. The film mixes sci-fi & horror tropes- with some neat enough creature effects, a little bit of bloody/ spurting gore, and a fairly bland/ bad soap-like cast. Here from Full Moon Features, we have a recent Blu-Ray release of the film.

Here’s a track CD that sits 'n' drifts between atmospheric rock-based improv, piano / Moog-based improv, and general improv-fired ambience ‘n’ wondering jam. The release covers a fair few moods & tones, making for a decidedly eventful & varied ride.

Elegant Beast aka The Graceful Brute is a 1962 comedy/ thriller from director Yuzo Kawamashima (The Temple of Wild Geese, Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate and The Balloon), adapted from his own stage play by acclaimed writer/director Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba, Kuroneko and Children of Hiroshima) and starring Ayako Wakao (Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, Seiasku’s Wife and A Wife Confesses), Yunosuke Ito (Sanjuro, Ikiru and Ninja, A Band of Assassins) and Yuko Hamada (The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch, Baby Cart to Hades and Zatoichi the Outlaw).

Oakland-based musician Zachary James Watkins has learnt from the very best. His Mills College education brought him into contact with the likes of Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran - setting him up rather nicely for a career in the world of the avant-garde. A bit of a polymath when it comes to musical styles, Watkins is as comfortable with heavy noise as he is with subtle electronic experimentation, currently motivated by the healing power of high-vibration resonance. As he himself says, “the conscious investigation of harmonic tunings, acoustic resonance as well as social relationships can yield powerful experiences.”

Dark and brooding, the second release from Ulvtharm (Jouni Ollila, co-founder of Mz.412) descends with intensity and gravity, forcing the listener to focus on every beat, squeal, and syllable. 7 Uthras presents itself mostly through a martial industrial guise, though Ulvtharm's touches expand this into more realms, making the album the engaging piece gracing one's turntable. Mixing noisy synths, different rhythms, and oppressive vocals, 7 Uthras plays like the soundtrack to an alien invasion, and our new overlords aren't very happy

‘The Bad Shepherd’, a new suspense horror thriller directed by Geo Santini debuts in the UK on 22nd April.

From the early 1970s Impulse is drama come low-key thriller, with some psycho horror undertones, and a fair bit of soapy melodrama/ 70’s camp. It features in its lead Willam Shatner, as a charming-to-unbalanced playboy. Here from Grindhouse Releasing is a double disc Blu-Ray release of the film- taking in two bonus films, and a truly hefty selection of extras.

Collaged from the texts of phishing emails, Jan Jelinek has produced something so contemporary that it struggles to be interesting, which, I guess, is maybe the point. Much of the text is in English, but there are fragments in German as well, in case any of us happened to be unaware of the boundless reach of the global. This sounds dismissive, but, really, there is no lingua franca when it comes to attempts to con us out of money, access, whatever. In a sense, these emails are as geared as almost anything to a specific market or audience. The voices are ones that we’ve become accustomed to – robots, though that sounds hopelessly nostalgic – made to sound like humans, and the failure to do so is certainly rife with sonic potential. Jelinek repeats or cuts the texts of said emails, and puts them to mostly agreeable soundtracks, though nothing that feels intentionally musical.

Zwosch, Zwosch & Zwosch is an improv release that wonderfully swings between the manic and seared, to the more moody and atmospheric. It’s an album/ release that truly keeps the listener firmly on their toes throughout its nearing thirty-three-minute run.

The Borderlands is an early 2010 British-made found footage film that regards a group of Vatican investigators being sent to a countryside church, to find out whether a claimed miracle is real or faked.  The film is creepy and eerie, at points downright horrific- with a well-conceived story/ concept, and a believable cast, who manage to balance drama & subtle humour well.  All making this not only the best example of British found footage, but one of the greats of the genre. Here from Second Sight is a most welcome new release of the film.

Here’s a recent(ish) C30/ digital release from Rien- the highly minimalistic textured/ walled noise project of Sweden’s Johan Strömvall Hammarstedt (Gamiani, J S H, J.S.H., Marsh Croft Coven, The Man Who Drove The Hearse, Ominous Recordings).  It takes in two side-long tracks of ultra-minimal noise making.

Thoughts is a recent four-track release from the rather mysterious Worship project, which started out as a straight-walled noise venture- but recently has pushed more drone/ experimental elements. And that’s where this release sits, between wall & drone.

Directed by Kurando Mitsutake (Maniac Driver, Karate Kill and Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf) Lion-Girl is a 2023 sci-fi/superhero/ action movie based on characters created by manga legend Go Nagai, of Devilman and Mazinger Z fame. The film, which was largely shot in LA and partly funded by iconic Japanese studio Tohei stars Tori Griffith (Wake Up, Glass Darkly and the upcoming Bau, Artist at War) in the title role, Derek Mears (Swamp Thing, Alita: Battle Angel and the Friday the 13th remake) as Kaisei Kishi, David Sakurai (Fantastic Beasts, Man in the High Castle and Avatar: The Last Airbender TV series) and Damian Toofeek Raven (Chadwick Journals, Dexter and Zane’s Sex Chronicles)

Celestial Shrine is this Ukrainian band's debut album appearing on Debemur Morti Productions. It's a release that  blends Black Metal, Melodic Death Metal and Progressive Metal with traditional Folk singing and instrumentation

First off, some context: the second Iron Monkey album, Our Problem, is a sacred text for me; that album, and the 10” that followed, We’ve Learned Nothing, are both nigh perfect, and no other sludge metal gets close for me (with the exception of Eyehategod’s first album, and Noothgrush, who I’ve decided to move to the doom section of my brain). Iron Monkey were ferocious on record, and I was lucky enough to see them live before the sad passing of Johny Morrow, their singer. For better or worse, when the band reformed, with a mix of original members and new blood, to make the 9-13 album in 2017, I heard a few tracks and, undoubtedly swayed by my reverence for the Morrow years, quickly decided it didn’t match the legend in my head. Fast forward to 2024 and we have Spleen & Goad, and I’m pleased to say that whilst it doesn’t ascend the heights of Our Problem (and what does?), it’s a very solid album.

From the late 1980s, Spider Labyrinth is a supernatural Giallo in the style/ at times form of Dario Argento’s Suspiria. It’s a slowly unfolding film- which builds in both disquiet & creepy oddness- all moving towards a rather surreally deranged effects-led resolve.  Here from Severin is the first-ever digital release of this less-seen Italian film- with the two-disc UHD & Blu-Ray set offering up a brand spanking new 4 K scan, and truly hours of extras.

Elegy- The Recordings 1968-1971 is a six-CD boxset bringing together four studio albums, and two live albums from English progressive rock band Colosseum. The band's sound initially leaned more towards the jazz & blues side of the genre- though as they went on they brought in more rock edges, be they prog, psych, or theatrical bound. 

Combining many styles together to form an interesting style of her own, DJ Marcelle's A Different Fridge for Cheese brings forth an avant-garde approach to beat-driven electronic music. Her experimentation gives each track its own flavour and keeps her from being one-note or repetitive. Samples, noise, loops, and rhythmic percussion all work in conjunction to fill in any holes in this Cheese

Mad Dog Killer is a gritty/ at points fairly nasty Poliziottesco/ Italian crime thriller from the late 1970’s. It regards the escape from prison of sadistic killer Nanni Vitali played by Helmut Berger (The Dammed, The Godfather Part III), who with his goons carry out revenge on those who put him away. The film landed up on the video nasty list in the 1980’s, and as far as I can gather this Cheezy Movies DVD release features a fully uncut version of the film.

Tai Kato (I, The Executioner and Beast in the Shadows) directs this thrilling 1966 crime drama set against the backdrop of post-war Japan. A small rural community is terrorised by gangs of immigrant Koreans, who hassle and destroy the peaceful lives of anyone they can extort cash from. Dr Amamiya (Noboru Ando) watches from the sidelines, his rage bubbling over but prevented from interfering due to his self-imposed vow of pacifism. But how long can he hold back the anger and the lust for revenge?

Sting Of Death is glum, at points arty, at points pitch black comedy touched drama regarding a husband who has cheated on his wife he’s had two young children with. The 1990’s Japanese film is set in the 1950 shortly after the war has finished. It’s an extremely well-shot film- with fairly sparse dialogue, and a largely lulling pace. We get some wonderful imagery, touches of grim pathos, and moments of wondering what’s real & what’s not. Here we have a recent Blu-Ray release of the film from Radiance Films- with a new scan of the film, a few extras, and an inlay booklet.

From the late 1960’s That Cold Day In The Park, is a slow-burn drama-thriller with light psycho-thriller undertones. It regards a repressed, prim & proper thirtysomething upper-class woman who asks a late teen man into her apartment- after observing him sitting in the cold pouring rain. With the seemingly deaf ‘n’ dumb stranger becoming her obsession. The film features two well-picked leads, a slowly unfolding feeling of mental disquiet, and a rewardingly bleak character study. Here from Arrow Video is a new double disc Blu-Ray release of this film- taking in two different cuts of the picture, a commentary track, and a few other archive & new extras.

Those familiar with FourColor's (aka Keiichi Sugimoto) work will be reminded of the richness of his unique mode of guitar processing on Lightscape, though a few surprises await, too. For one, the guitar as source material assumes more of a supporting role here, washed into streams of effects and white noise, in which it finally disappears altogether (more on that below).

Released two years after the first film, Ghoulies II shifts the rubbery and demotic mini monsters to a travelling fairground setting- for a very 80’s blend of comedy & horror- with touches of heart & cheesiness added into the mix. From MVD's Rewind series here is a Blu-Ray release of the film taking in a new HD scan, and a good selection of archive extras.

Fleeting Moments Of Grace features two around twenty-five minutes of bounding, baying, and brain-rattling walled noise from this Scottish project. Going from both memory/ the projects Bandcamp this is the first new work from this project in three or four years.

Downtown Heat is a rather dialogue-heavy, at points unintentionally amusing action thriller from the mid-1990s. The most notable thing about it is that it was directed by prolific,  mostly genre-bound, and often sleazy Euro director Jess Franco. And boy it’s very un-Franco-like, with aside a few touches & cast members you wouldn’t know it had anything to with Uncle Jess. Here from Full Moon Features is a region-free release of the film.

David Jackson is a prolific English saxophonist, flautist and composer, famous for being a member of Van Der Graaf Generator, he has also worked with dozens of other artists including Peter Gabriel, Keith Tippett, Osanna Peter Hammill, and David Cross to name a few. This album is a collaboration with long-time friend and collaborator, visual sound artist René Van Commenée from the Netherlands who specialises in creating music and visuals for art installations, theatre productions and film and TV. The pair have been friends for a very long time, with René creating album covers and occasionally filling In on drums for Jackson from time to time. This album is the pair’s second collaboration after the live album, Batteries Included which was recorded in 1992/93 and eventually released in 2003.

In The Gloaming is an electroacoustic improv album that shifts from the abstractly moody- yet taut, onto the warblingly noisy, though to the hissing-to-brood bound.  The six-track album appears on London’s Not Applicable- as either a CD or download- I’m reviewing the former.

Pale Guilt is just over an hour’s worth of raw ‘n’ rumbling walled noise from this Moscow-based project. The single-track work is extremely heady with murky subterranean intent and often feels like it could be a recording of the slow awakening of some vast underground monster- as it stretches and snorts out clumps of earth.

Here we have a two-film box set bringing together two very tonally different 1970’s Yakuza thrillers/ action films featuring Shinichi “Sonny” Chiba. The first Yakuza Wolf is a decidedly dark ‘n’ sleazy affair with serious spaghetti western undertones. While the second is more of a typically 70’s action thriller, with some light-hearted/ comedic undertones. Here from Eureka Entertainment is the first-ever UK release of these. Each film gets a classy ‘n’ crisp HD scan, commentary tracks, and a video essay.

Strange Invaders is an early 1980’s tribute/ take on the 1950s when aliens invade small-town America fare- but with a few neat twists, turns, and of course better (if-sparse) effects too. Here from Australia’s Imprint is a recent Blu-Ray release of the film- taking in an HD scan of the picture, and a few new/ archive extras.

Female artists have been central to the evolution of drone and minimalist music from Pauline Oliveros and her pioneering of deep listening, Eliane Radigue, Laurie Spiegel through to current practitioners such as Suzanne Ciani, Sarah Davachi and Kali Malone. It is from this stable of great female artists that Spanish composer Carme López has sprung - bringing to the table her own unique brand of music centered on the Galician bagpipe; fitting given that she is also a researcher of the traditional oral music of Galicia. But López takes her musical adventures to a different level, expanding elements of sound to create ambient and experimental soundscapes while pushing the limit of her chosen instrument and extracting a deep and rich sonic experience all within a minimalist avant-garde framework. It is exactly this aesthetic that we find on her debut album Quintela.

‘Brightwood’ is a new horror movie by director Dane Elcar which was released on 21^st March across streaming platforms in the UK.  This follows a successful US release.

Frighteningly futuristic and dark, dreary dreams make up the concept of Venomous Echoes' Writhing Tomb Amongst the Stars, now coming to vinyl courtesy of I, Voidhanger. While death and rebirth is a common theme, Writhing covers this with a terrifying twist: being ripped apart and reassembled by tentacles night after night. Like Lovecraft and Geiger working together on a grim Groundhog Day, Writhing puts the vile vision out for all to ponder and sets it to fast and spacy blackened death metal. 

The Panther Women is a glorious late 60’s Mexican cinematic feast of masked superhero wrestling action, coffin creaking ‘n’ mist swirling gothic vibes, and detective ‘n’ gangster pulp. With side orders of female wrestling, lumbering-to-crawling creature feature, and a hell of a lot of campy ‘n’ creepy fun. Here from Powerhouse is a recent release of this wonderful crossbred- coming as either a UHD or Blu-Ray. Both feature a new 2k scan of the film, a commentary track, a few other extras, and an eighty-page inlay book.

INRI is a single forty-minute-long work that blends together constantly shedding/ chalky wall noise crunch with set/ brightly simmering ambience. It’s a work that nicely brings together searing & glowing ringing in an engagingly rewarding manner.

Gentrifier Genocide is an just under hour & a half journey in battering ‘n’ baying walled noise from this Cincinnati, Ohio-based project. The digital release takes in three around the twenty-eight-minute ‘walls’ with each being as crudely weathered & unforgiving as the next.

Composed and originally performed in 2019 in Vienna for the Wiener Modern festival, Ingrid Schmoliner's MNEEM is a feat of endurance and minimalist precision, interpreted by the work's author in front of an audience for over an hour! Written for prepared piano, MNEEM is a pre-digital loop: a circular phrase played by Schmoliner's right hand, while the right makes percussive work of the lower register. As with much in the post-Steve Reich orbit of new music/minimalism, the discrete separation of coordinated tasks and notes creates the possibility for an acute appreciation of the subtlest nuances within the looped arrangement of single notes. Without the benefit of a larger ensemble or any electronic device, Schmoliner's playing is breathtaking. Becoming author and interpreter in one, Schmoliner manages to isolate her limbs and hands in a manner as surgical as the steady march of MNEEM's constrained tonal vocabulary. There is no mistaking the recording and playing for anything less than analog and acoustic, with all of its restless movements and unavoidable flaws.

VIPCO (Video Instant Picture Company) were founded in the late 1970s by a man named Michael Lee. During this first incarnation of the company, they would release a host of controversial movies on VHS in the UK market, including such legendary titles as Driller Killer, Shogun Assassin, The Bogeyman and probably most contentiously of all, the strong uncut version of Lucio Fulci’s undead epic Zombie Flesh Eaters. After the introduction of the Video Recordings Act in 1984, all UK VHS releases needed to be certificated by the BBFC (British Board of Film Censorship as they were at the time, Censorship has since been dropped in favour of the less controversial sounding Classification). Lee and his company were one of those most affected by this change and many of his titles were no longer deemed legal in the UK, the BBFC would cut or ban outright certain titles that had been released by VIPCO causing a whole world of trouble for Lee and many of the other distributors operating in the UK at the time.

Sylvaine is the solo project of Norwegian/American Kathrine Shepard, who debuted the project in 2014.  This new release Eg Er Framand is her first in a couple of years, containing six tracks three- six minutes in length for an EP-sized release.

Sitting somewhere between off-kilter/ uneasy ambient, and warbling ‘n’ baying electro improv Autumn In The House Of Usher is a three-track three-inch CDR from Vancouver-based Eli Wallis.

Here’s a three-inch self-titled CDR that offers up three tracks worth of noise craft- which sits on the gasp of receptively shearing ‘n’ shredding textured noise, and walled noise.

East Coast vs West Coast is an American staple. Whether it's This is Boston, Not L.A., Biggie vs Pac, or Celtics vs Lakers, it is undeniable. With this disparate approach to life, art, and thought looming, NY artist Stuart Argabright took his time in L.A. as a reference point to start a new work. While helping to produce a mix tape with Stefan Scott Nelson, the two took some vocal tapes that Stuart had brought, slowed them down, and then added whatever they felt to capture certain L.A. vibes. An iconic place even for those that have only seen it in cinema, LA Drones captures the sunshine, traffic, freedom, oppression, and all that L.A. has to offer in between

The use of misleading titles is an old trick within exploitation cinema, and this early 1970s film is a prime example of this trope. The brutally munching fish of the title don't appear until an hour into the film- and when they do it’s fleeting. Yes, we do get two Piranha-based deaths- but these happen towards the end of the film, and again are fleeting. What the film is a jungle adventure- later- thriller, which finds a female photographer, her womanizing brother, and a guide going into the Venezuela jungles- coming across a cruel & callous hunter. Here from Cheezy Movies is a region-free DVD release of this somewhat forgotten/ lost film.

From Sailor Suit, Machine Gun and Love Hotel director Shinji Somai comes Typhoon Club(1985), a Japanese coming-of-age tale which follows a small group of students who find themselves locked in their school while one hell of a storm rages around them. However, that storm could never match the tempest of adolescent romance, grief and emerging self-revelations which are taking place among the students. 

From Second Run, here we have a three Blu-Ray boxset celebrating the early 1960s work of Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski- he stands as one of the key figures in the country's new wave cinema. His work is alive with visual depth and creativity- using conventional genres such as spotting dramas, romantic melodramas, and character studies as starting points to build his subtle satirizing & surreal film world around. The set brings together three feature lengths and a selection of early shorts.