Can’t Get Off The Planet is a six-CD set that collects the late 60s to early 70s recording output of English performance artist/singer Pete Brown, with various musical collaborators. His output blended prog/ art rock with blues and jazz in an often original/distinctive manner. 

From the early 80s, The Last Horror Movie is a decidedly unpredictable blend of slasher, movie business satire, dark comedy, and fly-on-the-wall film festival documentary.  It features Joe Spinell (Maniac, The Godfather Part II) as an obsessive NYC taxi driver, and Caroline Munro (Slaughter High, The Spy Who Loved Me) as the focus of his obsession, a horror starlet. The film takes place during the Cannes Film Festival, and it’s certainly a distinctive/if-haphazard creation. Here from Troma Films is a recent Blu-ray release taking in several commentary tracks and a few other extras.

The Betrayal, originally released in 1966, is an evocative and stylish Samurai film that defies expectations. Director Tokuzo Tanaka, a former assistant to legendary helmer of Samurai classics, Akira Kurosawa, stepped out from the shadows with this jidaigeki (period drama). While it may not have afforded him the same fame as Kurosawa, certainly outside Japan, The Betrayal is a must-watch for fans of the swordplay genre.

Nagual is an album that sits somewhere between modern chamber music and avant-garde jazz. The seven-piece CD release shifts between tautly uneasy, clunkily shadowy, and broodily edgy.

Drift is the debut album from Stroud, UK-based composer James Opstad. It serves five varied and rewarding examples of modern chamber works- performed by Apartment House, GBSR duo, and Heather Roche.

Blanca is an eight-track album focused on windswept and moodily elemental works for the Viola. It takes its name from a small town in rural southeastern Spain, where Berlin-born violist Julia Eckhardt took up residency during the winter of 2022 for a month, spending her days walking the majestic but intimidating hill-lands that surround the town.

The Curve Of The Blade is a recent three-track release from Worship. The decidedly mysterious wall noise/ drone project, which themes all of its work on praising the female form, in a non-smutty/ sleazy manner.

From the early 70s, The Perfume Of The Woman In Black blends are they-or-are-they not-mad thriller, stylish/elegant Giallo, and psychological horror. It features a well-placed/believable lead Mimsy Farmer, who plays an overworked industrial scientist, who may/may not be losing her marbles. Here from Powerhouse, either as a UHD or Blu-ray, is a new release of the film. Taking in a wonderful, lush and bold 4k print, a commentary track from genre experts, and a great selection of new extras.

Finnish filmmaker Joey Palmroos follows up his debut western, The Outlaws (starring Oscar-nominated actor Eric Roberts), with last year's Delivery Run. This Minnesota-set thriller had me hopeful, but ultimately left me cold!

Taking inspiration from a very famous line from a Longfellow poem (The Theologian's Tale), Bewider's Ships That Pass in the Night is the fourth release from the project of film composer Piernicola Di Muro.

Trashy serves up two fifteen-minute slices of terminally battering & bleak-walled noise, with a sleazy theme.  If you’ve investigated the wall noise genre beyond known names like Vomir, The Rita, or Richard Ramirez. You’ll probably be aware of this California project, as it most certainly is one of the most prolific projects in the scene.

Here we have two slices of taut lowercase wall craft from this new UK project. Each track comes in at dead on the ten-minute mark, and each is an example of busy to (seemingly) paring back noise craft.

“We do not come in peace. We do not wish to insult intoxicated fanatics, people from Østfold, northerners, writers of children's books, lawyers, those in the service industry, or teachers.” Now that sounds like a mission statement. And it sort of is, these words forming the basis of a union between two unique Norwegian collectives -  Oslo’s DNA?AND? & Stavanger’s Lampeknusekontoret – each a coalition of  professional musicians and young people with disabilities. They’re no strangers to working together and so last year the two groups joined forces once again to create Hot Hot Hot a maelstrom of sound and noise with pertinent nods to post-punk, ambient and the avant-garde.

Norwegian solo project Rot Shrine is somewhere between dungeon synth and bedroom black metal. They are releasing their first recordings this year in 2025, and their full-length on Polypus Records is called Death to the King of Salem,

Here’s the second in a series of volumes which I hope never end: a six-CD boxset of remastered early Richard Ramirez cassettes. Hopefully, I don’t need to introduce Ramirez, but for the uninitiated, his vast discography is an essential foundation stone for harsh noise walls and indeed harsh noise. The releases in this set sometimes play with the boundaries between those two genres, and beyond that are simply great examples of 1990’s harsh noise.