Jakob The Liar, is a DEFA film from the early 70’s set in 1944 in a Jewish ghetto, where an ex- café owner overhears a radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow but steady progress towards central Europe.  He tells a few people, with the word quickly spreading- he sees the news gives some hope, so he decides to pretend he has a radio himself. The picture blends grim drama with moments of levity/ hope, humour, and fantasy, making for an impactful, at times moving ride. Here from Eureka is a Blu-ray release of the film, featuring a 4k scan and a mix of new/ archive extras.

In 1976, director Francesco Rosi and producer Alberto Grimaldi adapted Leonardo Sciascia’s 1971 novel Equal Danger into the hazy, gritty thriller Illustrious Corpses, a film that offers no easy answers.

This is a sidetrack from my usual viewing, but a good one; Furious (1984) is here given the Blu-ray treatment by Visual Vengeance: one disc, a slipcase, a poster, some stickers, and a throwing star shaped ‘thingy’ designed to be hung off something. The film itself is short at 73 minutes, but the disc comes loaded with numerous extras, covering a wide range of material.

Re-Animator is director Stuart Gordon (From Beyond, Dagon and Castle Freak) and producer Brian Yuzna’s (Society, Bride of Reanimator and Beyond Reanimator) first foray into Lovecraft territory. This was closely followed by their adaptation of From Beyond, another Lovecraft tale that helped rocket the pair into the horror movie stratosphere. 

Non Toxique Lost stand as one of the lesser-known, though still important bands to appear from Berlin’s early 80’s industrial scene. 026750,9 is the bands thirty fifth album, which appeared in the latter part of last year on Klanggalerie as a CD.

Here we have a collaboration between two long-active German electro-acoustic soundmakers, Asmus Tietchens and Achim Wollscheid. Apparently,  the recording was found in a drawer in Tietchen's apartment last year, and it dates back some twenty years. What we have here is a single hour-long track, based around a droning yet often highly glitching soundcraft.