La Serenissima is a two-CD set bringing together organ and harpsichord pieces composed by Richard Rijnvos. He’s a radical Dutch composer whose work is often concerned with stacking melodic patterns. Or utilising non-musical elements such as magic squares and chessboards to create his work. Most of his compositions are themed around locations, as is this collection, which takes its title from a nickname for the historical republic of Venice. 

First published in the year 1979, The Tuxedo Warrior looks at the early bouncer career of Cliff Twemlow. Who later went on to become a key figure in micro-budgeted/ often SOV  action/horror/sci-fi cinema of the UK, which this year has been celebrated by the excellent InterVision/ Severin Blu Ray Boxset Bloody Legend- which brought together a doc about the great man, eleven of his features and much more. Here from Severin/ Encyclopocalypse Publications is a reprint of the book.

The All-Night Video Guide: Slashers 70’s & 80’s is a glorious dive back into the golden age of slash ‘n’ stalk films. Instead of an in-depth/ definitive guide to the genre/ period, this is much more of a personal look at some of the favourite films of writer Robc. And it’s all the better for it, as it’s a wonderful, honest, down-to-earth, sometimes informative book, which feels like you're chatting in a bar with a buddy about films, instead of a stuffy study of the genre.

When visionary producer Haruki Kadokawa inherited his father’s publishing business in the mid-seventies, he promptly set about combining his two great interests - books and filmmaking – and transforming the Japanese film industry. In a bid to compete with the blockbusters that were arriving from the US (and which were very popular), he started to introduce 1970s Japanese audiences to the home-grown version.  First up in 1976 was the instantly popular murderous epic The Inugami Family, followed swiftly a year later by the masterful thriller Proof of the Man. Set in New York and Tokyo, it boasted a stellar cast of George Kennedy, Robert Earl Jones (James’ father)  Ozu favourite Mariko Okada and Kurosawa muse, Toshiro Mifune and went on to become Japan’s second highest-grossing film of all time (for a while anyway). 

Appearing four years before his slasher genre-defining classic Halloween, Dark Star was the first feature-length film directed by John Carpenter.  The film is a low-budget slice of Sci-fi regarding a spaceship manned by bearded, long-haired crewmen, who spend their days in deep space blowing up unstable planets. It’s a low-key parody/send-up of the genre, blending bickering/ bored crewmates, bombs that talk back,  a red ball with claws pet alien, a ship captain frozen in ice, and the odd subtle chuckle. Here from Fabulous Films is a dual UHD/Blu-ray release of the film.  It features two cuts of the picture,  a selection of new and archive extras (including a feature-length documentary), along with repro stills and posters, and a limited edition online exclusive clamshell/o-card package with a Dark Star patch.

Deadly Friend was the seventh film directed by horror icon Wes Craven (Last House On The Left, Nightmare On Elm Street, Scream). And the mid-80s film certainly stands as his most weird and tonally unbalancing creation, as it shifts from cute robot family movie to teenage abuse drama, to mad doctor meets supernatural slasher blend. Here from Arrow Video is a recent Blu-ray release- taking in a new commentary track, and a selection of new/ archive extras.

Shelf Life is the previously unreleased final film from director Paul Bartel (Death Race 2000, Eating Raoul and Lust in the Dust). Filmed in 1993, Bartel’s final film is a dark comedy with a fairly original premise that sets it apart from most other comedies of the time. Shelf Life stars O-Lan Jones (Mars Attacks, Edward Scissorhands and Beethoven), Andrea Stein (Hard to Kill, Trouble in Mind and Lois and Clark), Jim Turner (The Lost Boys, Kicking and Screaming and Joe’s Apartment), Paul Bartel (The Usual Suspects, Piranha and Escape from LA) and Shelby Lindley (Noragami, Puella Magi Madoka Magica and K-On!).

Bringing works of William S. Burroughs to the screen alongside an experimental soundtrack from some of the era's biggest names in industrial music, 1984's Decoder stands as a cyberpunk cult classic. With a number of songs by Genesis P-Orridge & Dave Ball, as well as FM Einheit, Einstürzende Neubauten, Soft Cell, and The The, its soundtrack is a testament to a fascinating piece of cinema nestled in a distinct and equally fascinating place and time. Filmed in Hamburg and Berlin by Klaus Maeck and Muscha, Decoder uses current industrial music as a revolution, sparking subterfuge, with the hunter trying to suppress the dissent. Available on a standalone CD for the first time in 33 years (there was a DVD/CD release in 2010), Decoder can now easily be heard by the masses without turning to auctions or haggling with secondhand resellers.

Vermilion Hours is a collaboration between French pianist Melaine Daliber and British soundscaper David Sylvian. The CD or vinyl album takes in two long slices of piano minimalism/ low-key simmering ambience, with two shorter versions of the same tracks topping off the release.

For Volin and Electronics Volume II is a  CD release collecting together nine tracks where violin and electronica wonderfully meet. Irish violinist Darragh Morgan is a supremely talented & versatile player, who here adds his deft/ at times detailed string work to the work of nine different composers.

The instrumentation on Jon Porras' Achlys is hard to pick out, and perhaps that is intentional. Whether guitars or soft synths, the sound sources on this ambient work are kind of all background, with little fury or pathos--very few lead lines or licks. That is the point of this kind of music, at least according to its chief architect, Brian Eno. The lack of counter point and inherent conflict was certainly welcome then, and maybe still is, too. Much on Achlys sounds like a refinement of Eno's early ambient works, specifically Ambient 1 (Music for Airports), the soundtrack to ambivalence. The transitioning and mixing of that seminal work are revived in Porras' hands, smoothing shifts between tracks, eight in all.

Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s third film is a fascinating mash of genres that keeps its audience guessing. On the face of it, the 2024 picture is a punchy entry in the brewing Airbnb horror subgenre popularised by films like 2020’s The Rental and 2022’s Barbarian. Horror fans, however, may be surprised at how well they take to an opening hour of mystery that unravels as an awkward romantic drama before things take a dramatic turn for the bloody.

Foutu is a recent four-track album from Bordeaux-based Raté . It’s another sonic journey into hope-numbing/nihilistically battering walled noise from the project. Each track comes in at just shy of fifteen minutes, and each is as unforgiving/ unrelenting as the other.

Incessant severs up an hour and seven minutes of wall noise head-roasting from this Hungarian project. The track blends thick roiling lows with jittering ‘n’ hissing mids, for a total sonic engulfment.

Etherfall is a new four-track/full-length release from Polish wall noise project Olion. Each ‘wall’ comes in around the fifteen-minute mark, with the entire release featuring an Icelandic ice desert and waterfalls theme.

OK, everyone involved in this project, please look away after this sentence: this is not really my kind of thing. Looking away? Good. This is not great. When I first looked at the album, which arrives on a CD in a somewhat thin cardboard wallet, I thought perhaps the title was a knowing nod and I would be listening to abstract electronics of some description. When I examined the line-up and saw a mixture of traditional folk instruments and ‘drum machine, synth, sampler’ I did raise an eyebrow, but within 90 seconds of pressing play my fears had been well surpassed, and teeth were gritted.

Priest is a powerful and, at times, highly moving British drama regarding a young Roman Catholic fighting with his faith and the hypocrisy of the church. The mid-'90s film was controversial upon release, due to touching on subjects such as child abuse and homosexuality.  Thirty-some years on, the film remains undated( aside from some of the soundtrack cues), retaining both its emotional effect and power regarding hypocrisy uncovered. Here from BFI is a new Blu-ray release of the film, taking in a new HD scan, and a selection of new and archive extras.

Composer, Alone is a three-CD set bringing together solo piano pieces by Swiss modern classical composer Jürg Frey. The largely stark/ sparsely toned works move between pattern-based, haunting tolling/ drifting, and more darting/ abstract. All twelve pieces featured here are played with great clarity, focus and depth by Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt.

The Willow Bends And So Do I is an hour-long piece from Stockholm-based Magnus Granberg, whose output sits somewhere between modern chamber music & gentle improvisation. This 2024 work is played by Skogen- a nine-piece collective, which features the composer him self on prepared piano.   And as a long-term fan of Mr Granberg's output, I’m happy to report this is another wholly captivating piece which seesaws between haunting, angularly intriguing, and subtle yet rewardingly noisy- with generally enchantingly creative use of textural detail throughout.

Here, from Deaf Crocodile, is a double-disc Blu-ray set bringing together two 1970s sci-fi films from behind the Iron Curtain, produced by East German state-run studio DEFA. Each film features a new HD scan and a commentary track  

Australian composer Peter Knight's latest work was inspired by the sea, sand, and wind of SE Australia, where the beaches and rivers of his childhood rekindled his passion for the area's intriguing beauty while on vacation with his family. For a Moment the Sky Knew My Name speaks to the transience of the wind, how it can shape and affect the landscape, always moving forward, but still echoing the past, much like the body will have its memories slowly blown away and forgotten. Much like the belief in Panta rhei, the beaches and rivers of Peter's youth may have familiar aspects, but they've all changed. But so has Peter. Memories are just that, immutable and in the past, and each new step in an old footprint is a brand new experience. 

Here’s a 2025 feature-length attempt at telling the story of 1970s  towering 6-foot-9 Californian serial killer Edmund Kemper, aka the Co-ed Killer, whose crimes involved decapitation, dismemberment, and necrophilia. The film is somewhat a hit & miss affair- on the positive side, the cast largely works and there are effective moments of shock/ unease. On the less positive side, it has a mixed tonal quality, some cheap period detail, and some decidedly uneven/ ropy editing. Here from Epic Pictures is a Blu-ray release of the film, with a commentary track and a few other extras.

From the late 1970s, Absolution is a  British Catholic boys' school set blend of drama & thriller, which nicely builds up both the feeling of suspense and rewarding plot twists. The film features a great/well-picked cast- bringing together Richard Burton as a pious/ at times cruel priest/teacher & Billy Connolly as a motorbike-bound free spirit/ vagabond- who sets up camp in a nearby forest. As well as some great performances from younger cast members, too. Here from 88 Films, as either a Blu-ray or DVD, is a new release of the film, taking in two versions of the film, two commentary tracks and a few interviews.

Jake Helgren steps away from his usual holiday rom-coms like Dashing in December and gives us the gift of The Naughty List of Mr Scrooge, a 2024 Christmas horror/slasher ensemble. Starring Skye Coyne, Colin Koth, Kim Whalen, Liz Fenning, Adam Bucci, Ali Zahiri, and Coél Mahal, the film follows a group of former college friends reuniting fifteen years after a tragedy during their production of A Christmas Carol, only to find themselves stalked by a killer dressed as a deranged Ebenezer Scrooge.

Circle The Sun is the first album of new material from this British band in four decades. It finds the four-piece band once again firing up their brew of strutting rock, upfront Hammond organ jamming, and gothic-themed prog. 

Leftovers 1970-1988 is a two-CD compilation bringing together rare outtakes, alternative versions, & unreleased tracks from those avant-popsters The Residents. Over the two discs, we get a total of thirty-one tracks, and for a long-term fan of the eyeballed & top-hatted one, it is a truly fascinating/revelatory release.

Disco Love Dub is a two-CD compilation bringing together 12” dub remixers, from 1978 to 1984- all created by respected reggae producer Joe Gibbs  & his band The Professionals.  The thirty-six track collection moves between more pared-back bass ‘n’ beats mixes, onto more dancefloor-focused fare, through to the more quirky/ wonky workouts.

Cyclic Law mainstay Ajna has returned with a lush and elegant follow up, New Revelations of Being, a sprawling seventy minutes, which is a listening experience much like exploring some subterranean city in a dream. For those unfamiliar, Ajna's primary language is rushes of air implying impossible vastness, and melodically imbued reverberant contrails (which is often called 'dark ambient'). This is something of an understated symphony, with three-dimensional modern sound design; a very wide stereo field

Gulskul is the self-titled debut album of this three-piece project, who create a warped, electro-buzzing,  noise-edged mix of lo-fi wave & shouty/baying female-led experimental post-punk. 

King Futile is the new project from Scotland-based Lea  Cummings( Kylie Minoise, Official Music Team, etc), and it’s a big departure from his normal noise or retro sample & electronica sound. Casual Misery is the project's debut, taking in eight tracks of lo-fi acoustic music, with an outsider feel, and often quite tongue-in-cheek/ sharply sarcastic tone to the lyrics.

Here’s a follow-up to Severin’s 2022 box set House Of Psychotic Women Rarities Collection. It’s once again curated by Kier-La Janisse, who penned the 2012 book House of Psychotic Women, which looked at female neurosis in horror and exploitation films. This recent Blu-ray collection brings together four more films from around the world, focusing on unhinged/unbalanced women. The set also takes in ten plus hours of extras- taking in new commentaries, introductions, interviews, short films & more.

Ninja Terminator is a cheapo Ninja action movie from 1986 directed by Godfrey Ho (The Ninja Squad, Ninja Destroyer and Thunder Ninja Kids: The Hunt for the Devil Boxer) and starring Richard Harrison (Ninja Dragon, Secret Agent Fireball and Terror Force Commando),  Jeong-Lee Hwang (Drunken Master, Game of Death II and Snake in the Eagles Shadow),  Jack Lam (The Leopard Fist Ninja, The Spring and Chains of Gold), and Maria Francesca (Operation Las Vegas, Diamond Ninja Force and Day of Violence).

Brian House has put together something of an album, the contents of which really pass over anything resembling the possibility of a critical appraisal (more on this in a sec). The concept of Infrasound –– the auditory information that exists below the threshold of human perception – is a topic closely wed to larger concerns of situatedenss, environmental awareness, and the like. So when Brian House, a professor of such things, set out to construct microphones capable of capturing such phenomena, the die was essentially cast. In other words, House, fully cognizant of this fact, had no real control over what it is said microphones would relay. In order to render these findings perceptible, House used an old chestnut of tape recording: speed things up, which will de facto pitch things up to a frequency range that our little lugs can hold onto.

Human emotion is often difficult to convey through words, so art becomes the perfect channel for those needing to express themselves on a deeper, more intuitive level than glossology alone. War has unfortunately been driving humans to the brink of their emotions since prehistory, but thankfully art has been there even longer to serve as an outlet for those needing to get their fears and frustrations out into the world. French artist Lambwool created Ashes as a necessary response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its profound (and warranted) effect on his mental state, the emotions stirring from current times, as well as the post-war trauma burned deeply into European psyches. This work of dark ambient conveys the cold, brutal essence of this war, but by not getting too mired in the darkness, it presents a hopeful air that can help us all get through dark, terrifying times.

From the early 2020s, Shakespeare's Shitstorm sees Lloyd Kaufman and the Troma team doing their own distinctively crude, wacky, and deranged take on the Bard's play The Tempest. It finds mad doctor Prospero (Kaufman) shipwrecking, via a storm of defecating whales, a boatload of pharmaceutical executives to Tromaville, New Jersey, to carry out his revenge. If you know Troma, this is pretty much business as usual, with self-referential/perverse humour, large-breasted ladies, generally wacky manic-ness, silly musical numbers, and splatter-bound gore. Here from Troma Films is a three-disc release of the film, taking in a UHD, and two Blu-rays, with a good selection of extras

Evil Laugh is a mid-80s slasher with some light touches of humour and ahead-of-its-time postmodern elements. It features a cackling killer, some fairly bloody kills, the most inventive being microwave-based. Sure, it’s not a top-level example of the genre/ plays to the cliches- but it’s engaging enough, and will appeal to fans of the stalk ‘n’ slash form. Here from 88 Films- as part of their Slasher Classic series- is a Blu-ray release of the film, taking in an HD scan, commentary track from the slasher-loving podcast The Hysteria Continues, and a full-length archive documentary.

The Gospel According To Hana Haruna is a three-track release, which blurs the lines between spiteful ‘n’ searing wall of noise and more drifting/choral ambience. It’s a release that once again sees this Portland project pushing at the edges of the wall noise genre, for something rather distinctive.

Cranial Collapse is a decidedly swirling, yet crude/ nasty take on the walled noise form. The dead-on, twenty-minute track adds in a sparse/ buried spoken word element to create an extra layer of unease to the proceedings.

Music Of The Future is a more formal, dense/ not so multi-layered/ less ambient take on the wall noise form from this US project, which normally focuses on the more playful/experimental side of the genre.

Cutter's Club is a lost film featuring horror legend Tony Todd as a schizophrenic university medical lecturer. In his spare time, he is part of a secret club, where they are (meant to be) pushing the limits of surgery. The film is a Full Moon/ Charles Band film, with one or two neat effects/ moments, and a great OTT performance from Mr Todd. Here’s the Blu-ray release of the film, with just a few extras.

A band’s disappearance in spring 2024 is the springboard for Director’s Cut, a slasher from writer-director Don Capria.

Ms.45 is an early 80's rape/revenge thriller set on the gritty streets of New York City. The film speeds by like a bullet- with the mute ‘n’ timid victim shifting from being traumatised & shellshocked, to a red lipstick wearing/ gun tooting killer. It drops down in horror, manipulative drama, and all-out gonzo exploitation.  Here from Arrow Video, both in the UK and stateside, here’s either a UHD or Blu-ray release of the film, taking in a commentary track, and a good selection of extras

Rejection Sensitive is the second physical album released from Illinois-based noise maker Marc Benner, who also runs the noise/ experimental sound label Oxidation. It’s a four-track CDR, which focuses on textured noise manipulation.

Here’s a C50 split bringing together two side-long wall noise tracks. First, there’s the searing rush, battering billow, to later thick battering walled noise of Puerto Rican's Barrena. And second, we have a dense/overwhelming- yet oddly entrancing slab of walling from Garden Grove, California’s See Through Buildings.

Destry Allyn Spielberg makes her feature directorial debut with 2024's Please Don't Feed the Children, written by Paul Bertino, starring Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey), Zoe Colletti (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), and Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad). Spielberg previously won Best Thriller at the City of Angels Women's Film Festival in 2022 for her short film Let Me Go the Right Way, so I had some expectations going in.

Composed for Illustrious Labs' 3D audioscape system, Mesmerine 111 focuses on the physiological properties of 111hz on the human brain. Under the moniker Illustrious, Martyn Ware (founding member of The Human League, B.E.F., Heaven 17, et al) and Charles Stooke release two 50-minute 'doses' of Mesemerine 111, the original ambient, trance-inducing treatment and the vocal mix, with its hypnotic spoken word description of the Mesmerine treatment. Whether holistic medicine, ancient ritualism, or new age quasi-science, Mesmerine 111 is an intriguing premise that would definitely benefit more from the fully immersive, 3D audioscape experience.

The collaboration between Anton Lambert and Thanos Polymeneas Liontiris, captured on their album, tri-n-os, is astonishing. There is little I can say to describe the intricate, mesmerising, and haunted work that is this release. 

First released in 2012, as a digital release, then as a limited CD release, GOD O: Music For A Gallery Opening. It finds Charles Bobuck, aka Residents Co-founder and the primary composer, Hardy Fox, scoring the gallery experience of the exhibition of The Residents/Ralph Records. Here from Klanggalerie is an expanded double CD reissue of the release. With a sound here moving between blends of musical pomp and weedy vocalisations, world music beats and wailing guitars, ambience and beyond, making for a varied and entertaining ride 

Les Cents Jours Clairs is the next in the series of Etant Donnes CD reissues from the folks over at Klanggalerie. It was the French project's fifth release( well, half of it), appearing in the year 1984, taking nine tracks which move between pummelling/ manic electro/machine noise tracks, and slowly ‘n’ wavering grey tone ambience to billowing yet barren feedback dwells.

Swedish electronic project Sluta Leta started in the late 90s and has gone through a series of lineup changes, resulting in all of the founding members being replaced. The current lineup of producers Andi Pieper and Ramon Bauer, with vocalist Gerhard Potuznik, has been consistent since their debut full-length in 2003. After a long hiatus, they've returned in the 2020s. Their 2nd album this decade, Drift Decoder, is a collection of charmingly analogue, acid-inflected electro, funky breaks, and synth pop, a short forty-one-minute album of two-to-five-minute songs.

Here’s another in a long line of superlative Kleistwahr releases from Fourth Dimension Records, this one collects up two previous albums by the Gary Mundy vehicle; if memory serves Winter was part of the amazing looking - but expensive - tape boxset put out by Helen Scarsdale Agency some years back, whilst Music for Zeitgeist Fighters was released on Nashazphone, on vinyl, in 2017. The two CDs come in a card wallet, with the album artworks on display, and the usual neat presentation that Fourth Dimension delivers. The CDs present each album respectively, and add some additional tracks, bringing each CD to over 70 minutes of music.  

Over their fifty-plus-year career, The Residents- those infamous yet unknown avant-popsters have always created their own distinctive/ weird takes on others' material. Going from their noise up  ‘n’ churning take on the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction, though to their melted Dada take on 60’s pop that was The Third ‘n’ Reich and Roll album.

Mondo Keyhole is a monochrome roughie from the mid-60s regarding an LA-based serial rapist and his heroin-addicted wife. It weaves together noir atmospherics, uneasy/ troubling sleaze, moments of all-out derangement, and porn business parody/send-up. Here, as part of VCI Entertainment’s Psychotronica Collection, is a dual DVD and Blu-ray release of the film, featuring new and archival commentary tracks.

Video Psycho is a SOV serial killer movie from the early 1999’s. It features a fairly decent/ believable young cast, some rewarding moments of both tension & unease, with an effective score that blends psycho ambience with post-industrial disquiet. Here from SRS Cinema- the main/ key labels releasing SOV films, is a recent Blu Ray release of the film, taking in a director's commentary & a few other things.

H.M.S. Defiant is a 1962 historical adventure movie directed by Lewis Gilbert (Alfie, Educating Rita, and Moonraker). The film was also notable for being co-written by Nigel Kneale (Beasts, Quatermass and the Pit and Halloween III: Season of the Witch) alongside Edmund H North (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Patton and Sink the Bismark) and Frank Tilsley (a TV writer best known for his work on BBC Sunday Night Play, BBC Sunday Theatre and Champion Road). The film also had a pretty strong cast of actors including Sir Alec Guiness (Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Bridge on the River Kwai and Kind Hearts and Coronets), Dirk Bogarde (Death in Venice, A Bridge Too Far and The Night Porter), Maurice Denham (The Day of the Jackal, Animal Farm and Countess Dracula) and Nigel Stock (The Great Escape, Young Sherlock Holmes and Cromwell). 

Daughters Of Darkness stands as one of the more mysterious, haunting, and creepily classy Euro horror films of the 1970s. It's largely set in an out-of-season large seaside hotel, where a newlywed couple met a striking blond-haired countess and her female assistant, who may/ may not be vampires. The film blends low-key disquiet with a building feeling of dread, with touches of unsettling erotica, arty unease, and light splashes of troubling violence/ gore. Here from Radiance is a recent Blu-ray release- taking in a 4k scan, a new commentary track, and a good selection of new/ old extras- including an eighty-page book.

Tulsa Terrors is a 2024 documentary, looking at the birth of straight-to-video/ SOV in Tulsa, Oklahoma, following through into more recent times, where the city's low-budget filmmakers are still creating cheap horror genre films. Here from  VCI Entertainment – either as a Blu-ray or DVD- here’s a release of the film, taking in a few extras.