Loading
First released in 2003 All Closed Doors is a prime example of psycho ambient scoring/ unbalancing audio tripping. It finds respected UK experimental sound maker Andrew Liles offering up a varied and unpredictable album, which utilizes both audio channel manipulation, uneasy sonic juxtaposition, and good old fashion unsettling mood setting. It’s an album that sits somewhere between the genres of experimental electronica, ill-at-ease ambience, and weird film scoring. Here from Nordugen Records is a most welcome CD reissue of album, which features the original twelve album tracks- recently remastered, plus a few bonus tracks.
Here we have a Blu-Ray bringing together two Mexican horror films from the 1950s and 1960s. Featured is Ladron De Cadaveres aka The Body Snatcher, which is a mad doctor horror meets noir touched wrestling picture. And El Escapulario aka The Scapular, a Ghost story set in the Mexican Revolution, focusing on a religious medal- that is either charmed or cursed. This release from VCI Entertainment/ MVD Visual features HD prints for each film, and a few extras
Raffaele Pezzella's Sonologyst project returns with a fascinating, dark ambient look at the far-off future of mankind. Based on Michio Kaku's theories about our species at the end of matter, space, and time, Interdimensional explores the outer reaches of the mind and soul, and wonderfully mixes the grim and unknown with the hopeful and exciting. Composed with a fog or fuzziness of the unknown future, Pezzella quickly captures this scrying glass style of storytelling, and keeps the listener engaged and imagining throughout.
Ian Gillan is one of rock’s true vocal legends, after joining Deep Purple in 1969 he helped propel the band to mega-stardom through albums like Deep Purple in Rock, Fireball, Machine Head and the live classic Made in Japan. By the time Gillan left the band for the first time in 1973 he had recorded six albums with them that included such timeless rock anthems as "Smoke on the Water", "Fireball", "Child in Time", "Speed King" and "Highway Star", and had performed before millions of fans across the world. By 1975 he decided to form the Ian Gillan Band and by 1976 they had released their progressive jazz-rock debut album, Child in Time.
Teen angst dramas are often difficult to get right- they can be contrived, too obsessed with trying to keep it real/edgy. Or the characters are cliched, badly drawn, and worse of all trying. From the late 2010s Days of the Bagnold Summer is one of the better examples of the genre. The British feature is a lightly drifting along drama-come-subtle comedy, charting the relationship between a fifteen-year-old male metal-head, and his frumpy/ geeky fifty-something single mum. Here from Anti-World Releasing is a Blu-Ray release of the film- taking together a good enough selection of extras, and a glossy inlay booklet.
From the early 1970’s Caged Heat! is a Roger Corman-produced Women In Prison film. It’s based in a dusty & desert set prison, with a good enough selection of memorable characters, some nice tense & gritty action, subtle touches of humour, and a light icing of flesh and sleaze. Here from 101 Films is a recent Blu-Ray release of the film- with a 2k scan, and a good selection of extras.
Trembling Void is a one-man Canadian black metal project, which adds subtle touches of darkening 80’s genres to its grim sound- be it goth rock, deathrock, or gloomy synth core. With the whole thing topped off with waves of piecing and revibrating BM vocals. As its title suggests Demo 1, is the first sonic fruit from the project- it originally appeared on Germany’s Narbentage Produktionen as a cassette release in 2021- this recent vinyl reissue is on Lithuania’s Inferna Profundus Records- coming as either black or marble 180 gr vinyl.
As its title suggest this single-track walled noise release from California-based She Walks Crooked is influenced by German Actress Hanna Schygulla. She appeared in twenty-three films made by German new wave director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, with notable titles being 1979’s The Marriage of Maria Braun, where she played a tough-yet-sensual woman in the WWII drama, and 1981’s Lili Marleen- a drama/ musical set in 1938 where she played a singer.
Free improvisation trio Antoine Chessex, Francisco Meirino and Jérôme Noetinger played an unruly, noisy live performance on the eve of the resumption of lockdown in France, October 28th, 2020. Straddling the worlds of harsh noise, electronic avant garde and free jazz, the intuitively structured cut-up collage found on this brings a surprisingly classic industrial energy, taking me back to 80's Merzbow cassettes and groups like Borbetomagus.
The Lamp Of No Light (Hymns For The York Doom Stone) is the tenth full-length album from British dark ambient/ ritual doom project TenHornedBeast aka Christopher Walton. The five-track CD album sees Walton craving his grim sound right down to the bone, nearly into pitch-black marrow itself. It’s an album that needs both time and headphones to fully get it's arcane teeth into you…sending you back through the ages, to the deep, dark and shadowy medieval past.
Girl Stroke Boy is a blu ray release from Powerhouse, collecting up the 1971 film in HD with some assorted - and good - extras; unfortunately I am only reviewing a promo disc so I can’t speak to the overall packaging, but as the satisfied owner of several Powerhouse releases I can confidently assume a high quality. The plot of Girl Stroke Boy is actually very simple: a white middle-class couple receive their son (Laurie) home for the weekend, with him finally unveiling his first girlfriend (Jo), however on arrival the parents are confused and troubled by the androgynous, West Indian Jo, with the mother passing her husband a note reading, ‘Is it a man?’ .
Keyboard Studies features three works composed by the great American minimalist in the mid-1960. These recordings date from the 1970s, and are played by highly respected British pianist John Tilbury- one piece is for piano. One is for piano, electric organ, harpsichord & celeste, and one is for electric piano.
Long time experimental/electronic artists Eberhard Kranemann (ex-Kraftwerk, Neu!, Pissoff, Fritz Müller) and Siegmar Fricke (Pharmakustik) came together for Electric Fluxus, a wonderful, electronic trip through a fractured soundscape. Constructed from electric cello, guitar, and various electronics, the two, long-form tracks here cover a lot of distorted and somewhat noisy ground. An album that grows deeper with each successive listen, Electric Fluxus shows how even after nearly 50 years in the game, new ground can be reached.
First released in 1981, the wonderfully titled Vibrant Stapler Obscures Characteristic Growth was the first sonic fruit from this British da-da three-piece. It’s a wonderfully busy, layered at times unnerving record- which feels like a more detailed 'n' darting take on early NWW, but with more pronounced formal (often played in an informal way) musical instrumentation. Here we have a most welcome first-ever CD reissue of the album by the wonderful folks at Klanggalerie.
Hydrogen Kaleidoscope is a CD release- which compiles together two releases from The Darkening Scale- the solo project of Dave Janssen, who is one-half of Uk Avant pop/ (off) world music project Renaldo & The Loaf. Largely this twelve-track release focuses on the more urgent & jigging side of the project's sound, which is filtered through genres like the blues, world music, and chopping orchestrated sound.
Mother is an early 2000’s re-telling of the Ed Gein case. It’s a terminally grim affair, filmed in stark black & white, with little or no dialogue- just searing-to-unwell scoring, and macabre-to-eerier sound effects. Here from the great folks at SRS Cinema is a DVD release of the film- with a commentary track, making of, and a few other things.
Order and chaos. These two opposing organizing principles do much to characterize what awaits listeners on either side of Maiandros, a heavily cut-up recording of a live concert given just before the outset of the pandemic in 2020. The idea of mixing field recordings and live documents together was occasioned by the lack of “real” concerts and events cancelled throughout the world, and the results move very left of the double genres that make up Maiandros: free jazz and electronic improvisation. Staggering correspondences are achieved between the frequencies emitted by acoustic instrumentation and their electric doubles – synthesizers and reel-to-reel tape machines.
From the early 1970s Luminous Procuress is an extremely heady, and at times decidedly flesh bound trip into fantasy fed hedonism, surreal and glittering gender blending, and psychedelic adventuring- all topped off with a spacy, to psych noise soundtrack. Here from Second Run is a new Blu Ray release of this visual audio trip- with a 2k & fully uncut print of the film, a few extras, and a glossy inlay booklet.
Murphy’s War is a 1971 war movie directed by Peter Yates (Krull, Bullitt and The Dresser) and starring the legendary Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, Zulu Dawn and The Lion in Winter) Sían Phillips (Dune, I Claudius, Clash of the Titans and also Warrior Queen where she played the role of Queen Boudicca), Phillipe Noiret (Cinema Paradiso, El Postino and La Grande Bouffe), Horst Janson (Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter, Der Bastian and Härte 10) and the wonderful John Hallam (Flash Gordon, Dragonslayer and Lifeforce).
Coping Mechanisms severs up two big slices of dense and unrelenting walled noise from this San Diego based project. Over the full length of this digital release we get eighty-two minutes of noise- for an ear batter, yet entrancing ride.
Ex Nihilo Ad Nihilum( translated From Nothing To Nothing) is a DVD and CD release from the Portuguese wall noise project Asper. The DVD features eight tracks with grim visualities, and CD eight tracks- both disc comes presented in a DVD case, featuring a selection of stills from the DVD, a small bag of white and grey sand, and inlay card/ stickers.
This self-titled release is the first fruit of this new Polish noise project. The two-track release features one slice of searing walled noise, and one slice of moody-at-times wonkily industrial harsh noise scaping.
Whatever Exists Preys is a two-track affair from recently formed/ Berlin-based wall noise project Sebastian Tomb. This is a digital/ self-released mini album- with the tracks featured moving from choppy hackings, onto rattling and ragging judders.
From Powerhouse films- here’s a new two Blu ray boxset focusing on one of the lesser-known and short-lived British film production companies of the 1970s The Pemini Organisation. In total, the company produced just three films- one mid-length short film, and two feature-length films- each had an air of English glumness about them, with an often-arty tipped take on genre filmmaking. Each film was well- made on often tinny budgets, with a good selection of known/respected actors, and talented crew members.