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The Spanish quinqui film cycle of the 1970s and 1980s stands as one of the more powerful, provocative, and socially telling of all euro cult genres. It focused on delinquent inner-city crime-the perpetrators' drug-taking & general troubled life- but most surprisingly many of the featuring actors were involved in real-life crime themselves. Between the years 1977 & 1987, there were a total of thirty films released in the quinqui genre- which were both a popular and controversial pull in Spanish cinemas of the time. Here we have a two hundred plus page book focusing on the genre. It’s an academic book, but it’s largely a readable and fascinating affair, which ties together film review/ critique, with social facts and figures, discussion of music from the time, and the background of films actors/directors.
So… I had just typed out an introductory sentence, and decided in my laziness to google this album and cut and paste the title - rather than fiddling about with the accents - when I had a bit of a shock: this is a reissue of a 1982 album. (In my defence the main text on the artwork doesn’t mention this, and it’s only stated in the copyright details on the back cover.) I had assumed the album was contemporary, and the fact that it isn’t is staggering, on the one hand, but on the other hand perhaps makes more sense of the sounds within.
ZOS’s latest release is a whole-body alright: mangled, deformed, and bursting at the seams, overflowing like the flotsam of a shipwreck, and pulled to the extremities of genres from black metal to electro-improvisation.
From the early 2000s, Daddy is a ghoulish and bleak example of low-budget horror filmmaking, which features a grimly original take on the whole zombie thing. Basically, this small rural town set film finds a dead man rising from his grave each night to rape a series of women. The outcome is not as sexually explicit as it could have been, but boy it’s full of very shudder and wince-inducing moments- as well as a decidedly woozily bleak atmosphere, that never lets up . Here from SRS Cinema is a region free DVD release of the film, taking in commentary tracks & a making of.
Eighth Tower has been putting out some fantastic collections with music inspired by famous artists, and The Body of Horror is no exception. Drawing upon the films of David Cronenberg, the ten works on display here utilize Cronenberg's unique look at the human body, something that although beautiful and wondrous, is at the same time terrifying and alien. Varying in approach, much like Cronenberg's oeuvre, the artists on The Body of Horror utilize vast and horrifying themes and imagery to craft their grim compositions.
From the late 1970’s here we have a blend of island adventure and merman horror. It is a campy, often entertaining, at times exciting ride of a film. We have lunging claw and bulbous eyed attacks, underwater treasure, brooding voodoo rituals, fisty cuff fighting, and a few moments of bloodiness- though it’s largely fairly tame on that side of things. Here from Film Moon Futures is a recent region free blu ray of the film.
From the mid-1960 Coach To Vienna is a lullingly moody psychological thriller come wartime drama. The Czech new wave film is a glum, if at points tense & emotional road movie, which finds a young widow whose husband has been murdered by Nazis- transporting two German soldiers on a horse and carriage, though a seemingly terminal misty and endless alpine forest. Here from those great resurrectors of Czech film is a new way Blu Ray release of the film- featuring a crisp and clean 4K scan of the black & white picture, a commentary track, and a recently rediscovered early feature-length film from the same director.
Gonçalo F. Cardoso is a soundscape and field recording artist who is also the label head of Discrepant. His latest project is Impressões de Outra Ilha (Borneo), the Borneo edition of his "Impressions of another island" series, which uses field recordings of nature to paint portraits of natural locations.
The soundtrack to Neil Jordan’s classic fantasy horror, Company of Wolves by composer George Fenton makes its way back onto vinyl for the first time in 35 years from Cold Spring Records. Jordan’s movie, based on the short story of the same name, taken from Angela Carter’s book of dark fairy tales, The Bloody Chamber, is a gothic masterpiece starring a host of legends of British cinema, Angela Landsbury, David Warner, Stephen Rae, Sarah Patterson, Brian Glover, Danielle Dax and Terence Stamp.
1000 Hours is the next in the series of CD reissues of Hula albums from Klanggalerie. It was the Sheffield project's third album- originally released in 1986 as a double vinyl album, it featured live and studio versions of all new tracks. The resulting eighteen track album certainly is a shifting & often overwhelming sonic experience, where we move from blends of early stabbing techno, bass guitar licks, and wailing vocals. Down to mixes of moodily sister electro and ethnic percussive. Back up to mixes of snapping electro beats, searing violin/ guitar blends, and post-punk bass throb workouts, and beyond
Originally released as a three (locked groove) vinyl release in 1996 Photmaine found this Hamburg-based sound artist and experimental electronic composer offering up a selection of loops. For this late 2021 reissue on Austria’s Klanggalerie we are presented with twenty-two of the original forty-four tracks, with each having run times around the two-and-a-half-minute mark.
Don’t Go In The House is a late 1970’s example of the psycho fed grind-housing horror, which is grimly moody, and at points starkly creepy- though not really gory or too gruelling. The film found itself on the UK Video Nasty list in the 80s, going on to become fairly notorious for its naked woman strung up and flamed scene- and while it feels a little tame by today's standards, it’s an effective enough study in bleakly gritty descent into madness. Here from Severin is a recent region A double-disc Blu Ray release of the film, taking in three cuts of the film, two commentary tracks & a great selection of other extras.
Appearing in September of last year The Corpse Inside The Train is the fifth full-length release from Thin Mountain, which is one of the wall noise focused projects of American noisemaker Sean E. Matzus (theNIGHTproduct, Black Leather Jesus, last Rape, Thewhitehorse). The release appeared on Sean’s own label as either a C40(sadly now all sold out) or a digital download( which I’m reviewing).
Cold Spring features two around twenty minutes examples of rapidly hacking and constricting walled noise from this Russian project- with each track being equally taut and tense in its attack.
Rate Of Infection is a new digital EP from UK’s SLOWGURN- it features two examples of detailed wall noise texturing, which fitting the release's title is seemingly always multiplying. Each of the two tracks featured here run around the eight-minute mark, and each is as dizzying in their textural multiplication as the other.
Holes Appearing is a solo project from Iowa, USA. And with Final Lobby, they sever us with a classic example of ambient music featuring everything you’d expect fulfilled in a balanced manner.
Chances Are I Hate You features two lengthy trips into densely entangling and searingly constricting walled noise from US project Monolithic Torment. It's a self-released digital affair, and in total, we get two and a half hours’ worth of unforgiving wall matter.
Nobuhiko Obayashi's Anti-War Trilogy is a three-disc Blu Ray set bringing together three lengthy films from this Onomichi, Japan-born director. The three films here date from the early to late 2010s, and are a fairly distinctive blend of the dramatic, playful, and arty- bringing together formal acting, interviews with those involved in war, historic recreates, and quirky-if-dated graphics and effects.
Released in the mid 90’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a dramatic and very much period costume focused take on this classic gothic horror tale. It features ornate-to-grimly gothic set design, an impressive cast, and moments of cinematic spectacle- been much more of a formal literary take on the story, with the horror tropes largely reduced to ghoulish asides and more stagey gore. Here from Arrow Video, both in the UK and Stateside, is a new Blu Ray release of the film- featuring a new 4k scan of the picture, a new commentary track, a good selection of interviews, and other extras. The release is also available as an HD Blu Ray version too.
Fool’s Gold is the next in Righteous 'Lux and Ivy' series of compilations, which sees respected music journalist Dave Henderson compiling together rare, campy and wacky 45’s from the 1950s and 1960s. The focus of this comp is novelty tunes- with a subtitle of ’25 tunes to scare the kids- Saturday mornings will never be the same again’.
Blistering noise out of Dubuque, Iowa, Pyramid Dust drop Event.....Collapse as a fiery c12. A group side project of Boar's Alex Nowacki, this cassette channels the ferocious intensity of the mid 90's noise scene, played through the skilled and well-timed hand of a current noisier. Built with a brutal layer of low distortion, Event.....Collapse is a quick jaunt through a field of delightfully harsh electronics.
From 2019 Hermerzaphrodites is a double CD release, which highlights a few different sides to Merzbow you might not have heard before. The three featured tracks move between improv piano and noise workouts, and journeys into textural/ at times semi rhythmic noise structures.
Uniform Scene is a two-disc CD release- presenting a never-released album from the mid-1990s by American noise legend Richard Ramirez. It features four around half-an-hour long tracks, which dwell in old school industrial noise, drone noise, and at times fairly shifting harsh noise texturing.
Here we have a region free blu ray release of 23rd Century Giants- the 2021 documentary charting the career of Renaldo and the Loaf- the British two-piece who brew-up a bizarre, surreal & distinctive mixture of Avant-grade pop, wonky (off) world music and general sonic quirkiness. As well as the film, the release features fifty minutes of extra material- and a reversible cover.