Loading
Based in self-reflection and analysis caused by year(s) long pandemic lockdown, Ümlaut's Grand Trine takes an experimental approach to the wonderful astrological phenomenon of the same name. Utilizing a minimalistic approach, Ümlaut complements the heavenly alignment with its small scale counterpart. As above, so below; Grand Trine captures the fabulous coincidence of scale that is our macroscopic and microscopic universe.
Appearing in the late 1970s Shock, was the final film from respected and influential Italian horror director Mario Bava. It’s a woozy at times psycho-psychedelic thriller/ horror film, which charts a couple moving back into a house from one of their pasts, which may or may not be haunted by the spirit of one of the couples’ dead lovers. It’s a very 70’s euro horror film, which slips between camp creep-ness & telekinesis silliness, dread-filled surrealism & dreamy-ness, and moments of slashing ‘n’ spurting gore. Here from Arrow Video, both in the Uk & US, is a new blu ray release of the picture taking in a new 2k scan of the film- for both English & Italian language version, a commentary track from Bava expert Tim Lucas, and a good selection of other extras.
Lady Street Fighter is a prime slice of badly made action fare, which transcends the genre to create moments of both unintentional humour and entrancing surrealism- with touches of numbly wonky & oddly sexless sleaze. The film was made back in the mid-1970’s, but didn’t get released until the early 80’s on VHS. And here we have a UK release of the picture via 101 Films, as part of the labels new AGFA (American Genre Film Archive) series- taking in a 2k scan, commentary track and a bonus film Revenge of Lady Streetfighter- the never-released sequel to Lady Street Fighter.
Less Travelled is a 2021 CD compilation of EP & single tracks from NYC’s Slogun. And as you'd expect from this American PE project, the sound throughout this thirteen-track collection is both suffocating and hopelessly constricting.
Filmed in 1989, Sundown is a horror comedy directed by Anthony Hickox (Hellraiser III, Waxwork and Prince Valiant) with a decidedly impressive cast list bursting at the seams with talent, featuring David Carradine (Kung Fu, Death Race 200 and Kill Bill vol.2) Morgan Brittany (Gable and Lombard, Gypsy and Dallas), everyone’s favourite horror-comedy star Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead series, Bubba Ho-Tep and My Name is Bruce), Maxwell Caulfield (Grease 2, Empire Records and The Colbys), Jim Metzler (LA Confidential, River’s Edge and Mad Men), David Lynch favourite Dana Ashbrook (Twin Peaks, Return of the Living Dead II and Twin Peaks – Fire Walk with Me) and John Ireland (Red River, Spartacus and All the King’s Men).
September collects a selection of work from young modern British composer Georgia Rodgers. The CD takes in seven chamber works, one track for piano & sine tones, and one track for electronics. The collection highlights Ms Rodgers ability to pen both gloomy drifting-yet-at times harmonic work, and more scorched to angular composition
Chapel is an example of eventful and creative improv, bringing together Belgium guitarist Dirk Serries and British drummer George Hadow for a forty-nine-minute live set. The release appeared in October of last year on Creative Sources, as either a CD or digital release- I’m reviewing the former.
Schallschatten is an example of texturally seared ‘n’ sonic nerve slicing improv. It’s a six-track affair that features double-headed trumpet playing, radio elements, speaker manipulation, voice changer, and electronics- with each of the tracks being as intense and angular as one another.
Swarm servers up two hoovering ’n’ hazing sound works, which blends & blurs together greyed ambience with woozy impro. Each of the two tracks here come in around the eighteen-minute mark, and together they create a fairly short-if-moodily gloomy, if at points lightly grating album.
From the mid-’80s Blood Hook is a regional slasher that focuses on a killer fisherman, whose causes terror in and around the annual Wisconsin Muskie Madness fish comp with his giant rod. The film was put out by infamous Troma Studios, and while it features slight touches of the wacky humour the studios are known for, it’s largely an entertaining enough example of the slasher genre- with some fairly memorable kills & gore, a selection of quirky characters, and light touches of creepy atmosphere. Here from Troma is a just-released double-disc Blu Ray release of the picture, with the picture on the first disc, and a selection of interviews/ other extras on the other disc.
Bergur Anderson is a folk musician from Iceland who writes nostalgic, wistful tunes that seem to glow with luminescence. Night Time Transmissions is his first album, and was released late last year on Futura Resistenza- as both vinyl( 150 copies) and digital.
The Wow Demos 1 is a two-CD set bringing together, as its titles suggest, demo recordings made just before The Residents 2013 Wonder of Weird tour- which saw the project stripping down to a three-piece. The CD set features twenty-three tracks in all and sees the project doing often fairly radical re-takes on classic and album tracks from throughout their career.
Released in the early 80’s Warriors of the Year 2072 was the 20th film directed by Luci Fulci. It saw him stepping away from gory and Lovecraft gothic tipped horror of his Gates of Hell trilogy for his take on then-popular dystopian action-packed Sci-fi. The film focuses on futuristic Rome, where TV networks rule peoples lives- and how one of them brings back gladiator games from the past, adding in armoured motorcycles and duels to the death in order to get the ratings up. Here from the folks at Severin is a double-disc release of the film- bringing together the film and its extras on the first Blu Ray, and on its second a CD soundtrack by Riz Ortolani.
The Mangler is a campy and comic book-like slice of horror cinema from the mid-1990s. It tells of an industrial laundry pressing machine getting possessed by a demon, featuring Robert England hamming it up as the laundry’s owner, a fair bit of pulpy gore, and American gothic sensibilities. Here from the guys at Arrow is a new Blu Ray release of film- taking in a new 2k scan of the picture, two new commentaries tracks, and other new/ old extras.
Steve Ashley has enjoyed a long and fruitful career in music, playing with some of the biggest names in the UK folk scene, from Ashley Hutchings, Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks in The Albion Country Band, to recording under his own name, backed by many ex-members of Fairport Convention and The Albion Band including the aforementioned Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks, as well as Dave Pegg, Danny Thompson, Chris Leslie and Bruce Rowland to name just a few. Originally released in 1983, on Woodworm records as Steve Ashley’s Family Album, this collection adds two extra tracks, "Somewhere in a Song" and "For Bruce", Ashley’s tribute to his friend and collaborator, Bruce Rowland who passed over in 2015 after a battle with cancer.
End of Xibalba is the debut solo album from DID, a Polish female sound artist who in the past has worked with the likes of ambient electronica artist Michał Jabłońki and a few others. This CD album offers up a selection of four tracks, that sit in the more meditative/ spacey spiritual side of the electro-ambient genre- and surprisingly for this type of thing, each track is fairly distinctive in its feel/ sound use.
... Potrwa Wiecznie severs up a selection of atmospheric sonics that blend ‘n’ blur ambience, electronica, cinematic-like scoring, low key industrial/ noise elements, and general mood scaping. The seventeen track album certainly covers a fair bit of sonic ground, as well as a fair few moods- and this it does, for the most part, in an even and accomplished manner.
Drifter is a cheeky and largely entertaining blend of a few horror subgenres. We have a cursed house, bloody slasher tropes, with later on dives into zombie-like possession and a creepy vamp-like creature. The film is the 8th feature-length film from Oregon based writer and director Joe Sherlock, and as we’ve come to expect with a Sherlock production, we get touches of quirky humour and a fair bit of female nudity, that’s often on the fuller or large side of things.
Flat Power Spectral Density is a recent forty-minute example of densely pressing, yet micro detailed walled noise from this San Diego project. The track featured on this digital download brings together, thick and dense pile driving low end and smaller textural detail.
It’s always nice to have new material from talent wall noise & grim drone maker Flanders based noisemaker Damien De Coene. And Virtue Wall: Chastity is the first in a series of Seven releases of wall noise releases focusing on the Capital Virtues, as set by Pope Gregory I in AD 590. The digital release features one twenty seven-minute track, and what we have is a fairly rapid and lightly roasting example of the wall noise genre.
Usableness Of The List/ Portfolio is a CD/ digital download that brings together two sparse, and at times haunting solo piano works from modern classical Czech composer Pert Bakla. Both works are lengthy and pattern-based, and both are played by respected Czech pannist Miroslav Beinhauer.
Originally released in the early 2000’s Session 9 stands as one of the more effective and (still) impactful psychological horror films of the last few decades. The film centres around a team of five men cleaning asbestos from a long-abandoned mental hospital- it blends together classic creepy house tropes, dread-soaked mystery, and blue-collar character study. Here from Second Sight is a new Blu Ray release of the film. The two-disc set offers up a good selection of new & old extras,all packaged in a rigid slipcase featuring new artwork by Christopher Shy, and a softcover book featuring new essays by Charles Bramesco, Simon Fitzjohn and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, as well as behind-the-scenes and location images.
Appearing at the tail end of last year Prime Time is the third release from harsh noise duo Knife/Tape/Rope. The C30/ digital download brings together two fifteen examples of roughly baying and sourly searing noise craft, which very much fits the projects murky S & M themes. The project brings together two respected figures in the US noise underground- Richard Ramirez( Black Leather Jesus, Fouke, Werewolf Jerusalem, Last Rape, and numerous other projects) and Thomas Puopolo (Scarlet Diva, Karl-Henrik, Fistfuck).
From Oct 2021 here we have a CD release I listened To The Wind Again…, which is a forty-three-minute example of modern classical composition for string, wind, voice and percussion. The work is a slowly building & developing affair- that features both shrill-to-textured instrumental detail, and haunting vocalising, with moments of harmony and dis-harmony weaving together into a slow and subtle sonic dance of forlorn mystery and gentle surprise.