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Weird Wisconsin is a recent Blu Ray boxset from Arrow video, it takes in six films from regional genre film-maker Bill Rebane. The pictures featured here move between glumly stilted Sci-fi meets 60’s teen cheese. Onto isolated characters at end of the world or amid a virus from space thriller/ dramas. Though to ghost focused horror, onto rich folks doing nasty things thriller horror, and a monster truck meets bumbling comedy caper.
Jazz/blues crossover guitarist Hedvig Mollestad returns to one of her most beloved lineups, the Hedvig Mollestad Trio, for a new album titled Ding Dong, You're Dead! in 2021. Queen of blistering odd-metered shred, the album is full of her signature fuzz tone wailing over off-kilter scalar patterns and chunky head riffs not unlike 70's classic prog-rock groups, particularly King Crimson.
Fly Pan Am are a new name to me, and as such, I was interested to hear what they sound like. The few bits and pieces of information I could find about them sounded interesting, and the fact they played shows early on in the career with the likes of Godspeed You Black Emperor was always going to be a good selling point for me. In fact, guitarist Roger Tellier-Craig was in both bands until 2003 when he quit Godspeed You Black Emperor to concentrate on Fly pan Am. They were originally formed in Montreal in 1996, generating the sort of experimental post-rock sounds that proved popular during the 90s and 00s. After four full-length albums, the band split in 2005. Only to reform in 2018. Frontera is their second album since their return and was originally written as the soundtrack to a performance piece of the same name by Dana Gingras and her Montréal-based dance troupe Animals of Distinction. The band’s current lineup features Jonathan Parant and Roger Tellier-Craig on guitar and synthesizers, Jean-Sébastien Truchy on computer, synthesizers, drum programming, bass and vocals and Félix Morel on drums and percussion.
Here from Powerhouse is a new double-disc reissue of Irreversible- probably one of the most extreme and controversial films to appear on the mainstream European film market in the early 2000s. The films primarily a drama, that’s running backwards- but what made it so troubling/ notorious is its prolonged rape scene, moments of brutal violence, and it's dizzying/ distorting camera work that takes up the first quarter of the film. This new release takes in two cuts of the film, a good selection of old and new extras, an 80-page booklet, and a double-sided poster.
The Empty Room is a release that sits that sweet spot between seared noise and ambient unease. Originally released back in 2012, here we have a recent reissue of the tape, with a bonus ten-minute track tagged on, and new monochrome collage work on the tape's sleeve.
From the Summer of last year Ethics Of Interpreter is C40/ digital download bringing together three slices of keyboard droning and low-key noise unease from this Danish project. Sadly the tapes now sold out, but it can still be downloaded from Geräuschmanufaktur Bandcamp.
Abomination is a rather apt title for this collaboration between Buffalo N.Y’s Praying For Oblivion and the Philipino project Francesco Terrini. The five-track CDR release is a nightmarish blend of searing-yet-foreboding harsh noise, murky industrial and grey drone bound texturing, and a few more grating PE elements.
Forging Oppression is a C60 split bringing together two projects who mine dense-yet-murkily reeling harsh noise craft. We have here Lesser Dog- the new project from Portuguese noise maker Hélio Leal , and long-running German project Azoikum- with each offering up three around ten minute long tracks.
O.C.D Shin is a CD reissue that brings together two long out-of-print release from highly respected and influential Canadian noise project The Rita. The tone of the material is focused on more active-yet-textured bound harsh noise, which at points has moments of more ‘wallish’ dwells- though is very much more textured noise than HNW. The release appears as a joint release between two respected noise label USA’s Phage Tapes and Sweden's Ominous Recordings.
Dépayesment is a release that moves from spacy and alien, to droning and low key metallic soundscaping. It’s a lengthy two-track affair that finds UK based sound-maker & academic Emile Bojesen, creating the work from processed/blurred field recordings of Rickmansworth & Winchester- where he's lived in the past.
Here is a nicely packaged yellow cassette from Modern Tapes, arriving in a printed cardboard wallet with a little insert. Push For Signal has five tracks, varying in length from around five minutes to 25 minutes, all performed by Peter Keller and Casey Chittenden Jones - the first of which you may recognise from Bacillus and Condon Horro. Like those projects, Dosenöffner is noisy, but it’s not noise - unless we’re going to start inventing even more pointless genres like ’synth noise’…
Gimp & Burnett takes in a bass rumble and static cluttering bound slice of long-form walled noise from this long-running and prolific based California project. This digital-only release appears on the London based HNW Netlabel-which is one of the more respected web based labels in the scene.
Lialeh is an enjoyable ‘n’ entertaining slice of very fleshy 1970’s Blaxploitation. It’s packed with playful hardcore set-ups, jiving-yet-fun pimped up vibe and a nicely grooving soundtrack by Bernard Lee "Pretty" Purdie- which blends funk and smoothly sexy soul-jazz. Here from the guys over at Dark Force/ Code Red, is a region free Blu Ray- which sadly has no extras, but we get an HD print from the only surviving 16mm negative.
Summer is a new collection of work from British composer James Weeks. The CD takes in five modern chamber works, and seventy minutes’ worth of music, and I must say it stands as one of the more enchanting and consistently varied modern classical releases I have heard in some time. With the compositions moving between hauntingly moody piano-led ensemble pieces, wind and string duos, double tubular bell led simmering uneasy, a solo piano work, and a lengthy work for wind, string, Celtic harp, voice, and electronics.
Stain Ballads brings together four modern chamber works by Toronto-based composer Martin Arnold. The compositions here are all played by the highly respected modern ensemble the Apartment House- with the tracks moving between glum angularity, shrill-to-fiddling unease, and sombrely sawing sour-ness.
Irezumi is an exquisitely scoped and moodily shot Japanese period drama-come-revenge thriller from the mid-1960s, which focuses on the daughter of merchant- turned- geisha. The film has its share of dark dramatics and deadly pathos- though it’s a largely tame affair, with the expected bloodshed, brutal swordplay and sleaze very much downplayed. Here from Arrow- both in the US and UK, is a Blu Ray release taking in a new print and a good selection of extras.
Finally hitting CD, Himukalt's 2018 LP, Knife Through Spine, has achieved cult status in the grim, dark, noisy industrial world. Blistering and sharp, fans of Atrax Morgue should take note of Cold Spring's re-release. This one-woman wrecking crew (Ester Kärkkäinen) mixes old school industrial aesthetic with modern harshness and construction. Mixing the worlds of cleanliness and grime, her tight grip on feedback, noise, and echo is a perfect blend of restraint and ballistic attack.
Directed by Ken Loach and starring Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, The Full Monty and Ravenous) and Oyanka Cabezas (Sandino and La Yuma) Carla’s Song tells the story of Glasgow bus driver, George Lennox (Carlyle) and the young Nicaraguan woman Carla (Cabezas) who just so happens to get on his bus and turn his life upside down.
Originally released back 1991 Musick For Madness was the first sonic statement American post-industrial-come-unsettling ambient project Schloss Tegal. The release is highly important in not only the development of the project, but also the wider dark ambient genre and woozy/ blackly unwell industrial genres- that it very much informed and influenced. This CD release is the first time this album has been released since appearing in the 1990s as a C46.
No Reason is an early 2010 example of the German Splatter genre- it features some neat and at points perversely creative examples of gore, touches of both creepy cosmic horror & arty edges, and lastly a fairly good stab at trying to give the whole thing some sort of storyline. So there’s definitely more on offer here than just a selection of intense gore set-ups. Here from the guys over at Unearthed Films is a new release of the film- either coming in the form of a Blu Ray or DVD, with both offering up an uncut print and a few extras.
The Art Spirit is an album that flirts between free jazz and modern chamber music- sometimes sitting in one camp or the other, or at other times blending and blurring the two genres together. The release comes in form of an eight-track CD album on the long-running and highly respected NYC jazz label ESP’ Disk- with the disc offering up sixty-one minutes of music.
Ballads From The Wrecked Ship is a decidedly varied and rather wonderful improv release, which sits somewhere between sonic creativity and atmospheric moodiness. The seven-track album slides in at a concise and focused forty minutes, and I must say it certainly stand as one of more distinctive/ original improv release I have heard in some time.
Among the large number of styles with in the wider Experimental electronics genre, minimalism is the most intelligent, abstract and, at the same time, radical. Its roots go back to the very beginning of the experimental music genre, as an offshoot of classical musical traditions. One of the recognized authorities and masters of this style is the American musician, composer and designer Richard Chartier, who had a great influence on the development of minimalism in electronic music. Active since 1998, Richard's discography contains more than forty full-length albums, several EPs and singles, as well as a fairly large number of works made in collaboration with other musicians and projects. He also owns the label LINE, on which he publishes, in addition to his own releases, albums by like-minded artists. In late spring 2021, Australian label Room40 released Interreferences- a new full-length album. It appeared as either a CD or digital download.
Now here’s a welcome blast from the past, which recently dropped into M[m] letterbox- “Lovely. Beautiful. Imperfect” is a CD featuring two lengthy slices of walled noise from Ataraxy, a German HNW/ noise project that put out a fair few releases in the early 2010’s.