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Just in time for Christmas, Cadabra releases The Festival, the closest the world will ever see to an H.P. Lovecraft Christmas story. Teaming Andrew Leman and Fabio Frizzi together again, this interesting holiday tale is a perfect pairing of two masters, both wholly in their elements. True to Cadabra's high standards, The Festival is issued on 150-gram vinyl, with gorgeously grim artwork by Jesse Jacobi and liner notes by both Frizzi and weird fiction scholar and frequent Cadabra collaborator, S.T. Joshi.
Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening Band was an ensemble begun in the latter half of her long career as an avant-garde composer. It was an improv group focused in on lush, reverberant spaces not unlike the space ambient drones of dark ambient creators such as Lustmord, or synth musicians like Steve Roach, but with a decidedly organic quality, no usage of synthesizers and an out of the box approach. For Oliveros, this music was a turn towards the intuitive and away from the intellectual, away from the college campus and towards mythic abstract pagan dimensions.
Over their nearing fifty-year career The Residents- American’s top Avant-popster's have released a lot of concept albums, and gone down more than a few theme rabbit holes. One of the more visually elaborate, and layered was Cube-E – The History Of American Music In 3 E-Z Pieces, this project spanned almost four years in the late ’80s/ early ’90s. It was meant to do exactly what its sub-title said, tell the story of American popular music, from its birth around the campfires of the Old West to its death at the hands of Elvis and the British Invasion. Like with many of The Residents large/ far-reaching projects- it didn’t exactly fulfil its promise- but it did result in a stage show, a live album, and a studio album of Elvis cover versions. Here from New Ralph Too/Cherry Red/ MVD Audio, as part of their pReseverved series- is a boxset covering all that was Cube E- including a whole host of rare/unreleased material- which in total takes in seven-discs, making this the largest release yet in the pReseverved series.
This French production was directed by Swiss porn director Pierre B Reinhard in 1987 and has since caused quite a stir in the horror industry, what started life as a homage to French horror/exploitation director Jean Rollin has become celebrated as one of France’s most recognisable sleazy, low budgets splatterfests. The only real name attached to the film was that of producer/writer Jean-Claude Roy who had worked in the French film industry for many years as a writer, director and producer. Roy is most well known as the director of the 1957 movie, A Night at the Moulin Rouge and the 1971 comedy Good Little Girls, neither of which would have prepared him for writing Revenge of the Living Dead Girls.
After releasing around fifteen shorts & a few splits Hell is the first full-length release from Philippines project Francesco Terrini. And what we get here is a fairly even mixture of noise & ambience. The release comes in the form of a five-track CDR- which appeared on British noise label Harsh Noise London a few months back.
Violent Distillation is a CD compilation bringing together all the work of short-lived southern California harsh noise project Knives. The projects sound is a red-hot ear syringing blend of shifting & sliding textured noise, and more higher pitched cluttering ‘n’ cutting noise craft.
Here we have a recent three-CD set from creative US drone maker/moody noise creator Howard Stelzer. And though-out the releases two hours plus runtime he’s often pushing his sound down unexpected genre paths, as well as creating most entrancing & inventive sound-craft- so this stands as one of the more consistent & re-playable experimental/ drone release of 2020.
Whilst the notion of a duo both playing the same instruments might sound boring, restrictive, or monotone, I’m a big fan of such pairings; they can focus the performers - and listeners - on an instrument’s range and potential, resulting in a concentration that rewards both parties. Here, Guillaume Orti and Stéphane Payen both exclusively play alto saxophones - though Payen does also deploy a straight alto saxophone - across 14 tracks, amounting to nearly an hour of music.
Well, Vinegar Syndrome has done it again, uncovered another classy yet all-but-forgotten cinematic gem that’s both distinctive & highly worthy. The Caller is a splendidly twisting ‘n’ turning, tight as a knot 1980’s thriller, that blends in elements of Sci-fi, horror, with a wonderful growing sense of intrigue. And as usual with a VS release we get another stellar new print, and a neat selection of extras.
Originally released in 1980 A Safe Substitute was the debut release from London based experimental duo Storm Bugs. It offered up a selection of darkly woozy & grimly uneasy sound-scaping that moved between stark industrial texturing, lo-fi glitching electronica, surreal ambience, and bleak sonic collaring. Here from the guys over at KlangGalerie is a most needed CD reissue of this release- bringing together the albums original four tracks, with three bonus tracks.
With, without is a decidedly crazed, at point’s manic & deranged journey into odd vocalizing/weird mouth sounds, and scuttling/churning turn-tabling/ dada noise making. The CD release appears on Austrian experimental music/ sound label KlangGalerie.
Traditionally, people receive gifts in celebration of their birthdays. Russell Haswell decided to give for his 50th, and he did so with nine noisy tracks of electronic elicitations. Coming through Editions Mego, this is available both digitally and on 2x vinyl, with the extra 12" having exclusive tracks. This noise forward release is a fantastic celebration of life, and Mego and Haswell put it forth in a nice physical release.
One of the great wonders and joys of being a fan of highly prolific euro-exploration director Jess Franco is that there are seemingly always uncovering rare or largely unseen film from his huge back catalogue- and Bahia Blanca is one such film. It comes from his mid 80’s period, and I must say it stands as one of the jewels of this decade. The film is set in a small Spanish fishing village, and it’s nearby Islet- and is best described as a moody drama, with moments of humour & tragedy. Sure we have the expected sleaze & female flesh, but it’s largely played down for some of the best acting I’ve seen in a Franco film, a picturesque & grand setting that’s scoped wonderful, and a rewardingly-yet subtly twisting plot. Here from Severin- one of the key labels behind many of the rediscoveries/ reissuing of Franco films- is a Region free Blu Ray reissue- featuring a great 4k print, and some neat extras.
Cruel Jaws was Bruno Mattei’s spin on the killer shark genre. And it finds the king of mocking euro-trash going into overdrive as he liberally steals scenes, dialogue & effects from other shark films- then pads out the whole thing with clichéd, cheesy & at points sentimental characters, who spew often dumb & unintentional amusing dialogue. Here from Severin is a recent Blu Ray release of the film- taking in two slightly different cuts of the film, and a few extras.
The Crack in the Cosmic Egg started life as a print book back in 1996, looking at the Avant-Garde, experimental and progressive rock music that stemmed from Germany, particularly during the 1970s. It was a cornucopia of musical delights, featuring everything from the more well-known stars of the scene like Amon Duul and Tangerine Dream down to some of the less well-known bands like Thirsty Moon or Tomorrow’s Gifts. A chance to brush up your knowledge and discover new and interesting bands. At this time, the book was simply a discography of the Kosmische music scene and in the intervening years, the project has grown exponentially to become what it now is…an all-encompassing, highly detailed and expansive study of German progressive music.
Appearance is the new three-track album from respected Australian pianist Chris Abrahams- who will be known to most for his work with minimalist & trance-inducing jazz duo The Necks. This CD release appears on respected Australian experimental music label Room 40- with each of the tracks featuring contemplative, yet gently entrancing melodies and structures- all making for a release to slowly sink into.
The Way To Go Out servers up three truly spell-binding & moodily atmospheric examples of modern ensemble works by up & coming Australian-born, now residing in the UK composer Newton Armstrong.
With one foot in moody-to-elegant/ if basic piano composition, and the other in wonky-to-quirky keyboard/ percussive wonderings this CD release some what of a anomaly. So it’s certainly one of the more bizarre, if not wholly successful releases of the true odd year that has been 2020.
The French sludge /doom trio Subterraen are a relatively young band who started out in 2017. At the end of November 2020, Transcending Obscurity Records released the band's debut album, Rotten Human Kingdom. The album was released as a CD in afew variations - 8-Panel Digipak CD with Metallic UV Embossing and Sandalwood Scent, Coffin-Shaped Wooden CD Box Set with Laser Engraving (Limited to 50).
Righteous Indignation severs up two structurally unpredictably examples of the walled noise form. It’s a release that finds this respected & prolific Serbian wall-maker showing off the more experimental/ at points jarring side of his sound. The release appeared in January of this year as either a C40 (sadly out of print), or digital download on US based noise & industrial label Death Bed Tapes.
New Bottles Old Medicine is a striped-back, often mellow, sometimes passionate, but always charming record that brings together blues, acoustic rock, and folksy traces. It’s the first album form Stafford based Medicine Head, who at this point were just a duo, and it was originally released back in 1970 on John Peels Dandelion label. Here from Cherry Red, to celebrate the albums fiftieth anniversary is a recently released double CD edition of the album- with the first CD taking in the original album, and the second taking in single tracks, live recordings, etc.
Five years after their demo hit the world, Pneuma Hagion is back with their debut full length, Voidgazer. Again joining forces with Nuclear War Now!, this one man band (!) blasts and churns forth grim and bleak death worth gazing into the void for. From the hand drawn cover art to the grimy tracks within, Voidgazer shows that heavy, old school death is timeless and unstoppable.
Now here’s a most welcome deluxe/ extras packed Blu Ray release of mid-’80s seasonally slasher classic Silent Night, Deadly Night & it’s 1987 sequel. The boxset appears on UK’s 101 films, and as we’ve come to expect from the label we get nicely crisp scans of each film, and a bloody sleigh full of extras….though these are the same as those found on the Scream Factory releases of the films from a few years back.
Japanese cinema legend Takashi Miike’s (Audition, Ichi the Killer, Masters of Horror) take on the spaghetti western is a unique visual experience. Taking the character of the lone gunman, originally played by Franco Nero, in Italian cinema and supplanting him to 19th century Japan by way of the 12th century Heike/Genji clan wars.