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Primal Scream is a decidedly haphazard & at times conventionally bad cinematic stew of noir tipped sci-fi, horror melt action, and fairly standard cop thriller. Sure this wont be for everyone, but if you enjoy late 80’s Hamish acting, active genre-blending, and some passable enough effects you’ll surely get some kick out of this. Here from the folks at Code Red/Dark Forces is recent region free release of the film bringing together a new print of the picture, commentary tracks, and few other extras.
The Woman in Black has become something of a lost classic, there are many of us who remember it well and have been waiting since its 1989 screening on ITV to see it again. Barely released on VHS, never officially released on UK DVD but finally, after 31 years it arrives on Bluray from the good folks at Network.
For 30+ years, Incantation has been one of the most recognizable names in death metal. Spreading the sound further from the Florida and New York scenes, Incantation made a name for themselves with their early releases, and despite plenty of line-up changes, continued to hold strong. 2020 sees their latest full length, Sect of Vile Divinities, keeping their love of death metal alive and kicking.
Records, Records, Records is the next in the series of cool, often camp, and rare 45’s compilation from Righteous. This two-disc CD set takes in fifty-two tracks from around the 50’s & the ’60s; & it’s a great dose of quirky sonic Americana.
Ashes Coalesce is a record that managers to blend & mix several sub-genres of Heavy metal in an original & coherent manner- we find here a sonic brew of Death Metal, Funeral Doom, and Progressive Metal, making it one of the more memorable & rewarding metal releases in some time.
No Belief is a sixty-nine-minute compilation focusing in on the more techno stabbing-to-rhythmic side of the walled noise genre. The seven-track CDR compilation is varied enough with tracks moving from dense ‘n’ hacking attacks, murky & muffled groove-bound moments, and building-yet- churning electronica wrapped walled noise.
Veteran French house music producer Julien Auger, also known as Pépé Bradock, has now unveiled a new alias for avant garde and electroacoustic music with the Brigitte Barbu project. The album Muzak pour Ascenseurs en Panne (Music for Broken Lifts) is a largely beatless ambient collage of texturally rich experimentation with a vividness that suggests hardware and live instrumentation, but enough heavy processing to obscure the origins of many sounds.
There seems to be a never-ending supply of recordings reclaimed from the lost alleys of the past, and Tompkins Square have reissued another beauty. Mossy Kilcher, then known as Mossy Davidson, self-released these recordings in 1977 as a double album, now very much a rarity (and as I’m reviewing a digital version I did check Discogs, and it’s both expensive and very beautiful) but now available for us all to enjoy. Music runs in Kilcher’s family, as her niece, Jewel, is ‘Alaska’s most successful recording artist of all time’ - though despite that claim to fame, I’ll admit to being blissfully ignorant of Jewel’s works. However, Northwind Calling is undoubtedly an unearthed treasure.
Of all of Morton Feldman's mid-range/ hour plus pieces For John Cage is possible the most played & recorded. I think this is down to two reasons - firstly the urgent & often angular feel of the work makes it more approachable than the largely more quiet & skeletal side of the great modern composers output. Secondly, it’s for just two instruments- the Violin & Piano, so the work can be easily played in a range of small to large settings- with of course talented & disciplined musicians on board. Here from up 'n' coming Irish modern composition/ improv label Diatribe Records, is a 2018 recording of the work which brings together pianist John Tilbury who is one of the key/ go-to players of Feldman piano work, and respected Irish violinist Darragh Morgan who has a good grounding in playing modern classical music.
The Naughty Victorians is an elegantly shot & often decidedly amusing slice of mid-1970’s sleaze. The films best described as light hardcore-meets-bawdy innuendo fuelled send-up of the British middle-to-upper classes in the late 1800s. Here from the folks at Vinegar Syndrome is a recent dual-format release of the film-bringing together a 2k scan, a new commentary track & a few other extras.
Medemer is a splendidly noise-up, angular-to-playful yet always creative example improv/avant jazz craft. Lean Left is a four-piece project that brings together respected Norwegian drummer/ sometime bandleader Paal Nilssen-Love on drums, Terrie Ex and Andy Moor- on guitars- from avant Dutch punk collective The Ex, and respected Rhode Island. Improviser Ken Vandermark on Sax & Bd Clarinet. This new album sees the collective offer up seventy-two minutes worth of music, and for such a lengthy album it certainly keeps you on your toes- as the four-piece pinball back & forth between noise bound bombardments, seared up groove, and lightly harmonic touched jam-outs.
Erlend Apneseth is best known as a hardingfele player from Jølster in Sogn og Fjordane in Western Norway. The hardingfele is a traditional Norwegian stringed instrument similar to the fiddle or the violin, the name itself translating into English as Hardanger Fiddle. Fragmentarium is his third solo album since his 2012 debut, but he has also appeared with his own band the Erlend Apneseth Trio on three albums, as well as being part of the collaborative project Jølster alongside Gro Marie Svidal, Synnøve S. Bjørset, and Sigmund Eikås.
Here from Arrow Video is a Blu Ray reissue of Inferno Of Torture- a gore ‘n’ rope bondage bound Japanese period drama directed by Tokyo based Teruo Ishii. The director was behind the fever dream horror of Horror Of Malformed Man, and Orgies Of Edo a bizarre crossbreed between lushly costumed period drama, sleazed & perverse sexploitation, and bloody red spurting horror- both of which were also put out by Arrow. I was a big fan of both of the latter films- so when I saw Arrow were putting out another Teruo Ishii I was excited- sadly I came away feeling somewhat underwhelmed- as the balance between period drama & gore/ sleaze is largely tipped toward drama and less towards blood 'n' flesh.
When one thinks of Japanese noise names like Merzbow, Incapacitants, and Masonna come to mind. But another project that’s been getting lots of praise & much-deserved reissues of their back catalog of late is K2- with its fiery & dense-yet often creative and moody junk focused soundcraft. This recent six-CD set focuses in on the early work from the project from between the years 1990- 96, and I must say even at the dawning of K2-the sound here is self-assured, skilful, with a good idea of noise composition/ flow- and largely it’s also fairly firm & focused in it’s raging-yet- controlled junk noise attack.
Catching the attention of Miguel Ruiz (Orfeón Gagarin, Toracic) in 1987, northern German Siegmar Fricke's Bestattungsinstitut project sparked a friendship, collaboration, and experimental music exchange that lasted for quite a long time. Fricke's solo work on Glandular Formations is gloomy and evocative, and as grim as the name would suggest (translates to something like "funeral parlor"). Thankfully not lost to the ravages of time, Verlag presents this collection of tracks on two limited color vinyl pressings, making Bestattungsinstitut available to a world eager for grim sounds to match their grim environment.
Moan is a Polish projects that brings together brooding & creepy dark ambience, and moody-at times jarring sonic flotsam & jetson- taking in both subtle electronica & industrial touches. Here’s a double CD reissue of the project's work- disc one collates together two releases, and disc two is a selection of remixes of the tracks of the first disc.
Hyazo presents us with three eleven-to-twenty minute works for spinet, harmonium, viola da gamba, pitch pipes & harmonica. The sound here is somewhere between wondering & bleak improv, grim modern composition, and darting-to-brooding drone matter. This is another CD release from UK label Another Timbre- who always mine the best in modern composition- with the disc presented in the labels house style minimal white mini gatefold, which takes in a very tone fitting picture of a blurred & hazed sunset picture of a waterway which is overlooked by a huge dark landmass.
2015’s REEL was somewhat of an underground horror hit- the Canadian production was a meta found footage venture that followed the exploits of faceless serial killer Slashervictim666, who stalked his victims on-line. The film blended believable & well-acted victims, moody-to-arty imagery with moments of gruelling & intense violence/ proto snuff footage. I checked the film out in 2019 with the self-released DVDR release, finding it one of the most promising horror debuts in the last 10/15 years. A month or so back I received an email from those behind the original REEL, informing me that the sequel was done & ready to view- so with some in trepidation, I ready myself to check the film out via VOD.
There are only a couple of films that manage to switch between comfy, charming & lightly comic to harrowing & emotionally troubling, and 1986’s When The Wind Blows is one such film. The animated film tells of Britain been nuked in the early 1980s, but tells its story from the point of view of an elderly couple living in a green & idyllic countryside setting. From the folks over at Severin Kids here’s release number three from the sub-label- the region free Blu Ray takes in a new scan of the film, and a good selection of extras.
The name of Ashley Hutchings is almost legendary in Folk Rock circles. As a founding member of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band he is responsible for some of the most important music of the 1970s Folk Rock explosion. Hutchings was also married to Folk royalty between 1971 and 1978, the extraordinary Shirley Collins. The 1980s wasn’t kind to Folk music driving it into something of a cul de sac where it was looked upon as a twee, woolly jumper, finger in the ear style of music played by older men and women in quiet pubs in fishing villages across the country. This stereotype hung around for some time, however many musicians including Hutchings tried to weather the storm, he kept the Albion Band running throughout this time and wrote and recorded a number of solo records, By Gloucester Docks I sat Down and Wept is one of those records.
The Corn Years Plus is a Death In June compilation focusing on the years 1985 -1987. The CD and 7" vinyl set brings together some classic songs from the period. And it will very much appeal beyond the normal DIJ audience, as throughout the 21 track collection we get songs featuring collaborations from key post-industrial/ Neo-Folk projects such as Coil & Current 93, really cementing DIJ's importance/place in this scene.
Tireless soundscaper Stephen Ah Burroughs returns once again with his project, Tunnels of Ah, to drop another grim slab, Deathless Mind. Focusing on a half mile stretch of abandoned railway, Stephen manifests the sonic imagery of the human transgressions that have taken place on this piece of land. Dark and uncomfortable, Deathless Mind captures the cold, unflinching permanence of residual energy.
In late spring 2020, German label Amor Fati released the self-titled debut album from Akolyth- an extremely mysterious one-man Black Metal project, which zilch is known about- so we have no idea what city or country the projects from, all that’s offered is that someone called Sphere is behind Akolyth. The sound here is very much straight-ahead/ classic Scandinavian BM. The album was released as either CD, 12 inch and in digital form.
The 1970s was the decade of the singer-songwriter,going from the popular piano-driven sounds of Elton John. Onto the often passionate R&B/ soft rock of Van Morrison, through to the bleaker love song fare of Leonard Cohen, through to the more playful American rock from the likes of Warren Zevon. One of the lesser-known, yet no less distinctive singer-songwriters of the decade was Englishman Brian Protheroe- who penned often wordy 'n' playful mixes of pop, rock, & genre-blending- with his later work moving more towards prog/art-rock circles. Here on 7T’s- one of Cherry Red Record family of labels- is a three-CD set bringing together three albums put out by Mr. Protheroe in the 70's.