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Zone Grise brings together three pieces by French modern classical composer/pianist Didier Rotella, whose work shifts between the jagged/darting & the ambient. Two blend electronics with formal instrumentation, and one is for a string quartet.
Released in the year 1968, Succubus, aka Necronomicón, was one of the first drives into the more dreamily kinky and hallucinogenic side of Jess Franco's filmography. It told of an S&M-focused nightclub performer who loses her grip on reality. The picture is often seen as one of the Eurocult auteur's most notable/ respected films. So, with that in mind, here we have the latest edition of PSP’s Publishing Midnight Movie Monograph series, which finds highly respected cult film commentator Tim Lucas doing a deep dive into the film and all that surrounds it.
From 2023, Perpetrator is a heady, though often confusing, mix of female coming-of-age drama, fantasy, and serial killer thriller with an overt focus on blood. Here from Arrow Video, both in the UK and stateside, is a Blu-ray release of the film, taking in both new and archive extras.
Out Of The Clouds is a drama played out over a twenty-four-hour period in London Airport, which changed its name to Heathrow in 1966. The mid-50s British film is both a charming and rather fascinating affair, as it weaves together several( largely) engaging character stories and gives us a look at the early days of UK jet travel. Here from Powerhouse, only in the US, is a Blu-ray release of the film, taking in two cuts of the picture, and a selection of new & archive extras.
Austrian improv trio, Phenomenal World, release their debut through Rock Is Hell on LP this month, having hit the downloadable scene a couple of weeks back. Consisting of Michael Fischer (vox, reeds), Didi Kern (drums), and Philipp Quehenberger (keyboard), the group presents an engaging, noisy slab of funky experimental music that is as easy to get into as it is to bob one's head along with the beat. Recorded just shy of two years ago, Same is an energetic work that highlights three musicians in sync with their visions and talents.
Here we have a wall noise split- bringing together work from projects from Bangkok and Cincinnati, Ohio. Each serves up around thirty minutes ‘wall’- with each sounding fairly different.
Sketches 1-17 is a two-disc set bringing together pared-down guitar compositions. The material moves between drifting ambience, slowed-down blues/ jazz motifs, and generally atmospheric/ felt guitar scaping. It’s an album very much to sink into and drift off with.
Successive Actions takes in sixteen tracks built around recordings of motorised devices, sourced from obsolete consumer technology. Track lengths vary between one and eleven minutes, with the recordings moving between textural studies, erratic blending of several different elements, and all-out/ intense sound crafting.
Loop And Again is a CD album themed around magnetic fields. It blends recordings of said fields, drone texturing, sudden pitch rising detail, and general field recordings. The three tracks featured are eventful, moody, at times atmospherically jarring- with a sound that dips in electro ambience, pressing drone texturing, and even droned out avant jazz.
Giuseppe Ielasi & Riccardo Dillon Wanke are two avant-garde guitarists with a Morton Feldman-esque idea of minimalist composition. For the purposes of this recording, titled With Time, We Learned to Ask Less, Wanke plays the electric piano. Here they can be heard playing disconnected, delicate melodic fragments in a reverberant space, with a few seconds of silence between each, hinting at chord-like structures before dissolving them again into a soporific emptiness. You might call it a free jazz-informed instrumental ambient recording.
Sitting in the subgenre of folk horror, 2023's The Seeding is a barren, intense film that puts its protagonist through the wringer. Here on the Arrow Video Player is a VOD release of the film.
The Naked Witch, aka The Witchmaker, is a cult 1969 exploitation horror movie written, produced and directed by William O Brown (Brown only made one other movie, the beach comedy One Way Wahine). The movie stars Anthony Eisley (Wasp Woman, Frankie and Johnny and Hawaiian Eyes), Thordis Brandt (Funny Girl, In Like Flint and The Green Hornet), Alvy Moore (Green Acres, A Boy and His Dog and Intruder) and Shelby Grant (The Pleasure Seekers, Fantastic Voyage and Our Man Flint).
Here’s a pro-printed and duplicated CD in a digipak case, complete with a large booklet, featuring around 40 minutes of vocal pieces from Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer. The tracks are constructed from layers of vocal performances, and the booklet and label spiel take great pains to loudly point out that the works are free of processing, an odd claim to my mind, but we’ll get to that later.
Joe Meek-A Curious Mind is a three-CD box set that looks at the more quirky, playful and experimental side of 1960s English pop producer Joe Meek. Over the collection, we get a total of seventy-six tracks, which highlight his wacky, but often ahead of his time sonic talents, which darted in & out of different genres/ themes.
Seth Thorn is a violinist and coder – not necessarily two things that traditionally jibe – though today is certainly not traditional, by any stretch of the imagination. Thorn is a live improviser, and his first album, a curious doubling of terms, parades all of his talents, of which there are many. Things begin rather peacefully, the violin taking centre stage, but quickly the larger field in which it appears becomes populated by the machinic, in Thorn's terms. Similar experiments follow, including a church organ ringing out on "taking to heart", though the lo-fi tape flutter reminds us we are definitely not in the pews. The track concludes by submerging all of this under synthetic oceans, drowning any vestiges of the organic beneath its waves.
Trouble Every Day is a slowly unfurling, glum and troubling mystery drama- edged with moments of both shocking sexualized violence and body horror. The early 2000s centres around a newlywed American couple, Shane (Vincent Gallo) and Jean (Tricia Vessey), on their honeymoon to Paris, and how obsession/ perversion taints their time in the city of love. Here from Eureka, as either a UHD or Blu-ray, is a new reissue of the film, taking in a 4k scan, and a selection of new & archive extras
Divine Love is a late 2010 Brazilian film that blends martial drama with dystopian sci-fi with a lowercase D. It regards a female bureaucrat who revels in bringing back those from the ledge of divorce, and with her florist husband, is part of a cult that believes in pure love ‘n’ god- via dance parties, ritualistic group bonding, and pink-lit orgies. It’s certainly a thought-provoking, if slightly vapid film, that’s well-scoped/realised, often edged with neon colourings. Here from Second Run is a recent Blu-ray release of the film, taking in a 4K scan, and an interview with the writer/ director
Anyone who has been into death metal at all during the past forty years has no doubt had an encounter with Deceased, one of the longest-running death metal bands around. King Fowley has seen it all in his time at the helm of the band, steering them through the shredding chaos of the early days and tape trading clear through to today's infinitely connected world of websites, streaming, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and myriad other sources of information. While the world has changed immensely in the past five decades, King and company have always stayed true to themselves and to their metallic aims, even if it meant changing stylistically, and because of this truth, we're presented with the wonderful and diverse 2CD set, March of the Cadavers - 40 Years of Death Metal From the Grave.
Here’s a self-titled release that focuses on dense, dissonant, at times maniacally playful improv/ non-music. The CD release takes in six tracks, which shy away from formal structure and shape to create a sort of blunt jam/ haphazard improv vibe.
Talent Should Be Rewarded is the latest release from Sebastian Tomb ( aka Berlin’s Joris Martin Sabinius)- one of the most creative projects to appear from the euro wall noise scene in some time. This new digital-only EP sees the project pushing the genre envelope even more- with elements of sampled/ manipulated field records, synth tones, etc added into the mixing pot- to create a release that is still in the walled noise/ textured noise genre, but is always keen to experimentation/ expand the form.
Odieux serves up two eighteen-minute slices of hope-numbing & seriously nihilistic HNW from this Bordeaux-based project. With each wall being as sonically searing & audibly roasting as the each other.
From the early 1990’s The Cat is a wacky ‘n’ pulpy blend of mystery, sci-fi-edged action, and horror. It brings together a dog-fighting-cat from out of space, a Blob/Thing-like alien that takes over folks, and a curious/smug novelist. The joint Hong Kong/Japanese-produced film is certainly one hell of a ride, with well-set-up/choreographed action scenes, blended with Hong Kong wackiness. Here from 88 Films is a Blu-ray release of the picture, featuring a new 2k scan of the film, the alternative Japanese version, a commentary track, and an interview with the film's writer.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the Finnish experimental music scene is like no other. In fact, the word experimental is almost moribund here because music produced by this most Easterly of Nordic countries is seldom what anyone would call mainstream. Whether its metal or electronic, Finnish musicians have a habit of touching the outer reaches of creativity and yet make it feel oh so natural. And electronic musician Timo Kaukolampi is no exception. Both a voracious collaborator and an acclaimed solo artist, Kaukolampi vehemently creates with no evident boundaries. In fact, his sole aim as both musician and producer is to destroy everything he makes – and then recreate it again. Based in Helsinki, he has spent the last few years concentrating on his solo career with the 2023 release of Inside the Sphere and now his latest Synestopia Variations 1-4.
In 1989, Chilean filmmaker, Alejandro Jodorowsky created one of his finest surreal masterpieces, a film called Santa Sangre. It follows the life of a young boy, Fenix (played by Jodorowsky’s son Axel), who is growing up within the confines of a Mexican circus with his father, Orgo the knife thrower and his mother, Concha a religious fanatic. Orgo is also in an extra-marital relationship with the tattooed lady, whom Concha is jealous of. All of this combines to produce one of the most wonderful, surreal horror movies. However, alongside Jodorowsky’s unique stylistic touches and weird brand of storytelling, one of the key factors in making Santa Sangre such a success is the musical score from English composer/ musician, Simon Boswell. Boswell has more than 90 soundtracks to his name, including work for Dario Argento, Clive Barker, Richard Stanley and Danny Boyle. Santa Sangre remains one of his most celebrated works.