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From the early 1970’s The Amazing Mr. Blunden is a charming and heart-warming slice of very English family-focused cinema. It brings together elements of Dickens like period drama, ghosts, time travel fantasy, and some lightly trippy visuals. From Second Sight here we have a new Blu ray reissue of this quirky classic- bringing together a new print of the film, a commentary track, and one or two extras.
The Barn is a wonderfully retro fuelled shot of horror genre fun- it brings together elements of slasher, monster fun, and campy 80’s teen action flick- with the whole been set in & around Halloween. Here from Scream Team Releasing is a recent DVD release of the film- which offers up a commentary track, and a few extras.
American-born-now-Berlin-based artist Danielle De Picctto may be known to some for her planning and implementation of the first Berlin Loveparade with her former friend Dr. Motte. But Since 2006 she has been married to Alexander Hacke of the Einstürzende Neubauten, and both have been sonically active solo as well as an artistic couple. Her newest (solo) album Deliverance is a kind of concept album, and that's what really drew me in.
New to the scene, but already causing a stir, Italy's Clavicvla heads to Cyclic Law for their sophomore release, Sepulchral Blessing. Continuing down the path of dark and thick ambient, this latest slab of murky tones delves deep into the Earth and launches the listener into chthonic catharsis. Grim and low, Sepulchral Blessing slowly churns, boring its way deeper into the core, and lashing out with tendrils to pull listeners closer into its heaving being.
From October last year here’s a two-track album from one of the more original & distinctive figures in experimental sound Howard Stelzer-a Lowell MA-based sound creator whose work blurs the line between drone, noise, electro-acoustic texturing, and field recording.
Tide (for Ten Basses) severs up two extremely dense 'n' bone simmering examples of drone matter. Each of the tracks slides in around the twenty-minute mark, and each is based around the sustained power of ten basses- with the first track focusing in on a gloomy haze, and the second brighter-yet-still dense and pressing drone matter.
VHS Nasty is the third installment of the 'VHS Lives' documentary series from director Tony Newton featuring interviews with his friends and colleagues from the world of low budget film making. The first in the series, simply titled 'VHS Lives: A Shockumentary' featured some well-known figures from the world of underground horror and sleaze with the likes of Nekromantik director Jörg Buttgereit and David DeCoteau who gave the world Creepozoids and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama both featured.
One of the most known/celebrated names in 1950’s exotica/ early world music is Yma Sumac- the Peruvian singer was a coloratura soprano with both a powerful and varied voice, that could go all the way from low and warming, through to shrill & bird-like singing. Here from El- one of the Cherry Red family of labels is a recent three-CD boxset bringing six classic albums the singer released between 1950 & 1959.
Woodwork is a recent two track album from highly respected, versatile, and devilishly creative guitarist Fred Frith. The release both highlights the scope, depth, and genre blending talents of Frith, as he seemingly effortless moves from darting & jagged improv, chugging and dense heaviness, through to unearthly ambeince, onto almost all out noise, and beyond.
Unmasked Part 25 is part bloody ‘n’ brutal slasher, part genre comedy/ parody, and part off-key/bizarre romance- all making for a very strange cinematic cocktail. Appearing in the last rays of the 80's slasher trend this rare British addition to the genre is certainly a distinct and often highly quirky take of the stalk ‘n’ slash form. From the folks over at Vinegar Syndrome here’s a dual-format Blu Ray & DVD release of this late 1980’s oddity- it severs up the companies always classy new print, and two new commentary tracks with the film's director and writer.
Faces Of Fear is the forth boxset of Hammer films from Powerhouse films. The set severs up four very different cinematic sides of the great British film company- we go from the rewarding-if-typical gothic horror of The Revenge Of Frankenstein, onto still-gothic-though more inventive The Two Faces Of Doctor Jekyll, though to the companies first suspense/ creepy thriller Taste Of Fear, finishing off with the bleak and genre-blending The Damned- which stands as one of the companies more thought-provoking & troubling films. As with all of the past Hammer box sets Powerhouse has gone to town on a real host of new extras, as well as great new prints for each of the four films.
At the beginning of their careers, any band or musician wants their music to be heard. With the development of modern technology and the Internet, this has become a lot easier with the likes of Bandcamp, and similar services. But, at the end of the last century and at the beginning of the present, technology was not as advanced. So attention was paid to physical media. Therefore, novice musicians recorded their demo albums on audiotapes. Cassettes were distributed at underground concerts, ordered through magazines, and copied at home. I think that almost all styles of heavy music went through such a period. But, in my opinion, the most interesting and fascinating of these is the formation of Black Metal as a genre- here we have a recent book looking at the art of the black metal promos through out the years.
With Serus Iranian composer Siavash Amini presents us with his latest work. A sonic arrangement of wonderful, hidden melodies, ambient drones and some subliminal thunderstorms of dark electronica.
One man black metal bands have been a thing since the beginning of the scene, and they show no signs of slowing down. Forming in 2018, Witchbones is Portland, Oregon's newest entry into the one man scene, and his latest album, The Seas of Draugen, comes this month from Iron Bonehead Productions. Capturing the grim, fairly lo-fi darkness that speaks to winters and witchcraft, this quick hitter of an album gets its message across without wasting much time, and here, brevity really is the soul of wit.
Time Without Pity is a 1957 British film noir about a father trying to save his son from execution for the crime of murder directed by American Joseph Losey after he was blacklisted in his home country due to McCarthyism. The film was written by another blacklisted American, Ben Barzman, and is based on the play Someone Waiting by Emlyn Williams.
Chameleon Body is a two-track CD album that dates back to the classic Merz-days of the mid 1990s. Part of the material here has been released official once before, but that was just a nine-minute snippet that appeared on Merzbox- the work here has given a 2019 remastering. The release offers up a seared ‘n’ shifting noise composition that brings together scorching electro texturing, choppy electronics, and forking/baying junk metal elements.
Gruenrekorder are a label with a reputation for bringing truly novel experiences in sound to the listening public and PLEIN AIR: Silva Datum Musica is no exception. It's ostensibly a multidisciplinary project bringing together artists Tim Collins and Reiko Goto with sound programmer Chris Malcolm to create an interface to "initiate an ethical consideration of trees, using sound to focus the attention and the imagination". This approach has been refined to a point where the whole "performance" is centred on a single leaf where sensors measure the rates of photosynthesis, transpiration and other plant biochemical processes. The data from those sensors is then manipulated and transposed by Malcolm into composed sound. The four pieces on side A of this handsomely presented vinyl were recorded live in Glasgow, Scotland and the side-long piece of side B in Cologne.
Bombshell is a recent collaborative project that brings together two key figures from today’s US walled noise/ textured noise scene- Peter Keller, of projects such as Geißt and Condo Horror. And Scott Kindberg of She Walks Crooked, and Ginger Cortes. US2292387A is the second release from this new project- and it appeared in the form of either a c60 or digital download. The sound here is best described of as drone hazed industrial-focused wall matter- and while you can certainly hear traces of both parties sound here, on the whole, the sound presented on this release is distinct.
Purple Haze is the second physical release from Stand Master- a Texas-based HNW project that themes all of its work around Jojo's Bizarre Adventure- an eight-part manga comic series based the adventures of the Joestar clan, a family whose various members discover they are destined to take down supernatural foes using unique powers that they each possess. This release from late October appeared on Stockholm based Ominous Recordings- coming as a C30 or digital download, and what we have here is two-quarter of hour examples of tight and urgent wall mater.
Fall Into The Abyss is the third full-length release from this Bradford Uk based walled noise project. It comes in the form of either a C60 tape or digital download. The release severs up two half-an-hour examples of wall-craft that is bleak, battering, and crude.
Juan Medrano "Cotito" is an Afro-Peruvian percussionist who passionately continues a rich tradition of music fusing the two cultures. Having never been to Peru, I was totally unaware of any sort of combination of the traditional music of Africa and Peru. This album is a refreshingly unfamiliar listen.
Cold Spring presents Trepaneringsritualen's latest offering: ᛉᛦ – Algir; eller Algir i Merkstave. For the uninitiated, Trepaneringsritualen or TxRxPx is the moniker of Thomas Ekelund, Sweden’s dark master of ritualistic death industrial music. I have thoroughly enjoyed many of his previous works including: Veil the World and Perfection & Permanence. ᛉᛦ – Algir; eller Algir i Merkstave is available in vinyl, compact disc, and digital formats.
The idea of cursed films as jumping-off points for horror cinema has been used to great effect in the last ten-to-twenty years. We, of course, had The Ring Films- both the Japanese originals and US remakes. John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns which followed a movie theatre owner looking for a print of a film that caused homicidal madness. And The Hills Run Red, which saw a group of teens trying to track down a seemingly cursed slasher film. Here from Wildeye Release is a recent DVD release of Fury Of The Demon- a 2017 Mockumentary about an early French film-which each time it's played causes chaos, murder and insanity.
Suburban Grindhouse zooms us back to NYC suburbs of the 1980s for a trip around the lesser chronicled grindhouses of the decade. The book finds life long exploitation Nick Cato fan taking us on a trip down cinematic memory lane, as he recounts around seventy or so trips to local picture houses of the decade- to see crappy slashers, head- expanding monster movies, cheesy sex comedies, and lo-grade action films. Weaved in with these we get a few more modern cinematic trips, as well as a few interviews.