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Originally released on limited cassette in 2021, Spain's DAYOFWRATH brought forth blackened industrial with their highly lauded And The World Will Perish In Flames. Cyclic Law picks up the mantle from Cloister Recordings with their loving CD release of this sought after, out of print tape. While still as secretive today as at the time of the original release, DAYOFWRATH show why they're not only one of Spain's strongest group of industrial madmen, but also the world's. Choosing dark industrial rhythms over scathing noise, the ritualistic qualities ensure that the listener will fall under the band's spell, becoming part of the eschatological mayhem the short but effective album delivers.
Hydrostatic Kill Pressure is created around manipulated water recordings. The nearly twenty-minute walled noise track is focused on a rewarding/ at point detailed mix of drilling, droning, and juddering texturing.
Memories Of Space is a single forty-six-minute example of the walled noise form, which is all about layers of slowly shifting rumble 'n' churn. As its title suggests, it very much brings to mind the slow/steady flow of a spaceship, with the subtle undertones of dark unease suggesting either something steadily growing in the darkness, or something malevolent awaiting at the end of their journey.
Bloody Legend is a nine-Blu-ray/ single CD box set from the fab folks at InterVision/ Severin. It celebrates/brings together the work of one of the UK’s unlikeliest movie moguls- Cliff Twemlow, a Mancunian bouncer/ body builder, who went on to write/ star in/produce a series of low-budget/ largely SOV films in the early 80s to early 90s- these moved between action, thriller, sci-fi, and horror. His most notable/notorious film was 1983’s G.B.H., which landed on the video nasty list, though he was connected with another ten feature films, many of which have never seen a full/proper release until now. Along with the films, we get thirteen plus hours of extras, plus a CD worth of Cliff’s music, as he was also a songwriter, oh and a pulp horror novelist too.
As someone who grew up watching the original Creepshow on repeat, seeing Creepshow 2 return in glorious 4K nearly forty years later feels like a twisted little gift. When Arrow Video announced this release, I wondered, would the remaster preserve the campy magic or strip away the grainy charm that made it so good in the first place? Within minutes, I was relieved. That same eerie atmosphere is intact, only sharper, cleaner, and even more fun to revisit.
As with most of its Nordic neighbours, the music of Iceland stands uniquely alone - not just in its creativity but in its distinct tone and sound. Home to Björk, Sigur Rós, the late great Jóhann Jóhannsson and latterly, John Grant, there is something deep in the nation’s musical DNA that sees its artists (homegrown or otherwise) embrace the epic. Maybe it’s living in such a geographically spectacular country. Being in a place where there’s an innate feeling of experiencing the past, present and future all at once. It’s certainly this sensibility that infiltrates the music of collective múm – a band of independent Icelandic performers - who, after a hiatus of 12 years, re-entered the studio to revisit their blend of songwriting and electronic experimentation for History of Silence, their seventh album in thirty-odd years
You could be forgiven if you've never heard of the cult, mostly cassette-focused Japanese underground label, DD. Well, in the way that nearly everything ends up on YT, it is basically a lock that all rare and once-obscure releases will be re-released. Not everything that once was is worth being born again, but this is certainly not the case with Disk Musik: A DD. Records Compilation, an amazing time capsule that will engender envy in post-Pro Tools populations, or, in the case of this reviewer, a deep, aching nostalgia for the genuinely weird. Over thirteen tracks, listeners are treated to a wide swath of what the label formerly released, from noisy abstract textures to idiosyncratic pop hits.
Coventry-based 80s electronic duo The Sea of Wires were huge fans of the German Kosmische scene that arose in the 1970s through bands like Amon Duul, Can, Cluster and Tangerine Dream. Chris Jones and Tony Murphy crafted their own equivalent to those records with a variety of analogue equipment that produced exciting experimental electronica with a working-class Midlands twist to it.
Through And Through stands as one of the more bleakly distinctive and often tonally unbalancing films based on a true crime. The early '70s Polish film blends unpredictable editing, up-close & personal drama, arty & disorienting visuals, and jarring blends of music & sound. Here from Radiance Films, both in the UK & stateside, is a recent Blu-ray release of the film. Taking in a 2k scan, a new interview, and a collection of the director's short films.
Ride A Wild Stud is a haphazardly made roughie western from the late 60s. It’s a fairly loosely plotted affair, where much of the time, it’s unclear who is who, aside from a few key characters. Though there’s an effectively unpleasant & crumby-looking lead bad guy, and a fair bit of uncomfortable sleaze present. Here from Dark Force Entertainment is a bare bones Blu-ray release of the film.
Here’s a CD release bringing together three compositions from Italian modern classical composer Osvaldo Coluccino. All of the pieces mix electronics with acoustic instruments- for an often volatile, darting, and at times moodily uneasy ride.
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.