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765cJ finds this Bordeaux-based wall noise project presenting us with a rather mysterious/subtle unsettling wall. The single track runs for just eighteen minutes, moving from a jarring/uneasy start, to the dense swirling disorientation main.
Sinful Secrets is a recent bone-grinding and nerve-searing example of the walled noise from this long-running/ ultra prolific Californian project. The release features a single forty-minute track, which remains full, thick, and completely unforgiving throughout.
The Rapacious Jailbreaker is a 1974 crime drama from Japanese director Sadao Nakajima (A Savage Beast Goes Mad, Jeans Blues: No Future and The Seburi Story). The film stars Kōju Meguro aka Hiroki Matsukata (13 Assassins, The Shogun Assassins and Hanzo the Razor), Tomisaburô Wakayama (Black Rain, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance and Lone Wolf and Cub: Babycart in the Land of Demons), Naoko Ôtani (Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Zatoichi at Large and Kitsune no kureta akanbô), and Tsunehiko Watase (The Incident, Heaven and Earth and A Strange Beast Goes Mad).
Klasis, the latest EP from Ben Chatwin, houses four emotionally charged, lushly textured, engaging electronic pieces that quickly make their impact and don't let go until the album is over. Exploring the dynamic tension brought about by skillfully played synths, cello, and cinematic arrangement, Chatwin brings the listener on a quick but fruitful journey through mind, body, and soul. At just around seventeen minutes, Klasis works deftly to hit its stride and make its mark, and still manages to improve with successive spins.
Here’s another CDR from Inner Demons Records, decorated and packaged in their usual diy way; I’m always a fan of labels with a clear visual identity and style. Fog Baptism offers up five tracks, all mired in drone and murk, but all avoiding sounding standard or derivative.
Themroc is a French film from the early 70s regarding a middle-aged living-with-his mother house decorator, who suddenly flips from the day-to-day grind, turning his apartment into a cave. The film has no formal dialogue/language, but instead is built around the characters grunting or talking gibberish. It’s a film that sits somewhere between absurdist comedy, statical drama, and crude-dusty/ noisy art film. Here from Radiance is the first ever digital release of the film in either the UK or US- the Blu-ray takes in a 4K scan, mixed of new and archive interviews.
I Will Never Leave You Alone is an early 2020 film that blends creepy haunted house horror with an are-they-going-mad-or-not thriller. It’s a rather slow-burning affair, which is punctuated here and there with moments of brutal gore. Here from Arrow Video is a recently released Blu-ray of the film, including a few extras
O is a three-inch CDR bringing together the first four tracks recored by Burnaby, British Columbia’s Scrapping Young Bucks. I’d guess you’d discripe their sound as experimental electronica, with touches of skeletal new wave/ indie guitar playing, and uneasy Muzak weaved in. Quite a moody & original sound really.
A. Live Transmission is a single/developing twenty-one-minute track that blends purring ‘n’ rounding noise drone matter, dialogue samples, jarring tone drops, off-kilter keyboard additions, and wayward beats.
All Hallows' Eve Trickster is the third in this horror anthology series of films. The series is most known/ notable for its first film, which launched the career of everyone’s favourite deranged killer clown, Art from the Terrifier films. This third film is from 2023, and takes in six stories plus a wraparound, and I’m afraid to say this is a highly quality mixed anthology. Here from WowNow is a very bare-bones DVD release of the film.
If one genre has truly ridden the wave of egalitarian musicmaking, it’s the deep, dark world of atmospheric, textured soundscapes. While of course there can be no complaints over the current surge of ambient music, it does present a bit of a challenge when it comes to sorting the truly innovative from the more pedestrian. No wonder then that when KPT and his wholly unique form of deconstructed techno-cum-noise music appeared a decade ago, people sat up and listened. An artist who consistently succeeds in pushing the boundaries of inventiveness and creativity in this saturated world, KPT is experimental in the extreme, pushing his form of avant-garde meets the dancefloor degree, intellectualising the beat-heavy experience. This is a current that has flowed through his work ever since he appeared on the scene, but everyone needs a change and for his latest release, KPT is taking his work in a different direction, subverting expectations. Claw adopts a pseudo-minimalist approach to industrial noise that (in the main) keeps its volume low but its intensity high as the American musician continues to take apart what we know and expect and put those pieces back in an order that is both exciting and incredibly creative.
From the late 80s, The House of Lost Souls is a decidedly wacky Euro horror take on the haunted house genre. It throws into the mix of crawling tarantulas, blood dripping light fittings, a selection of stabbing-to-decapitating murders, running wild killer washing machines, a baseball-capped boy ghost who likes misting up glass, and loads of camp/ OTT horror fun. Here from Cauldron Films is a recent region-free Blu-ray of the film, taking in a new 2K/ totally uncut print of the film, two commentary tracks from genre experts, and a mix of new and archive extras.
From the tail end of the 1980s, The House of Clocks was one of the later films made by Italian gore meister Lucio Fulci. It was a TV film that was too bloody/extreme for the Italian network, so it ended up being released on the VHS market. The picture blends house invasion thriller, creepy old folks chiller, and supernatural/time-related horror. Here from Cauldron Films is a recent region-free Blu-ray of the film, taking in a new 2K/ totally uncut print of the film, with a new commentary track by genre experts, and a mix of new and archive extras.
Gather In The Mushrooms was first released in the year 2004- it was a 60s/70s British folk compilation compiled/ curated by Bob Stanley( DJ/ member of Saint Etienne). Here from UK’s Ace Records is a reissue of the compilation. It’s available as either a double vinyl release or as a CD. The collection is well sequenced for a mellow, if at times sombre, to lightly playful tone.
Motor Psycho sees the welcome return of Righteous’s Lux & Ivy compilations series, which sees respected journalist Dave Henderson crate-digging for crude, wacky, or wild 45s from the 50s & 60s. This time around, we get thirty tracks focusing on all things car/ motorbike related, for another rewarding & relatively varied collection with some surprises/ gems along the way.
This is a C45 split bringing together two densely atmospheric edged examples of harsh noise form. We go from the bluntly baying junk drone meets malevolently lightly seared ambience of the Hooked Talons track. Onto the bass gallop, meet swirling slice of Internal Empty.
Here’s a three-way wall noise split- bringing together three US projects. It takes in Massachusetts-based Wallmart, Phoenix’s The Ide Of Earth, and Richmond’s Social Role Theory. Each project offers up its own track, and then the three collaborate on one track.
By the time Mississippi Mermaid hit the big screen in 1969, Francois Truffaut had long been established as the doyen of French New Wave cinema casting back to a decade previously when his groundbreaking debut Les Quatre Cent Coups aka The 400 Blows received rapturous acclaim. This was swiftly followed by the Charles Aznavour vehicle Shoot the Piano Player in 1960 and quintessential tragic love triangle Jules et Jim two years later. Having ridden the wave of this new vanguard of film making alongside his compatriot Jean-Luc Godard, Truffaut’s star began to wane with the troubled production of Fahrenheit 451 but he soon re-emerged as cinematic kingpin thanks to the release of 1968’s Baiser Voles aka Stolen Kisses, which saw the return of the much-loved and considerably older Antoine Doniel, protagonist of his 1959 breakout masterpiece, so adeptly played by Jean-Pierre Leaud.
Czech musician Ursula Sereghy has a background in jazz, but for this new recording, Cordial creates cleanly produced, digital IDM with a classically trained harmonic logic and many cut-up samples of sung female vocals. From what I can tell, she has one other solo recording, released in 2021.
From the early 1980s, The Mysterious Castle In The Carpathians is a Czech film that blends pulp adventure, proto-steampunk, wacky Sci-fi, light gothic horror, and comedy- be it slapstick, parody, or the surreally edged. The 1897 set picture regards a pompous-yet-heroic Baron, who goes to investigate a castle, where the devil is meant to live, but instead of finding the horned one, or a vampire. He finds a diabolical bad guy with a long-permed beard, and a crazed/ constantly inventing professor. Here from Deaf Crocodile is a region A Blu-ray release of the film, taking in a new scan, new commentary track, and a selection of new/ archive extras.
Eat The Night is a 2024 French thriller directed by Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel (Jessica Forever, As Long as Shotguns Remain and How Are You?). The film stars Theo Cholbi (As Above, So Below, The Night of the 12th and Le choix de Cheyenne), Erwan Kepoa Falé (Passages, Winter Boy and Chica Checa), Lila Gueneau (The Fantastic Journey of Margot and Marguerite, Les Temoins and À bras-le-corps) and Mathieu Perotto (The Rapture, Les Melange des genres, and The Bureau).
As a teen in the 1980’s I was completely and utterly fascinated by special effects, and if you’d asked me what I wanted to do as a career then, it was an FX artist. More often than not, when renting a VHS during the decade, it was either a horror film or a cheesy sex comedy- but there were one or two exceptions- and 1986's F/X was one of these, as it was an action thriller- focused on an effect artist, so it was right up my teen self’s street, and since released I’ve seen in numerous times. It still stands up with its neat mix of effect illusions, suspense, and action. So, when I saw that the fine folks at Arrow Video were releasing FX, and its 1991 sequel, it was a no-brainer release for me. The two-disc Blu-ray set takes in an HD scan of each film, new commentaries, a blend of new & archive extras, a sixty-page inlay booklet, a double-sided poster, and stickers.
In recent years, Wilmington, Delaware born director & writer Ti West has become one of the most notable/ known horror filmmakers of today. But his career started back in the early 2000s with his first feature film being The House Of The Devil- an early 80s set slow-burn blend of creepy house horror, dread-filled thriller, and jarring satanic terror. It’s a skilful shot and moodily tooled debut film, which managed to recreate the late 70s early 80s horror vibe perfectly, adding in darts of gore and shocking horror. I’ve seen, and largely enjoyed all of Mr West’s cinematic output, but The House of the Devil still stands as his masterpiece, as it perfectly builds its mood & tone, with some general moments of fright/ intense shock appearing later on in the film. So it is wonderful to see here a new boxset from the folks at Second Sight- taking in a great selection of on-disc extras, a seventy-page booklet with new writing about the film, colour art cards, and a hard case slipcase.
In 2014, one of the more original/simply plotted yet creative found Footage horror films appeared, Creep. It regards Arron( Patrick Brice), a young videographer, taking a job filming Josef ( Mark Duplass)- who he believes to be a dying man, but as things unfold, it becomes clear that Josef is not dying & he’s a cunning killer, and Arron is his next victim. The film blended awkward and dark humour, with some effective jumps, and several unsettling moments. In 2017, there was a second film, Creep 2- which managed to keep the spirit of the first film, and add to it. And then in 2024, we got The Creep Tapes, a six-part series on Shudder, which found us being presented with the tapes of victims from the killer's cupboard. Here from Acorn Media International is a Blu-ray release of the series, including commentary tracks for all six episodes, and a short interview with actor Duplass & director Brice.