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Brixton Cat is a three-CD set celebrating the work of Joe Mansano- a Trinidadian producer/label owner who moved to London in the early 1960s- to become a key figure in the early Ska and reggae scene. The set brings together 1969’s Brixton Cat, which was the debut album of his project Joe's All Stars, and two compilation discs, Funky Reggae 1969- 1970, and Skinhead Revolt 1970.
Doctor Dark is one of the most sonically contrasting / at points jarring records of The Residents fifty year career. It blends sad and swooning strings/piano keys, with blunt 'n' crude heavy metal, and a side order of electro beats, off-Broadway theatricality, mocked-up news reports, and twittering bird field recordings/uneasy ambience. Lyrical/theme-wise, the album blends 80’s heavy metal influenced shotgun suicide, and a creepy doctor involved in euthanasia.
Here’s a two-track digital release, Calgary, Alberta’s CORR//PT│0N_UN1T- each track runs at the twenty-minute mark, and each is a journey into busy & detailed walled noise.
Like A Rock( როგორც კლდე) is a recently released three-track release from Mtskheta, Georgia‘s Owners Of Knowledge, whose sound mixes elements of walled noise, dense ambience, and field recordings. Each track here rolls in at dead on the twenty-five minute mark, and each is a dense journey into all-enveloping sound craft, which sits at the more focused walled noise end of the project's sound.
Womb is a new horror/slasher movie being made available on digital platforms on 29th April.
Nine Guests For A Crime is a late 70’s giallo set on a Mediterranean island- with a selection of bickering ‘n’ bitchy of rich folks, glimpses of female flesh, touches of eerier atmospherics, and odd dabs of gore. Here from 88 Films is a new Blu-ray release of the film, featuring a new commentary from three genre experts, and a mix of new/ archive extras.
Dracones is the latest release from Hüma Utku, who maps and performs a journey from pregnancy to motherhood with astounding clarity and detail. Unlike so many other personal narratives transposed into sound, Dracones is anything but celebratory or self-indulgent. Instead, Utku manages to press our noses up against the immediacy and claustrophobia of the corporeal changes she underwent while making this album, building a dark and moody background through minimal instrumentation.
Eclipse is a little-known/ rarely-seen British film, which sits somewhere between glum drama and a slowly unfolding psychological thriller. The late 1970s picture is largely set in the wintertime on the lonely and barren Scottish coast. It regards a death at sea, and a small Christmas gathering touched by moments of troubling behaviour, doubt, unsettling reveals- all edged by an uneasy to jarring electronic score, which bubbles up ever so often. Here from the BFI’s Flipside series is a new Blu-ray release of the film, taking a new 2k scan, new commentary track, and a small selection of new & archive extras.
The Cat ( aka Die Katze) is a late 80s German bank robber thriller, with some distinctive elements, and clever twists 'n’ turns in its make-up. It’s a film that quickly pulls you, then nicely notches up the tension, as a tense chess game-like unfold between the robbers & police. Here, from Radiance for the first time outside Germany, is a Blu-ray release of the film, featuring a new scan of the film, and new interviews/ selected scene commentary track.
Impact, from the late 1940s, is a mix of noir and small-town/ courtroom drama. It concerns a scheming wife who tries to off her big city millionaire husband, but instead, her lover gets killed- though the press reports her husband is dead, as he goes into hiding in small town America, and she goes to the slammer. Here from VCI Entertainment is a dual DVD/Blu-ray release of the film, featuring a commentary track
What's the difference between love and herpes? Herpes lasts forever. In this case, the French band Herpes continued to live on as the old-school death metal-inspired Disfuneral. Ten years into the game, the quartet releases their second full-length, In Horror, Reborn, which is nine tracks of classic death - raw, fast, and thrashing. What they lack in flash, they make up for with passion, and In Horror, Reborn quickly draws the listener in to its old-school revelry. Riffs, dissonance, throaty screams, and propulsive drums meld together to provide a familiar experience; one of fun, headbanging, fist-pumping action.
The Savage 7 is a box set bringing together the early 80s to early 90s studio albums/ selection of rare tracks from W.A.S.P- one of the more consistent, memorable and at points, creative heavy metal bands to appear from the 1980s. The band's sound sits somewhere between the heavier/ rawer side of glam metal, shock rock, and punchy-to-moody heavy metal. This recently released set comes as either a seven-CD set or an eight-vinyl box- I’m reviewing the first of these
The Mill Killers (aka Scopophobia) is a Welsh crime thriller, with undertones of horror, mystery, and nods back towards Giallo films of the 70s. The 2024 film regards a group of grown-up school friends who revisit the run-down industrial town they lived in. A large part of the film takes place in a shadowy, at times downright creepy, abandoned steel works- with some neat plot twists, a few decent scares, and light touches of gore. Here from Miracle Media is a VOD release of the film.
The Wolf House is a 2018 animated horror film from Chile, directed by Cristóbal León and Joaquin Cocina (The Hyperboreans, Los Huesos and Strange Creatures). This duo are regular collaborator and has formed a pretty successful partnership when it comes to writing, directing, producing, and animating what have mostly been short films, up to now. The Wolf House was their first attempt at a feature-length presentation, albeit quite a short one at only 73 minutes.
Changeling plays a jazzy brand of symphonic progressive death metal, with a shade more elegance and tastefulness than most of the scene. Though they are a new band, they are comprised of veteran musicians. Their self-titled debut is being released by Season of Mist this year in 2025.
In the history of the Cannes Film Festival, only ten directors have been awarded the prestigious Palme D’Or award on more than one occasion. Whatsmore only one of this exclusive group came from the world of Asian filmmaking. In fact, it took Japanese director Shohei Imamura, whose film career started back in the late fifties first as a writer before moving swiftly into directing, nearly thirty years to win the first of his two awards with 1983’s brutal The Ballad of Narayama. His second arrived 14 years later when after an almost decade-long hiatus Imamura unleashed the magical and touching Unagi aka The Eel.
Harakiri for the Sky are an Austrian post-black metal band formed in Salzburg and Vienna in 2011. Scorched Earth is the 6th full-length album from the duo of vocalist, JJ (Michael "V. Wahntraum" Kogler) and multi-instrumentalist Matthias Solla, formerly of black metal band Bifrost.
It was back in 2018 that saxophonist Jean Jacques Duerinckx came together with guitar-vocalist Guillaume Cazalet to form the genre-defying, boundary-pushing collective Neptunian Maximalism aka NNMM. Pulling on the Sun Ra inspired concept of the Arkestra, NNMM blend drone with free jazz and doom metal predicated on a sense of ritual, primal rhythm and otherworldliness. Untethered by expectations, their works range in intensity and scale as its members switch between genres, while always leaning heavily into the power of live performance. As such, their latest release, Le Sacre Du Soleil Invaincu is a voyage through the world of raga revisiting and reworking three classical Indian pieces recorded over four nights at St John’s Church in London’s Bethnal Green.
From the late 70’s, Thirst is one of the more original/ distinctive takes on vampiric cinema. The contemporary set Australian film adds elements of kidnap thriller, drama, and sci-fi into its genre mix. It regards one of the descendants Elizabeth Bathory- been abducted by a high-tech blood sucking cult. Here, from Powerhouse- either as a UHD or Blu-ray- is a new release of the film. Taking in a new 4K scan, and an archive/ few new extras.
Booger is a coming-to-terms-with-grief drama, wrapped in elements of dark humour, body-horror, and indie artiness. The New York City-set film focuses on twenty-something Anna, whose close friend/ apartment mate has recently passed. She gets obsessed with finding ‘Booger’, the stray cat the pair had, who has recently disappeared. Here from Arrow Video UK is a Blu-ray release of the 2023 film, featuring a few extras.
Pyroclastic Sleep is a thirty-seven-minute slab of densely slipping, sliding, and searing noise craft, which sits somewhere between walled and harsh noise. It’s the first release from SADOPRAXIA- a new collaborative project between two Polish noise acts- Sado Riutals and ECHOPRAXIA.
Taking environmental recordings to the next level, Natasha Barrett utilizes 3D ambisonic microphones to capture the sonic imprint of various locations in exciting new ways. With this as a base, she then transforms the sounds and atmospheres into abstract works that will give the listener an entirely new approach toward the area as initially perceived. Toxic Colour is her latest work, with five pieces of intricately recorded and deconstructed soundscapes to tickle one's brain.
Here’s an Untitled split between two US wall projects- Chianti Ohio's Polyester Ghost, and South Carolina’s Absurd Reality. The former severs up two shorter/ tauter tracks. While the latter gives us a single slice of longer/ slightly harmonic/ densely moody wall.
Kawaii From The Edge is the very welcome return of Portland’s Hana Haruna, who is one of the more creative projects working within today's walled noise scene. I’m happy to report this new album is up to Hana Haruna's normal high standards, with each of the three twenty-minute tracks blending rewarding/distinctive layering, ambient elements, and a generally skilled/ creative approach.