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Zen is a four-track wall noise split- bringing together Poland’s Olion, and UK’s Night Porter. The first act offers up three short nine-to-ten-minute tracks, while the second presents us with a single twenty-eight-minute track.
Frigid severs up just under half an hour's worth of thick, churning, and bone-marrow-chilling walled noise. This is a digital self-release from Cincinnati’s Whore’s Breath.
It must be a good two -to- three years since I’d last heard of/ reviewed anything by this Everett, Washington based walled noise project. Chaotic VTuber is a forty-six-minute slab of dense searing ‘n’ rushing HNW, which totally and completely engulfs you in its raging mass.
The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession is a new anthology horror film being released on UK digital platforms on 13th January courtesy of 101 films. The film is a sequel to the similarly themed The 100 Candles Game which was released by the same company in 2020.
Ben Glas is a Portland, Oregon based psychoacoustic composer with a catalogue of works on labels such as Room040. This 2nd volume of Music for Listeners is the sequel to a cassette on Linear Obsessional Recordings
Doremi Fasol Latido was the third album UK Space rockers Hawkwind. First released in the year 1972 - it found the band making their sound both rawer and heavier, with tripped out touches & a densely swirling production. Here from Atomhenge, one of the sub-labels of Cherry Red is a new double CD reissue of the album- taking in the original album remastering, a new stereo mix, and bonus tracks.
Found Emulsion is a 2022 documentary film directed by Glenn Andreiev (Vampire’s Embrace, Night and Lost Emulsion). Much like the earlier Lost Emulsion (2016), which looked at the lost films of the silent era, Found Emulsion takes a deep dive into the world of outsider and cult cinema, eschewing genre favourites in favour of forgotten cult classics, bizarre oddities and the interesting and unique individuals who are passionately working to ensure that these films have a future.
Vixen! was the fourteenth film from American writer/ director Russ Meyer. The 1968 film was the first film that truly clarified his distinctive mix of large breast-focused softcore, drama, and playful satire, with light touches of action ‘n’ thrills. Here from Severin film is a long deserved/ first ever Blu- Ray and UHD release of the film- it’s available as either a dual disc UHD & Blu Ray release, or a stand-alone Blu Ray- I’m reviewing the second of these.
2020 Texas Gladiators is a gun-toting slice of 1980 post-apocalyptic Sci-fi thriller directed by the king of Euro Shlock Joe D'Amato. The Italian production features some reward moments of pace ‘n’ thrills, heroic and bad guy camp, and a neatly bounding-to- moody synth score. Here from Severin Films is a triple disc release of the film- taking in a UHD, Blu-Ray, and a CD of the film's score.
Oddity is a blend of horror and thriller-that is constantly omnipresent with an air of disquiet and unease. The Irish/ US production features truly authentic/ bone chilling moments of jarring fear and troubling horror- standing as one of the more original/ distinctive genre films in recent memory, using genre tropes in both an interesting & creative manner. Here from Acorn Media International is an new Blu Ray release.
Knife Under The Throat is a mid-80’s French Giallo regarding a group of exotic models getting harassed and stalked in a city setting. It’s a fairly fleshy/ sleazy affair, with a rewarding enough who-done-it mystery at its centre, though the kills/ gore side of things is somewhat underwhelming. Here from 88 Films is a recent Blu-ray release of this lesser-known giallo.
Three Cold Winters offers up a modern minimalist take on the noise drone form. Offer up three lengthy tracks that focuses on dense and temple-pressing drone works.
Appearing at the tail end of the last year, Indifferent To Your Plight is a new six track release from Berlin based wall/textured noise Sebastian Tomb. As we’ve come to expect from this project, we get a creative/ fairly original take on the genre- which adds in elements of brooding synth tone and disorientating -to-moody sound craft.
Youngster is a truly punishing ten-minute journey into lose, roughshod, crude, at points shifting walled noise. Going from the releases title, and severed hanging limps on ropes cover artwork we find out the subject here is decidedly troubling- child cannibalism.
Une Pause presents the listener with two twenty five minute dives into muffled, murky and crude walled noise from this Bordeaux based project. With each ‘wall’ been as brutally constricting as each other
Constructed and recorded quietly, using only headphones, a laptop, and Audiomulch software, Zane Trow's 2004 ambient electronic work, For Those Who Hear Actual Voices, gets its 20th anniversary edition through Room40. Interestingly recorded in a similarly clandestine fashion to its childhood inspiration, Voices is a versatile set of tracks that weave frequencies, textures, and motion to create shimmering soundscapes that interact with the environment in which they're being played. Based around the idea sounds exist as "frequencies that danced around a space just shy of full perception," this album can be enjoyed in all manners, with each listen differing from the last as time and space has shifted just enough that the frequencies present themselves in new, exciting manners.
The Silent Hour is a new crime thriller directed by Brad Anderson, and has recently been released on streaming platforms
Here’s a double bill, or rather two complimentary films from the year 2021, on DVD; both directed and written by Spanish film-maker Gonzalo Calzada. It’s a somewhat spartan package, with just trailers for extras - and truth be told they’re not great - but you are getting two films, so…
In Our Heads is a two-track journey into texturally creative-at-times-unpredictable walled noise from Serbia’s Dosis Letalis. The release is from late 2023- coming as either a C60 tape or digital download- and as of writing this review there are still physical copies available
The Last Video Store is a lovingly crafted, charming, and, at points, oddly heartwarming tribute to the Video shop era. The 2023 film blends ‘n’ blurs elements of fantasy, comedy-drama, and horror- bringing a similar inventive, quirky, and heartfelt vibe you’d find in the films of someone like Don Coscarelli ( Phantasm series, Bubba Ho-Tep). Here from Arrow Video- both in the UK and stateside- is a Blu-Ray release of the film, taking in a commentary track, and a good selection of short films/ other extras.
Veteran industrial ambient musician Nicolas Van Meirhaeghe aka Empusae has teamed up with Mattias M. Van Hulle, alias Pilgrimage to Pleroma, for this collaborative album on esteemed gothic ambient label Cyclic Law. It is a short release for the dark ambient genre, with three tracks totalling nearly twenty six minutes.
Zamat brings together three modern chamber works from Slovak composer Adrián Demoè. The pieces have runtimes between ten and thirty minutes, with the tone hovering between fragile, felt, and melancholy pressing. They are all played with skill and emotional depth by the highly respected modern ensemble Apartment House.
No stranger to the scene, TenHornedBeast returns with his take on nature, landscapes, and the emotions that are evoked by spending time in its mesmerizing presence. Capra Hircus are the wild goats of the Cheviot Hills, but in a more abstract sense, "they are the Children of Pan in an Arcadia that straddle[s] both the imagination and the real world." With this title to guide us forth, one can look at these sonic idylls as not only inspired by nature itself, but of what is inside; the wild, untamed essence that longs to find its place in this vast world. In addition, we fight daily with what is natural and what is artificial, and how much of each realm we're actually living.
Tout are an intriguing entity. Their remit appears to be the creation of an immersive sense of atmosphere and mood. Not entirely uncommon in the realms of ambient instrumental music. But what makes this duo of Nick Downes and Jonathan Fryer so appealing is that they are willing to achieve this by any means necessary. For their first three albums the pair embraced an approach that revolved around folk and alt-country, but for their latest release, Fourth, they have applied a genre handbrake turn and are now diving into the world of jazz.