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Do it yourself and do it with others--no need for these to be mutually exclusive. And they are certainly not on mHz's (aka Mo H. Zareei) Material Prosody, which is something like the sonic version of a curated group show; that is, if the curator were also to contribute a work themselves. If this sounds confusing, it really isn't, but this album deserves a bit of unpacking, for fear that it might otherwise go unremarked. mHz built a crude 8-step sequencer (no great feat of invention there yet), which is designed to operate as much visually as programmatically, pulling the normally hidden movements of discrete sequencing technology out into real space. All of this, I am told, has to do with Zareei's affinity for Brutalist architecture, which began in the apartment complex where he grew up in his native Tehran and has continued ever since.
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzche is a new C90 release featuring two side long slabs of walled noise from Spain’s Damien De Coen. Each is grim, hope-battering, and brassbound example of the form.
The ascent of Autumn seems perfect for the release of this absorbing and profound improvisational journey from the minds of renowned European free jazz pioneer Evan Parker and composer, producer and sound designer, Matthew Wright. Borne of the duo’s Trance Map project, Marconi’s Drift is an hour-long live performance recorded in 2022 by two sets of players on opposite sides of the pond aka the newly expanded Transatlantic Trance Map. It features seven musicians based at The Hot Tin in Kent including Parker on his soprano sax and Matt Wright on electronics - more specifically, turntable, live sampling and processing and six at Brooklyn’s Roulette venue, all of whom sound in their improvisational, jazz-infused element.
Intensely Independent is a DVD bringing together two films from American micro-budget filmmaker Blake Eckard- who creates grimly focused, rural set, and troubling dramas. His work is peopled by world-weary, heavy drinking, and often perversely numbed characters- with a backdrop of barren & rundown backwoods landscapes/ towns- where hope is near non-existent. The set also takes in a commentary track on one of the films, an interview, and text bound booklet discussing the two films, and Eckard’s work in general.
Here’s a double disc blu ray set bringing together the classic 80’s scarecrow thriller/ horror film Dark Night Of The Scarecrow, and its 2022 follow-up. The release features a new scan of both films, a few commentary tracks, and a few other extras.
SIHR is a seven-track journey into cross-genre instrumental/ soundscape- blending the electronic and the acoustic. Shifting from tranced-out world music to groove-locked rock, though to moody jazz guitar scaping, weird ritual-fired electronica, and beyond
A Divine Comedy is a two-disc journey into jarring, shifting, moody, at points decidedly hellish electro-symphonic-come-electro-acoustic sound scaping from French musician, journalists and radio DJ Philippe Petit. The release is themed around/roughly based on the 18th-century poem of the same name by Dante Alighieri.
Pondering the mysteries of sleep, and conversely sleeplessness, Hiroshi Ebina brings Into the Darkness of the Night to the Kitchen label. His first release with the label, 2022's In Science and the Human Heart, dealt with isolation and loneliness, and despite Into the Darkness of the Night having a different theme on the surface, one can find many connections between the two. These types of thought experiments are emboldened by Ebina's light and dreamlike ambient pieces, allowing the listener to drift off into the recesses of their own mind, following the tones and textures through a journey of discovery.
Uncle Slam were a three-piece crossover/ Thrash band from LA. The band formed in 1987- releasing just three albums- with their last two 1993’s Will Work For Food, and and 1995’s When God Dies being presented here on this double-disc set. It’s fair to say one of their key influences on the band's sound was fellow Californian crossover band Suicidal Tendencies- in both song structure/ feel, and vocals. Though they did throw in a few of their own twists ‘n’ turns, as well slightly more Thrash metal-focused sound- making both albums featured here worthy/ rewarding in their own rights.
Red Sun is a 1971 Franco-Italian spaghetti western directed by Englishman and James Bond favourite, Terence Young (Dr No, Thunderball and From Russia with Love). The film has a fairly remarkable all-star international cast including Charles Bronson (Death Wish, Once Upon A Time in the West and The Magnificent Seven), Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Throne of Blood), Alain Delon (Le Samourai, The Leopard and Purple Noon), Ursula Andress (Dr No, Clash of the Titans and Slave of the Cannibal God), and Capucine (The Pink Panther, Walk on the Wild Side and Fellini's Satyricon).
Aftermath is a textural detailed, yet eerily atmospheric example of wall craft from Whore’s Breath. The release finds the Cincinnati-based project offering up a single thirty-six-minute track, which wonderfully balances rewarding detail with a feeling of creepy/ crawly unease.
Here’s a two-track slice of bleak ‘n' bothersome old-school walled noise from this prolific California project. Each track is self-titled and runs at dead on the thirty-four-minute mark- with each being as punishing as the other.
'A part of me / But it can't be me.' This is the opening line to Uniform's latest offering, American Standard, and the pathos behind Michael Berdan's message is one that animates the four long tracks that make up this release. At the risk of reading too much into the lines, I am tempted to say that this disconnect between appendage and self – belonging to a larger body and yet stubbornly foreign to it – also describes the aesthetic of Uniform's unique blend of electronics and guttural screamo, thanks in large part to the twin minds behind the project: Berdan and instrumentalist Ben Greenberg. For the former, the album is a confession of sorts, meant to exhume years of living with bulimia and its endless cycle of binge and purge, actualized over American Standard in each of Berdan's vocal deliveries, which leave little room for filtered nuance or resolution.
Between Scylla And Charybdis is the fifth studio album from British experimental noise rock collective Splintered, and it’s also their first release of new material in thirty or so years. I’d best describe what we have here as a blend of the lo-fi and the expansive- bringing together elements of jam rock, moody-punk-edged psych, and droned-out/ murky art rock/ post-punk. Imagine if Pink Floyd appeared in the early 80’s, and had more sinister/ murky intentions.
I Give You Everything is a recent six-track album from the rather mysterious Worship- the walled noise project that themes all of its work in praising the female form, in a non-smutty/ sleazed manner. This album, as with a few other recent releases from the project, pushes Worship’s sounds into genres such as thick drone, churning industry, and dark ambience.
What could be worse than finally plucking up the courage to face your most intense personal fears than your efforts being hijacked by a gun-wielding stranger hellbent on revenge? That’s the premise for writer-director William Higo’s new film, The Group which uses the familiar setting of group therapy to tell the story of what at first appears to be a laudable push for redemption, but which descends into a nightmare of recrimination, torture and death.
Death Game is a fairly simply plotted 1970’s thriller/ horror film- but boy does it feature effective moments of building tension, derangement, and unsettling/ wonky sensor overloads. The plot regards two young women turning up at a wealthy middle-aged man's house on a rainy night. They seduce then start to torment him. Here from Radiance Films/ Grindhouse Releasing is a double Blu-ray disc release- taking in a wonderful garish coloured 4k scan of the picture, two commentary tracks, a bonus film, and a good selection of interviews- including an in-depth one from one of the film's key actresses.
Tattooed Life is another of Radiance Film’s restored Blu-ray releases of a yakuza film from a master of the genre, this time a 1965 colour entry by Seijun Suzuki. In his fourteen-year tenure (1954 – 1968) at Nikkatsu studios he won the approval of cineastes but the disdain of studio executives who thought his films made “no sense” and “no money” and this eventually led to his dismissal.
My Love Affair With Marriage is an animated 2022 comedy-drama charting the life and loves of an Eastern European woman. The film attempts to balance bitter/ sweet human experience, quirky biological descriptions, and more than a few soulful Greek chorus set songs. Here from MVD Visual is a recent Blu-Ray release of the film- featuring a lengthy interview with the film's director and a trailer.
From March this year, Future Dust is a C60 severing up two sides of terminal bleak & unrelenting walled noise from one of the masters of the form Vomir. The release appears on North Texas-based Handmade Birds, been part of their Critical Fabric - Yellow Series- each release in the series comes with a O-card with a sticker ( with text the ‘Physical Media Fetish’), piece of yellow cloth, rolled up piece of yellow tissue paper, clothing style tag, and a circular tag on a string.
Inner Self (შინაგანი თავისუფლება) takes in three twenty-five-minute tracks of dense & mysterious soundscaping from Mtskheta, Georgia‘s Owners of knowledge. Each track creates its wall-like sonic environments from overlaid ambience, field recordings and amassed talking- for an entrancing, at points rewardingly puzzling ride.
Vista is nearing thirty-one minute example of bleakly seared-yet-urgent walled noise from Uk’s Death To Dynamics. The release is digital self-release.
Starting his work on the HYBR:ID series in 2021, Alva Noto has released the third installment, appropriately titled HYBR:ID III. The interlinking soundscapes build excellent atmospheres and textures in their tribute to Japanese Noh plays. The famously styled and subtle plays provide the inspiration for this third installment, and the ambient compositions work well to evoke the artistic subject matter. Allowing the listener to tune in and drift off with the material, HYBR:ID III is a fantastic piece of meditative ambient whose open endedness creates many paths for the listener to travel down.
The Outcasts is a 1982 movie from Ireland, (it was the first major film to be funded in Ireland for 50 years) written and directed by Robert Wynne-Simmons, best known as the writer of both the screenplay and the recent novelization of Blood on Satan’s Claw. The film stars Mary Ryan (Rawhead Rex, The Writing on the Wall and In Loving Memory), Mick Lally (Alexander, Secret of the Kells and Glenroe), Tom Jordan (Remington Steele, Strumpet City and Lost Belongings) and Cyril Cusack (Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and The Day of the Jackal). Here from BFI's Flipside series is a Blu-Ray release of this lesser-known folk horror classic- featuring a new HD scan, an excellent/ informative commentary, and a few other new/ archive extras