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This sixth boxset in Powerhouse’s Columbia Noir series focuses on The Whistler series of films. In total, there were eight films made across the 1940s, with all but one of them featuring actor Richard Dix- who played different characters- who may be good/ may be bad/ somewhere in-between. All of the films in the series are full of great noir atmospherics, twist ‘n’ turning plots, and some great character actors. This set takes in all eight films- with new crisp and clean prints of each, a great selection of worthy extras, and a one-hundred-and-twenty-page book.
Collected Works is a five-CD set compiling together all the studio albums from Earthstar-a Utica, New York formed band from the 70s who were the only American band to participate in Germany's Kosmische Musik/electronic at its height. Their sound moved from pastoral & hazed synth/ tape loops/piano-based ambient, onto electro-based Kraut rock, though to blends of new age/ ambient/ Kosmische.
En Suspension is the very welcome return of the French female wall noise project Exquise Esquisse aka Charlotte Thevenin-Nikolić (Naughty, The Girl With The Stanley Knife, and long-term involvement with the French wall noise scene). The release comes as either a C40 or digital download, which features two twenty-minute low-end focused ‘walls’ that are all about tension & moodiness.
United We Stand is a new three-track wall noise release from Leeds UK’s Meanwood Beck. Each track runs dead on the seven-minute mark, and each nicely blends thick ‘n’ murky noise craft with rewarding details/ touches.
A Dog Called... Vengeance is a late 1970s Spanish film that brings together several genres in a creative & largely successful manner. It’s a blend of an escape-from-prison action film, a man vs dog thriller, and a taut political drama. Here from Severin is a Blu-Ray reissue of the film- taking in a new scan of the film, and a few worthy extras.
The Threat is a gritty, at points disorienting and brutal Japanese neo-noir from the late 1960’s. It blends home invasion and kidnap elements- with a backdrop of a rapidly modernising and expanding Japan. Here from Arrow Video- both in the UK and Stateside- is a new Blu-ray release of the picture, taking in a new crisp & clear HD scan of the film, a commentary track and a video appreciation.
Stalwarts of the Columbian metal scene, Witchtrap, blast into the spooky season with their sixth full-length, Hungry as the Beast. Thrashing and skanking since 1992, this trio have been infusing metal and its scene with energy and headbanging fun, here solely for the love of metal, recording, and performing. Four years since their last album, Evil Strikes Again, Witchtrap show that they haven't lost a step in their pursuit and remain as hungry as ever.
From the early 1960’s Jessica is a Sicilian village mountain set film that blends light drama, gently saucy-to-slapstick humour, and romance. It regards a ‘pretty’ blond American midwife moving to the village- to turn more than a few heads and bring up some trouble. Filmed in Technicolor it’s a feast for the eyes- as it’s largely set in the spring/ summer, so everything is in bloom. Here from Imprint Films is the first ever Blu-Ray release of the picture featuring a lush & bright new scan, commentary track, and interview with the lead actress.
Taut and tense, yet equally atmospheric and mysterious The Hitcher is one of the great psychological-action thrillers of the 1980’s. Its premise is simply but effectively presented to great heart-pounding & intensely moody effect, a young man picks up a hitchhiker on a lonely-falling-asleep trip across the states- he turns out to be a seemingly unstoppable killer. Here from Second Sight Films is a deluxe limited edition of the film- taking in dual UHD & Blu Ray, loads of extras, and a two hundred-page book.
Kingcrow is an atmospheric alternative rock/metal group from Italy with both classic and modern influences, pairing a bluesy faux-70's fuzz guitar tone with lush synth pads, electronic percussion loops and moody vocals inspired by Scandinavian art rock bands like Anathema and Katatonia, with heavy chorus effects.
This CD, presented in a black and white digipack with collaged imagery and lyrics (in both Japanese and English), collects up two recent releases from Corrupted, the legendary Japanese doom band. Having lost their original vocalist, Hevi, the band have perhaps wandered a little, and thats evidenced here, with Felicific Algorithm and Mushikeras. The former release was originally a 12” on Cold Spring, notably devoid of anything sounding conventionally like a doom band, and the latter was originally released on Corrupted’s Bandcamp as a digital-only release.
From Robinsongs, Cherry Red’s funk/ soul/ R&B reissuing label, here is a two-CD/ four album reissue from New York’s Cameo. The albums featured date from between 1981 and 1984, and show the band polishing & defining their trademark sleek-yet-playful funk ‘n’ soul sound.
Outermost Melodies is a double CD set bringing together percussion-based works from Swiss modern classic/ modern composition composer Jürg Frey. It’s a sonically varied and at points eventful collection moving between the abstract and earthy, the delicate & textured, the dragging & chiming, and beyond.
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.