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You might not know it, or don't care if you did, but the 90s are being pilfered with reckless abandon. It's there for the taking, I guess, especially for a generation that has no immediate knowledge or experience with the decade, the very last before the internet turned subculture into a wikipedia entry. Ok, I sound like one of those ill-tempered former indie kids, complete with crow's feet and a receding hairline (check and check!). But while this sounds overly categorical and partly (mostly?) dismissive--is it my slacker penchant for meta-discourse?--I think this background goes a long way in highlighting the unique qualities of Soft Violet, and in particular, the newest album, Sterner Stuff.
Single White Female is an early 90’s psychological thriller, with a rewarding steady build of tension, a neat old apartment setting, a few light erotic touches and some effective moments of surprise plotting/shock. The film regards a woman who has recently split with her partner- getting a flatmate who is not quite what she seems. Here from Powerhouse is a Blu-Ray release of the film- taking in an HD scan of the film, one new extra & great selection of archive fare.
Time to Kill Records presents Hellhole, the latest offering by the Finnish hardcore assault unit called Rats Will Feast. Active since 2018, Hellhole appears to be their 4th release (and 3rd full-length).
Thirteen years since 2011's Back from the Funeral, Pennsylvania's Mausoleum is back with its newest full-length, Defiling the Decayed. Proving that death metal is a timeless beast, this latest pulls out all the stops to bring forth some classic death from beyond the grave. Like a creepy, shambling monster inhabiting a loved one's former body, Mausoleum's newest album plods forth bringing very familiar and classic-sounding metal to the masses. And while it's not breaking any new ground, its old-school tone and vibe will be very comfortable to those looking for something new to scratch that old itch.
Here we have the third volume in Severin's euro gothic film boxset series Danza Macabra. It shifts the Italian focus of the first two sets to Spanish gothic horror- featuring four films spread over four Blu-rays, with new scans for each & good selection of extras for each including commentary tracks for each film. Many of these pictures are unknown/ rare- so this is a unique & fascinating boxset, presenting films that most European horror fans won’t have heard of, let alone seen before.
Here we have a twenty-track CD bringing together the cream of the crop from the back catalogue of Angolan folk and semba singer-songwriter Bonga- aka José Adelino Barceló de Carvalho. He has been recording since the early 70s, and is seen as having one the golden/greatest voices in world music- as it blends rich/ felt soulfulness with slightly ragged/gravely edges. This compilation first appeared in 2009, and this is a Lusafica CD reissue of the release.
Rat Man is a prime slice of late 80’s euro horror cheese which is ridiculous, campy, bad-taste, and at points creepy/ gory- but always highly entertaining. It finds the (then) world's smallest actor Nelson De La Rosa, playing the title character who was meant to be a poisoned clawed monkey-rat crossbreed, who is stalking ‘n’ killing models on a Caribbean island. Here from the fine folks at Cauldron Films is a new Blu-Ray release of the film- featuring a new 4k scan, a commentary track, and a few interviews.
Love Hotel is a mid-80s Japanese drama which deals with desperation, regret, and trying to reset the past. It’s set around a rather problematic premise/ storyline regarding a man who attempts to rape & kill a prostitute, then re-meets her two years later. The film is lightly edged with erotic & moments of doubt/ edge- but largely it’s bitter-sweet, at points fairly glum character study… not sleazed exploitation, or a violent pink film its plot may suggest. Here from Third Window Films as part of their Director's Company Collection, which focuses on the legendary 1980s Japanese production company is a recent Blu-Ray of the film, taking in a new scan of the film, a commentary, and a few new & archive extras.
Here is a 2022 release from Michal Neithan Kielbasa (Whalesong, Nothing Has Changed, Harmony of Struggle) under his alter ego Lugola. It is the fifth release under that name and is the project’s first live album, recorded at the XX Wroclaw Industrial Festival in November 2021. It’s a raw slab of brutal, noisy power electronics to clear out even the most congested ears.
Cute is truly the polar opposite of its title, which the dictionary defines as appealing in a pretty or endearing way. The eleven-track album finds the UK pushing their extreme and uneasy sound down sonic avenues such as psycho-ambient, intense electronica, jagged & bent beat scaping, nihilistic electro-punk and beyond.
Before And After Silence is an eight-track CD looking back at the early 1990s work of Nimh ( aka Italian-born Giuseppe Verticchio). All of the simple part-named pieces focus on droning & at points crude ambience- with some quite blown-out & noisy undercurrents.
You don't have to look very far to find something honouring the lower reaches of the fidelity spectrum, whether that is in music, or elsewhere. Whether it is due to an understandable exhaustion with the slickness of digital production, I cannot say, but in the field of guitar pedals alone, you can't throw a rock without hitting a loft effect these days, emulating vinyl crackles, tape hiss, or just some poorly aged equipment. What makes Yui Ondera's 1982 standout against the riff-raff, is that in addition to employing 4-track tape recorders and other warbly devices in his repertoire for the 10 tracks that make up this release, 1982 functions beneath and beyond the merely aesthetic concerns of the lo-fi craze. 1982 is the year of Ondera's birth, and the place where that occurred, Iwate, is perhaps familiar to some for the waste to which this area was laid by the earthquake of 2008.
Appearing in the early 2000s Bruiser was one of the later films helmed by George A. Romero (Night Of The Living Dead, The Crazies, Creepshow). The film is a mix of modern parable/ drama, thriller, horror, and lopsided black comedy. It regards a brow-beaten business executive waking one morning, and finding out his face has been replaced by a blank white mask with pinprick eyes. The film is certainly an interesting/ if not wholly satisfying addition to Romero's filmography, and here, it gets a new release from Powerhouse. It’s available as either a Blu-Ray or UHD disc- featuring a new 4k scan of the picture, and a selection of new & archive extras.
Sadist Hunter is a wall noise split bringing together two US projects. Both tracks are around the nine-and-a-half minute mark, and each is as brutally/ ragging as the other. This is a digital release.
Backward Movement is a new release from the Russian wall-noise maker Sergey Pakhomov. It’s a single forty-minute track which highlights Pakhomov's skill for creating detailed, and subtle shifting textured noise matter.
Countdown To Esmeralda Bay is a late-1980s drama/ action film regarding arms deals/ government corruption in a Central American country. It’s one of the few films in this genre helmed by Jess Franco, who is more known for sleazy and horror-bound fare. Here from the folks at Fullmoon Productions is a Blu-Ray release of the film.
Wonderfully chaotic, Kaboom Karavan's latest, Fiasko!, has a quartet bringing together the musical madness through myriad instruments, electronics, and vocal work. Somewhere between free jazz and jam band, this fairly unclassifiable selection of songs piles on the sound while still remaining intriguing and entertaining. Unpredictable but not without purpose, Fiasko! is ten songs of instrumental ingenuity and experimental excess.
Renowned noise musician KK Null continues his ongoing collaboration with experimental/soundscape guitarist Joel Gilardini, the series "Psychic Drones", which began in 2020 with the 1st volume. The 3rd volume is being released now in 2024. With eleven tracks at sixty-five minutes in total, there's a lot of material here, and moving at a more rapid pace than is typical in the world of dark ambient.
Sympathy For The Underdog (1971), a popular yakuza crime movie from Battle Royale (2000) director Kinji Fukasaku here receives a handsome restored Blu-ray release from Radiance as part of their series of disks dedicated to Japan’s Toei studio’s crime films.
In 1968 the BBC screened their latest adaption of Britain’s favourite sleuth, played on this occasion by horror legend, Peter Cushing (Horror of Dracula, Curse of Frankenstein and Horror Express), whilst Nigel Stock (The Great Escape, The Lion in Winter and Cromwell) plays sidekick Dr. Watson. The series featured 16 episodes based on the written exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, however, 10 episodes remain lost. This double disc set from Severin brings together the remaining 6 episodes on Blu-ray for the very first time.
More Human is a collaboration between envelope-pushing Norwegian jazz trio Splash Girl & singer/sound artist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe. It’s an album that shifts from skewedly atmospheric/soundtracking, onto the warbling ‘n’ wonderingly odd. It’s a release that most certainly takes strange & often unexpected paths, which makes the whole thing wonderful and difficult to peg/ put in one genre/ or sonic place
Mythical River is the ninth studio album from Norwegian fusion/ prog trio Elephant9. It’s a rewardingly varied eight-track affair, which sees the band shifting between floating ambience, more propulsive & urgent, the groovy ‘n’ cascading, and more angular 'n' trippy.
Soldier Blue is an early 1970s US revisionist western with a very troubling/extremely violent twist in its tail- as it recreates the infamous 1864 Sand Creek massacre in Colorado by the U.S. Cavalry on a Cheyenne Indian village. The film largely follows the plight of a loyal/naive soldier and a young white woman who is due to marry a cavalry captain- as they try & to get back to safety after being attacked by Cheyenne. The main of the film charts the pair's love/ hate relationship, and the various obstacles they face- with splatters of violence peppered throughout….but boy wait until you get to the last twenty minutes, as we see the rape, pillaging, and execution of a village of 500 native Americans. Here from Studiocanal’s Cult Classics Collection is a fully uncut version of the film, with a new restoration/ scan of the picture. And a small selection of new and archive extras.
Chihei Hatakeyama appears to have mastered the art of subtle guitar drones, evidenced by earlier releases like Above the Desert. From the arid land to the infinite expanse of water comes Thousand Oceans, a work of ethereal ambience that continues and expands upon Hatakeyama's learned drone work.