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A pianist and keyboardist primarily, California-based musician Thollem is also a composer, a teacher, a performer, a collaborator and an activist. As a child, he began toying with piano improvisation and it is this radical and innovative practice that lies at the heart of everything that he has pursued throughout his musical career - a career in which he has been hugely prolific with over a hundred albums to his name. Embracing multiple genres including free jazz, modern classical and punk, his latest work Worlds in a Life, One is the first instalment of an investigation into sound and its infinite essence.
‘The Song of Songs’ a 1933 romantic drama by the acclaimed director Rouben Mamoulian and starring screen icon Marlene Dietrich has been made available in a high-definition remastered print on a limited edition Blu-ray by Powerhouse/ Indicator.
From the BFI here we have a Blu-ray release of Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer- an early 2020 documentary regarding the career of the highly respected, movingly arty, and more recently iconic German director. The disc takes in the film, and a few extras.
Bloodmoon is an early 1990’s Australian slasher set around a catholic girl’s boarding school. It features decent who-done-it plotting, gory often barbwire-related murders, creepy nighttime stalking, and a fair bit of female flesh. Here from Severin is a Blu-Ray release of this lesser-seen slasher- with a new scan, and a few extras.
From beyond the grave comes the second release from NPVR, the short-lived project of Nik Void and polymathic collaborator and label founder extraordinaire, Peter Rehberg, whose untimely passing hangs over this record like a dark shroud. Comprised of five tracks, mixed and finalized by Void in Rehberg's absence, the posthumous album is a genre-hopping affair, filled with elements that would be equally at home in dark ambience, avant-garde electroacoustic composition, drone, noise, and everything in between. The frame of 33 34 is not one defined by categories, though; rather, the precision and exacting mood of this work determine its parameters and constraints.
Testament is the 8th full-length album from Swedish experimental/free jazz/psych-rock/ three piece Fire!. It’s a five-track affair that shifts between the raw blues-tinged, the bounding 'n' seared, though to the moodily angular- with a great raw and honest production courtesy of Steve Albini.
Zvirat is a deeply layered, waveringly hazed, and organic-tinged take on the ambient form. With the album featuring seven largely lengthy soundscapes- which weave together threads of synth, flute, melodica, guitar tone, and field recordings/ found sound to create a drifting-yet-often harmonically glowing ‘n’ haunting sound.
Kill Butterfly Kill also released under the title of American Commando 6: Kill Butterfly Kill is a 1987 action film directed by Godfrey Ho (Mission Thunderbolt, Revenge of Drunken Master and The Ninja Squad). The two versions of the movie, both of which are included here feature different scenes. American Commando 6 was recut for American audiences and added sequences starring Mike Abbot (A Better Tomorrow 2, American Hunter and Final Score) and Mark Miller (The Siege of Firebase Gloria, Angel’s Mission and Ang Pumatay Ng Dahil Sa Iyo) and features on disc 2 drawn from a new 4k restoration, whereas Kill Butterfly Kill is presented in two slightly differing versions, the English language version and the Mandarin version, known as Underground Wife (both of which are included on disc 1 of this set) however, only the IFD English language cut is presented in HD, with the Mandarin cut in standard definition.
Here we have just under an hour's worth of sucked-into-void sonics. The single track sits somewhere between dense walled noise and oppressive drone craft, and boy does it drain all of the other sound & hope from your listening space.
$100 is the most welcome return of Swiss wall-noise project Anonymous Masturbaudioum- who in mid to late 2010 crafted some of the most creative material within the genre. The release is a three-inch CDR- featuring a single nineteen-minute slice of taut, shifting and nasty walled noise texturing
Eva Sajanova and Dominik Suchy's collaborative recording, Decision Paralysis , is an album of viscerally surreal electronic ambience and spoken/sung vocals, an ultra-modern post-industrial treat along the lines of CoH Plays Cosey or ANBB's Mimikry. The digital minimalist world of labels like Line and Raster Noton meets the psychedelic ritual ambient aesthetics of groups like Coil or Nocturnal Emissions.
Mondo New York is an ‘unforgettable avant-garde time capsule of New York City that will leave you both shocked and enlightened’, according to the spiel on the back of this Blu-ray/CD package. It also comes with a booklet, a poster and a slipcover. The film, which I’d never heard of, documents elements of the NY performance art scene and beyond, filmed in 1987 and released in 1988, and according to one of the extras - an interview with Stuart S. Shapiro - never available in a digital form before, so this is a historically significant release. The film itself is a series of vignettes from performers and events, linked by the walking travels of a girl, who plods the streets of NY coming across these events.
On the 15th of February 1978 in Tallahassee Florida, American serial killer Ted Bundy carried out his final brutal and deranged series of killings/ attacks. The Black Mass is a recent film chronicling said day, and Mr Buddy’s deeds- it largely utilizes a fairly unconventional blend of POV, over-the-shoulder, or to-the-side camera work- which chillingly and disturbingly brings into the place of this monster. The film features a competent cast, unbalancing shifts in tone, subtle humour, and moments of troubling & brutal violence. Here from Cleopatra Entertainment- as either a Blu-Ray or DVD is a new release of the film.
The Head (aka Die Nackte und der Satan) is a late 50’s blend of Euro horror & sci-fi, with touches of gothic and noir weaved in here 'n' there. Here from Cheezy Movies is a recent region-free DVD of the film.
From the late 1970’s Invasion Of The Body Snatchers was the second big-screen adaptation of Jack Finney’s 1955 novel The Body Snatchers, which told of an undercover alien invasion in small-town America. The film shifts the story to 70’s San Francisco- for a wonderfully tension-filled and paranoia-building blend of thriller, sci-fi and horror- featuring an excellent cast, and low-key effects- which are still impactful. Here from the fine folks at Arrow here’s a recent reissue of the film- either as UHD, or Blu-Ray disc. I’m reviewing the latter of these two.
V/H/S/94 is the fifth entry in this found-footage horror anthology series. The just over two-hour film features five stories taking in a warp around- the tone for this one is very much gun bound/ themed, and I’m afraid to say as a whole it’s somewhat mixed in quality- both in the stories & the acting. But I feel if you’ve enjoyed the other films in this series, you’ll certainly get a kick out of some stories offered up. Here from Acorn Media International is a recent release of the film- coming as either a DVD, Blu-Ray, or digital. I’m reviewing the first of these- which takes in a few extras.
Tenebrae was the 8th feature film from Dario Argento. It saw the director squarely resetting giallo- a genre he helped invent & define- into the 1980’s, with its sleek at points acrobatic camera work, brutally creative murders, and a bounding ‘n’ pulsing electronic soundtrack. I think it’s fair to say it’s easily one of the best examples of the genre from the decade, and certainly a career highlight- with an intriguing- at points gruesomely/ darkly playful unfold, coldly stark air, and a rather unexpected killer reveal/resolve. Here from Synapse Films is a dual format UHD & Blu-ray release of the film. Featuring a new 4k scan of the film, three commentary tracks, a feature-length doc about the genre- and a selection of new & archive extras.
Here’s a C50/ digital split bringing together two US wall noise projects- each offering up a single twenty-five-minute track. We have here Settle’s Tab In/ Tab Out, and Pittsburgh’s Apocalypstick.
Based on Theodore Dreiser’s novel of the same name, An American Tragedy is a pre-code drama from director Josef Von Sternberg (Shanghai Express, The Blue Angel). The film follows young bellhop Clyde Griffiths (Phillips Holmes) who is implicated in a serious crime, leading him to run into a wealthy uncle who sets him up with a factory job. While working here, Clyde meets Roberta (Sylvia Sidney) and falls in and out of love with her. But when an affair with a high society woman gets in the way, Clyde needs a way out of his relationship with Roberta.
(Another) Grey Day In The ORV is a forty-one-minute walled noise track that sits somewhere between relentless and oddly soothing- blending the muffled industrial, with the weathered.
Andy Warhol - Fluorescent is a 2017 documentary about Pop Art legend, Andy Warhol directed by pop culture documentary maker Carla Duarte (Crazy for Madonna, Oh Dior!, and Inspiring Women) and produced by Miguel Somoza (Under the Lights: Maradona, Viva Elvis and Crazy for Madonna). This bare-bones DVD release comes from Dreamscape, an independent publisher and multimedia studio that is committed to producing a diverse range of audio and visual content that includes ebooks, films, documentaries, and TV shows.
The Law takes in a single seventy-minute example of the walled noise form- which is weathered, battering, and swelling in its layered attack. Sado Rituals are a Polish project- who have been active, and fairly prolific since 2019- with coming on for two hundred releases to its name.
Maden is a thirty-minute slab of dense, tarry, and tunnelling walled noise from Flanders-based Damien De Coene- who has been active on & off in the wall scene since the late 2010s.
Here is a recent four-track release from Tucson, Arizona’s Ennaytch. The sound here blends walled noise with ambience, for a decidedly entrancing & rewardingly detailed hour-long release.