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The Last Island is a drama-come-adventure film from the 1990s regarding five men and two women- marooned on a desert island. It seems some worldwide disaster has occurred & they may be the only people left alive. The film certainly treads the expected marooned/ stranded adventure tropes, but it equally tattles topics like toxic masculinity, dangerous faith, control, and whether or not humankind should continue after a worldwide disaster. The film features a well-chosen cast, the odd, surprising twists & turns in the plot, and a fair bit of food for thought. Here from Cult Epics is a recent region-free release of the film- taking in a 4k scan of the picture, commentary track, and a few other extras.
Long-running Japanese noise act Painjerk has been known to destroy speakers and eardrums with his amazing and abrasive harsh noise performances and recordings. However, not content to rest on his laurels, Kohei Gomi also takes a more refined approach to his craft and has embarked on a number of interesting collaborations throughout the years. Revisiting his composition "Dots Kinematics," Kohei teamed up with the Norwegian chamber orchestra The Touchables. This collaboration put forth an engaging, experimental take on the original, giving us this new album.
When heralding Lisa Ullén’s novel approach to piano composition, Bruce Lee Gallanter of the Downtown Music Gallery claimed it would appeal to fans of John Cage and Cecil Taylor alike. Strong praise indeed, but it’s certainly apt given that Ullén is a musician who does not stick to any accepted conventions - structure and form remaining entirely within her domain. Having studied in her native Sweden at Stockholm’s Royal College of Music, Ullén is a devotee of improvisation that centres predominantly on free jazz and avant-garde experimentation – both evident on her latest release, Heirloom.
From the year 1985 O.C. and Stiggs is Robert Altman’s controversial and frequently forgotten film. It can be seen as either an entry in the teen comedy cycle of the 80s or a satire of the genre. Here it gets a handsomely restored version on Blu-ray by Radiance- with a nice selection of extras
su dance110 (aka Dan Su) has crafted a short, minimalist EP, Stille Oper, which comes in at a meagre 20 minutes. The music that appears on this release was originally commissioned to accompany a performance/installation in Berlin, all the way back in 2020, just before the world came to a standstill.
Inside The Mind Of Coffin Joe is a six Blu-Ray box set bringing ten films directed by Brazilian filmmaker José Mojica Marins. He is most known for Coffin Joe( aka Zé do Caixão )- the long-fingernailed, top-hatted and caped unholy undertaker he created. The set takes in the three official Joe films- At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964), This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967), and Embodiment Of Evil ( 2008) along with seven other films the director helmed between the late 60’s and early 70’s.
Appearing three years after the first Dark Zone Thirteen here’s Part Two. It’s once again conceived, co-written, part-scored, and co-directed by Oregon’s Joe Sherlock (Odd Noggins, Channel 99, Drifter, etc). The horror/ Sci-fi anthology takes in seven tales, heavy with those classic ‘Sherlock’ tropes- bizarre chatty dialogue and self-referential moments. Tattooed larger ladies taking showers, reappearing cast. Lo-fi-at-points-wacky effects, as well of course a real passion for pulpy horror & sci-fi.
Keiji Haino (from Japan) and Guro Moe (Norway) are a pair of veteran experimental artists, here playing a kind of richly textural free improvisation with novel instrumental timbres and playing techniques. This new collaborative recording, "Drums & Octobass" was released on Guro Moe's label, Conradsound. It has three tracks, the first two being roughly eight minutes, and the final one much longer at fourteen minutes.
Here is a two-disc CD set collecting together the three albums released by Alabama’s Muscle Shoals Horns during the mid-70s & early 80’s. The sound over all the albums is a cheeky & cheesy blend of funk, soul, and disco- primed perfectly for getting down & boogie out.
Mysteries of nature and the universe abound, so it's not surprising that some of the creepiest and strangest man-made oddities are often overlooked. In this ever expanding world, communication has never been more important, and with vast networks spewing out waves of information (quite literally), not only is it harder to find what one is seeking, but it's easier for those looking to eavesdrop on sensitive information. In a time before satellites and digital encryption, shortwave radios were used to send messages far further than their longwave counterparts, allowing for a grander network and greater communication opportunities. Governments took this technology and used it to their advantage, able to communicate behind enemy lines with spies, sleeper agents, and sympathizers. Enter in the creepiness of shortwave radio, its ghostly repeated voices, pulses, and eerie number stations. Followers of m[m] will most likely be familiar with the Conet Project from years back which introduced many to these odd phenomena, but they were merely recordings of transmissions. Seeing the beauty in these types of recordings, Sonologyst utilized them as source material for his Shortwave Spectrum on Cold Spring.
Divided into five songs, A Worm Through Time is the debut EP from The Oldest House, the solo project of A.M., lead singer of Aversio Humanitatis. Four of the five tracks are what one might expect from the present company: punishing, growling vocals set to variable speeds of sludgey metal.
Glauber Rocha’s 1964 Brazilian Cinema Novo classic Black God, White Devil is brought to Blu-ray for the first time by Radiance Films/Mawu Films. The film follows ranch worker Manoel (Geraldo Del Ray), a humble guy who tires of his menial work and dreams of owning a plot of land of his own. Soon he is forced on the run with his wife Rosa (Yoná Magalhães) and the pair become outlaws, but when they fall into the company of Sebastião and his cult the danger heats up again.
Appearing late last year The New World was the final album from Sheffield-born composer/ percussionist Tony Oxley- who had a distinctively busy & dense take on the free-improv form. He’d been active since the early 1970s, and over his career worked with the likes of Peter Brötzmann, Cecil Taylor, & Evan Parker. He sadly passed away at the age of eighty-five on Boxing Day 2023
Whirl And Magnet severs up two improvised tracks for Hammond organ- with the tone of the pieces shifting between jazz & prog rock / kosmische music. The release appears on Discus Music as a CD or digital release- I’m reviewing the former of these.
UFO: Target Earth is a US regional Sci-fi film from the mid-70s. It’s a very low-budgeted affair, with some issues with both acting & editing. But there is a key interesting idea/ concept, as well as a few moments of subtly eerier disquiet, tripped-out visuals & quite a neat resolve. Here from the resurrectors of forgot & lost B movies Cheezy Movies is a new DVD release of the film.
You Belong With Us is a rapid-if-blackly battering example of the walled noise form from UK’s Death To Dynamics. The twenty-one-minute wall brings together constantly rolling low-end tarriness, with mid-range judder & a slightly crusty skip.
Light-Matter-Spirit sits somewhere between rattling static bound walled noise and weathered/ greyly oppressive drone matter. This single nearly forty-minute track is a digital self-release from Sweden’s Earthflesh.
Guesswork is the moniker of Jack Chuter, founder of ATTN:Magazine, Hard Return Records, and the Crucial Listening podcast. His latest album is Head Crash, available digitally and on cassette from Tool Use imprint.
Here’s a pro-CD and digipak from Eighth Tower Records, with seven tracks from Nihil Impvlse, decorated on the front cover with an image of a statue depicting ‘Prometheus Bound.’ The album is made up of droning tracks which are all bizarrely similar really, but often quite short - in terms of drone - with the shortest four minutes long and the longest just over nine minutes.
The mere mention of the name Justin K. Broadrick evokes memories of some of the most amazing industrial music ever produced. As a founding member of grindcore heroes Napalm Death, industrial metal legends, Godflesh, and later experimental metallers Jesu, he has helped to shape the sound of extreme metal and industrial music over the last 40 years or so. During that time, he has also worked with a diverse range of bands as a producer, including Pantera, Isis, Mogwai and Pelican. In 2007 during Jesu’s Conqueror tour, he befriended the like-minded, Dirk Serries, whose band, Fear Falls Burning were the support act. The two had developed from similar musical backgrounds, both had been heavily involved in the experimental, industrial and noise music scenes since the 1980s, which eventually led to them working together from time to time, helping out one another on each other’s projects and on odd occasions in a live setting. This kinship eventually led to the pair working together on this, their first album as Loud as Giants.
Genre stalwart and master of the macabre, Harlow MacFarlane, returns with a new project and look at grim dark ambient, Stars Without Light. Shifting from the earthly to that which exists beyond our realm, Beneath and Before showcases Harlow's ability to adjust his formula, tone, and direction to fit a different idea and approach while still remaining true to his sound and tradition. Enigmatic, evocative, and sometimes abrasive, Beneath and Before is an excellent testament to looking beyond one's own sphere at the unknown terror that exists outside (real or imagined).
The Light Shines From The Soles Of Her Feet is a recent release from Portland’s wall noise project Hana Haruna. The three featured twenty-minute tracks mixing together detailed & creative noise texturing, with sweeping & moodily ebbing ambient undercurrents to a great effect.
Here Lies is a very thick & truly compacting slab of walled noise. The single-track release slides in just over the hour mark, and it remains both seriously pressing & weighty throughout.
Vile is a 2010’s indie horror film with a few wants. It wants to be shocking & intense; it wants to be emotionally impactful with characters you care about, and lastly, it wants to be the next Saw. Here from MVD Marquee Collection is a recent Blu-Ray release of the film- taking in a few extras.