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Now here is a real curio from the fine folks at Severin- two Spanish experimental films from the 1970’s both featuring horror icon Christopher Lee. With this region-free Blu-ray release taking in new scans of the films, a featurette, and an inlay booklet.
Fluctuation Of Being is Dirk Serries' first foray into full-on ambience since 2018’s Epitaph. It’s a guitar & effects-based album highlighting both his skill and atmospheric scope within the ambient form. Over the five featured tracks, he moves from slowly growing drone matter, through to drifting ambience, onto felt & forlorn moodscapes.
Shrouded in some kind of Slovenian mystery, the collective known as Cadlag have produced a live performance that was recorded in an abandoned mine in their native land. Integral exists in two parts – one short excerpt, followed by a full take – that moves like slow-mounting eclipse of anything resembling light. The components sound a lot like the usual ingredients of dark ambience – processed electronics free from any vestige of rhythm, voice, or organic instrumentation. The result is all-encompassing and evil. Cadlag are experts at manipulating their tools to create something much greater than the sum of their parts, weaving an ungodly tapestry that is unquestionably moving toward something, whatever that something is – more vertical descent than the horizon
Slovakian singer Adela Mede presents here her second album, Ne L​é​pj a Vir​á​gra, released by Warm Winters Ltd and Mappa as well as on her personal Bandcamp page.
Thoughts & Prayers is a single-track release from UK’s Death To Dynamics. It rolls in at just over the twenty-one-minute mark, and is a brain-battering ‘n’ bone-grinding example of walled noise form
Appearing at the tail end of 2023 Heaven was the final studio album from respected and influential reggae producer/ composer Lee "Scratch" Perry. The eight-track albums appears on Burning Sounds- available as either vinyl LP or CD, I’m reviewing the latter on these.
Panic (aka Bakterion, Monster of Blood) is an early 80’s European horror/ sci-fi film set in the UK. It regards a scientist who experiments with deadly bacteria- becoming a horribly deformed killer, who goes on a rampage. The film very much sits in the bad cinema bracket- bringing together unintentionally amusing dialogue, some very wooden acting, a few moments of gore death, and neat enough creature effects. Here from Cheezy Films is a region-free DVD release of the film.
Beast from Haunted Cave is a horror/ thriller from 1959 directed by Monte Hellman (Cockfighter, Iguana and Waiting For Godot), from a screenplay by Charles B Griffith (Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000 and Barbarella), and produced by the Corman Bros, Roger and Gene (Night of the Blood Beast, Attack of the Giant Leeches and Premature Burial). This was the first movie that Hellman and Roger Corman would make together, Corman would keep Hellman in his employ over the next fifteen years. The film stars Michael Forest (who would go on to voice act on dozens of well-known anime titles including The Castle of Cagliostro, Paprika and Ninja Scroll to name a few), Sheila Noonan (The Incredible Petrified World, Ski Troop Attack and Bucket of Blood), and Frank Wolff (Once Upon A Time in the West, Death Walks on High Heels and Cold Eyes of Fear).
From the early 1970’s Count Dracula is Jess Franco’s take on the classic horror tale, and surprisingly it’s a rather straight, tame & fleshless ride- though we do get moments of inspiration, and eerier atmospherics at play from time to time. With Christopher Lee playing the count, Klaus Kinski is Renfield, and Herbert Lom is Van Helsing. Here from Severin is a deluxe four-disc set of the film- taking in a UHD disc, two Blu-rays, and a CD soundtrack. With a new 4k scan of the film, and a nice selection of extras- both new & old.
They Blessed The Body Breadcrumbered is the first ever solo album from Renaldo M. Who is one-half of the British avant-pop/(off) world music duo Renaldo and the Loaf- who have been peddling their strange sonic wares since the late ’70s. It’s a wonderful varied & unpredictable thirteen-track ride of an album- which moves between urgent & ethnically odd, through to the percussive & quirky, onto the manic and unsettling, though to the charming & tuneful, to sinisterly disquieting.
Blood Mountain is a lost-in-the-woods found footage thriller with some light horror touches and moments of rather intense/manic Go-Pro action. Here from Dreamscape is a Region B DVD release of the film.
Pain And Betrayal severs up two thirty-seven-minute ‘wall’s from this prolific California project. Both tracks are as unrelenting as each other, and both focus on battering ‘n’ baying textured sound craft- which is simple, yet effective in its attack.
Here’s a wall noise split themed around/ celebrating New Year's Eve. Both tracks slide in at around the fifteen-minute mark, with each offering up a different take on this most extreme of genres.
During the heyday of British horror in the 1960s and 70s, the anthology became an integral horror movie concept. A selection of four or five short tales loosely held together by an overarching theme was common practice and remains popular to this day, however, for every Tales from the Crypt or From Beyond the Grave there were disasters and in a lot of instances the stories were patchy. So it is with trepidation that I approach modern anthology movies, we’ve had some like the V/H/S franchise which have produced very mixed results, including some very good stories, but the quality has often lacked. Check out the ABCs of Death to see a great example of the gulf in quality that can exist between episodes of the same anthology.
Here’s a pro-pressed CD from Karo Productions, with seven tracks of harsh noise from Joseph Roemer of Macronympha, and Leo Sabatto of Armenia. The album comes with a sticker declaring: ‘The concept here was an analysis of how extreme imagery in metal/noise/experimental album covers could affect the psyche of the individual and how it may manifest in their daily life. We live in a world where indifference and coldness manifests making us emotionless individuals. This will make your ears bleed!’ It’s very unclear how precisely this conceptual nature is meant to be perceived by the listener; Macromenia may well have pondered these ideas and incorporated them into the release but any ‘analysis’ remains imperceivable, since all we have are noise tracks and some xerox collaged artwork. I’d also dispute that we live in a world of ‘emotionless individuals’ and following the apparent logic of the sticker spiel, if we do live in such a world then noise releases packaged with extreme imagery must presumably accept part of the blame. Anyway, certainly at the right volumes the CD probably has the potential to make your ears bleed.
Adapting their 2021 BAFTA-nominated short film, directors Sam H Freeman and Ng Choon Ping bring their queer neo-noir thriller to the feature-length stage with Femme . Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is a drag queen with a powerful presence, but after a vicious homophobic attack, he finds himself retreating into a reclusive lifestyle. But the perfect opportunity for revenge against his attacker (George MacKay) soon opens up, and Jules is going to take it.
Here from Arrow Video- both in the UK and stateside- is Savage Guns: Four Western Classics Vol. 3. The next in the lables open-ended series of Blu-ray boxsets bringing together four-euro westerns/ Spaghetti westerns from between the late 1960s and the early ’70s. All four of the films have received a classy 2k scan, as well as a new commentary track, plus a good selection of extras. The sets finished off with an inlay booklet with new writing, a double-sided poster, and reversible sleeves for each film.
Appearing two years after the first August Underground, Mordum does exactly what a sequel should do- amp things up more, and boy does it amp things up to truly deranged & very highly disturbing levels. As with the first film, this is a pseudo video diary of serial killers- though this time instead of two, we have three killers- each with their own depraved behaviour and kinks. Here from Unearthed Films- is a double disk Blu-Ray & DVD release of the film- bringing together a new commentary track, a host of new extras, and some archive extras.
Philippe Baudouin is back with his second installment of Spectra Ex Machina, an interesting look at the occult through various sonic approaches. Whether recorded seances with some little known folk like Elvis Presley and Chopin, strange songs sent from other planets, or recordings of satanic black masses, Spectra Ex Machina promises to provide the listener with a variety of occult obscurities. While not really listenable on the whole, each piece presented has merit and carries with it something beyond what is just available to one's ears. Baudouin understands that the recordings themselves speak volumes, their being saved for posterity shows how important they were at the time and provide an exciting look at an oft-avoided part of our history.
It is no great surprise to learn that the musician who calls himself øjeRum moonlights as a collage artist. Or, maybe, it’s the other way around? In any case, the smooth and seamless movements of the three long pieces that make up Your Soft Absence share a similar economy of part-by-part construction, but whereas the visual medium usually requires evidence of the fissures and cracks that make up a collage’s constituent parts, the sonic materials here are so organically held together as to make one believe that the compositions always existed as such. No, I am afraid – I too was disappointed to learn – the songs are made up of “sine waves and wind instruments.” And not to be too snarky, but what is the difference, really? On a playing field as level as the one achieved on Your Soft Absence, isn’t it almost old hat to make something fundamentalist about the source material, when, to a good oscilloscope, we are never the wiser when it comes to sonic “origin”?
From the early 1940s, The Man In Half Moon Street is a Paramount-made noir flavoured with elements of romantic drama, horror and sci-fi. Here from Imprint is a new Blu-Ray release of the film- taking in a new 2k scan of the picture & a commentary track from respected film historian Tim Lucas.
From the very tail end of the 1970’s Spaced Out is a cheap ‘n’ cheerful enough British sci-fi sex comedy. It’s one of the lesser-seen films of London-born director Norman J Warren- who will be known to 70’s euro fare for films like Satan’s Slave ( 1976), Prey (1977) which features two of the cast from this film, and Terror (1978). Here from the fine folk at Cheezy Films is a well-deserved region-free DVD release of the film.
Getting its first general release on the 26th of December 1973 The Exorcist has become one of the most celebrated, praised, and parody of all horror films of all time. This three-hundred-plus page book not only does a deep dive into the origins, making of, and impact of the original film- it also looks into each of the film’s sequels up to 2022- with an exclusive pre-release interview with David Gordon Green, who of course is helming the next three cinematic chapters in the series.
During the 1970’s a big chunk of country music genre had become rather overproduced, cliched, and decidedly vapid. But as often happens in these situations a group of artists pushed against the trend- with a sub-genre that became labelled Outlaw country. It has roots in blues music, blending in elements of honky tonk, & rockabilly, as well as darts into other genres. One of the key figures in this sub-genre was Texas-born Waylon Jennings- here from the folks at BGO Records is a double disc CD, bringing together Mr Jennings's key Outlaw country albums from the early 1970’s- Lonesome, On'ry and Mean, Honky Tonk Heroes, This Time, and The Ramblin' Man.