Loading
Continuous Hole is an eleven-track adventure in taut 'n' tense textually sound making. It shifts between the jarring and complex, moodily shredding, slightly unease, and playful. The release is the first collaboration between Drew Daniel (Matmos) and John Wiese (Sissy Spacek/ solo). It was first released in 2018 as a Ltd vinyl pressing on Gilgongo Records- here from Cold Spring is a new CD release of the album.
Callum Waddell and Naomi Holwill’s 2021 documentary film about Ruggero Deodato’s controversial masterpiece has been given a standalone release from Germany’s 8 Films. Waddell, a Scotsman born in Fife has become a world-renowned movie critic and documentarian, his 42nd Street Memories: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Notorious Street and Eaten Alive: The Rise and Fall of the Italian Cannibal Film have become much-loved horror/ exploitation documentaries.
To save some wear on your eyes: if you’re a fan of Ayler, go get this book; if you’re a fan of free jazz, go get this book; if you’re a fan of jazz, and not Wynton Marsalis, go get this book. For those of you still reading, Holy Ghost is a great book (go get it); a comprehensive biography of Albert Ayler, his pioneering musical ventures in free jazz, and the scenes around him.
Hawking Extended is a recent(ish) ten-track album from highly creative German Turntablist & saxophonist Ignaz Schick. For the album, he’s joined by two other names from the German jazz/ improv scene- guitarist Gunnar Geisse & drummer Ernst Bier. And boy it’s another dense, darting, and often deranged release that I guess is grounded in jazz/ improv- but it really goes way more places.
Catching Ghosts is a collusion between free jazz and Gnaoua Blues. It’s an album that moves between earthly rhythmic & grooving, spiritual & felt, and lightly to not-so-lightly seared. It's also one of the last releases from highly respected German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann- who passed in June of this year.
The Quarry is a slow-burn thriller set around a group of friends meeting at a waterlogged & long abandoned quarry on one summer day. The Uruguay film features a small, but well-realized cast- with the tension slowly but surely notching up over the film’s length in a decidedly compelling manner. Here from Jinga Films is a bare-bones region-free DVD release of the picture.
The Girl From Rio is a groovy ‘n’ campy action sci-fi romp from prolific Euro cult director Jess Franco. The film brings together a female supervillain who wants to take over the world, a sleek playboy with ten million $’s in a suitcase, and a suave/ ageing gangster. The late 1960s film finds the director at the more mainstream & less fleshy/ perverse end of his large filmography. Here from Blue Underground is a recent dual disc UHD & Blu-Ray release of the film- taking in a new 4k scan of the picture, a commentary track, and a few other extras.
With the advancement in recording technology, one man metal bands have become far more common. While they're usually in the black metal realm, a few death metallers take up the challenge and release their heavy, thrashing madness onto the world. Monterrey, Mexico's Adrián decided to take a different direction than his current bands (Impending Rot and Excretory) and sail into different solo waters, creating Stenched and its debut, Gorging on Mephitic Rot. Although Adrián is no stranger to solo recordings, his latest captures the wondrous majesty of rot, gore, and vile vibes
From the late 1980’s Door is a Japanese film that shifts from thriller to bloody slasher/house invasion in its last half an hour or so. It regards a middle-class housewife getting fed up with constant cold callers- be they on the phone or at the door of her apartment, and how after inadvertently damaging the hand of a salesman things start to escalate. It’s a film that carefully builds up its tension slowly- and when it finally explodes, we get some thrilling and bloody action. 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. With the film's sequel as an extra, as well as commentary & a few other bonuses.
The English Surgeon is a 2007 documentary focusing on middle-aged English NHS neurosurgeon Henry Walsh- who spends his downtime helping at a struggling & unfunded hospital in Ukraine. It’s a compelling, thought-provoking, and at points moving documentary- which never sugar-coats the uncertainty of brain-related issues/ brain surgery/Ukraine's underfunded health system. The film features a most effective & moody soundtrack from Nick Cave & Warren Ellis. Here from Second Run Films- who is most known for releasing world film & arthouse fare is a region free Blu Ray release of the documentary- featuring new interviews with both Herny Marsh, and this film’s director.
.076 is a two-track digital release from this Calgary, Alberta-based wall noise project- which has a penchant for triangles and ritual-like scribblings. Each track slides in at the twenty minutes, with a nice variation between the two tracks- moving from busy and choppy, to droning and rattling.
Le vieux fusible / The Singles is a two-CD set that moves between warped ‘n’ corrupted synth-bound muzak, scrawling avant jazz, post-industrial unease/ grey wonkiness, with some darts into electro-toned noisemaking. It brings together Frenchmen of experimental music/ sound- Quentin Rollet(Nurse With Wound, Emmanuelle Parrenin, Pointe du Lac, Jours de grève, Laurent Saiët, Mendelson, The Red Krayola), and Romain Perrot( Vomir, Trou aux Rats, Roro Perrot, KILL, Free As Dead, Maginot, Meurs).
This rather lengthily entitled release severs up two fifteen-minute examples of rapid ‘n’ ripping textured noise from Rome’s Angry With Noise. All making for an appealing manic trip into active wall-craft.
Mirror in the Gleam is a grab bag of ambient tricks spread across 11 tracks, each of a perfectly digestible length (2-4 minutes). Kin Leonn is an adept songwriter, and the completeness of each of the cuts is a testament to his ability to craft something quite listenable and enjoyable in the space normally occupied by others’ preludes. Mostly, the album is soundscape-y, free from beats or rhythm, save for “your spectrum” and “dawn memo”, both of which manage to keep things airy and bright. The album as a whole tends toward the cheerier side of the timbral spectrum, with nods to the muted piano work of Nils Frahm and the utter vastness of Stephan Mathieu (Mathieu, it should be noted, mastered Mirror in the Gleam).
ZÖJ is an Australian duo which I might describe as an ethno-ambient and world music band, combining acoustic instruments and traditional European folk styles with lush, modern production and cinematic flair. They continue the legacy of groups like Dead Can Dance, with a more patient and deliberate energy.
From the late 70’s The Psychic is a skilfully constructed & wonderfully realized Giallo from Lucio Fulci. It blends dread-filled intrigue, with a neatly twisting ‘n’ turning plot, and a few moments of the directors’ trademark gore - though it’s largely centred around mystery & building atmosphere. Here from Severin, we have a classy new four-disc set- bringing together a UHD disc, two Blu Rays, and one CD- as well as a perfectly bound booklet & card slip. It features a new 4k scan of the film, as well as five hours’ worth of extras.
I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses is a late 1970’s blend of courtroom drama, murder mystery, and soapy melodrama- with surprising touches of gore ‘n’ nudity- which landed the film on the UK’s video nasty list in the 1980s. This Canadian film is certainly one of the lesser-seen/ known titles on the video nasty list- so it’s nice to see region free Blu-Ray release- which is a two-disc set that pairs the film with the writers/ director’s previous film Recommendation for Mercy (1975) which is also a courtroom drama. Both films receive a new scan & a good selection of extras.
Released in the year 1980 City Of The Living Dead was the thirty-six feature-length film from Lucio Fulci. It was the first film in his influential/ infamous Gates of Hell trilogy also taking in The Beyond and The House By The Cemetery both made in 1981. The film mixes together gothic & Lovecraft atmospheric tropes, extreme/prolonged gore, and an often-creative take on the look of the zombies- all in a macabrely horrific / at points illogically nightmarish setting. City Of The Living Dead of the pacier & more eventful of the three films- with some well-conceived, shocking and largely undated special effects, a keen ghoulish atmosphere, and a tangible feel of unease/ dread. Here from Cauldron Films is a three-disc release of the film- taking in a UHD, and two Blu-rays. The set features a 4k scan of the picture and a bulging selection of extras.
Furniture Records regular, Gagi Petrovic, returns with his latest, a very personal piece entitled Unfold Yourself. Composer, performer, and teacher, Gagi tends to focus more on performance instead of recording, but for those of us that are unable to catch him live, we're treated to a wonderfully engaging piece of electronics with Unfold Yourself. Much like the title states, this album takes its time, opens up to allow the listener in, then lays out the beauty of its message, slowly and deliberately. An album that benefits from repeated listens, Unfold Yourself has many aspects to latch on to, with differing outcomes depending on state of mind.
The intriguingly-named Italian trio of McCorman comprises Stefano Calderano on electric and ‘prepared’ guitar, Francesco Panconesi on tenor and extended sax and Nicholas Remondino on ‘prepared’ bass drum and synth. All jazz musicians in their own right, the threesome came together just before the pandemic - gathering for creative residencies under the moniker Below-Fi then eventually McCorman. And now they’ve decided to commit to vinyl their sonically experimental and improvisational brand of jazz on A Page Is Turned | A Mountain Collapses | A Guy Leaves.
Here’s a two-CD set collecting together four late 1970s dub/ roots albums produced by Barbados-born reggae guitarist, bass player and record producer Dennis Bovell- who is an influential & creative figure within the wider UK reggae scene.
As a youngster, aged 9 years old Barbara Gaskin and Dave Stewart (of Hatfield and the North) had a number one hit single with the 1963 Lesley Gore classic “It’s My Party (and I’ll Cry If I Want To)”. The song wasn’t really my thing, however, it stuck with me throughout my lifetime, popping up from time to time as an earworm. During the 1990s, dissatisfied with the music of the time, I started to look backwards discovering a wealth of amazing music, initially in the psychedelic scene of the 1960s and subsequently the prog and folk rock of the 1970s. Bands like Caravan, Soft Machine and Hatfield and the North began to show up time and again and I developed a love of what I later discovered to be the music of the Canterbury scene. The deeper I became entrenched in this music, the more I started to hear the name, Spirogyra. Originally formed in Canterbury in 1970, the band fronted by the aforementioned Barbara Gaskin would go on to release three albums of superior whimsical English folk-rock without ever receiving the attention of several of their peers.
For those of us less inclined to molly and the lure of the club floor, a useful if reductionist cut through the ever-proliferating genres of electronic music might look something like this: there are those who sequence and there are those who don’t. This could ease the usual consternation over the adequacy of terms that have as much similarity as difference. Is that EDM or IDM? The tempo is under 130 bpm, so what is it then? I miss the techno catchall, for it served as a kind of shibboleth among non-DM folks, who could only get into electronic synthesis once someone proved to them that you could make things that no person in their right mind would dance to, and that the specific history of the technology (the synthesizer) had more to do with conjuring the spirits of the nether reaches than any repeatable groove or pattern.
You Are Free, But You Are Alone is a digital EP that blends together wall-making, woozy-to-unwell harmonics, and snippets of skewed self-help dialogue. This Berlin-based project has been active for around a year thus far- with around ten or so releases to date- though as with much of the wall noise scene releases, these have largely been digital.