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First released in the year 1986 Nova Akropola was the second studio album from Slovenian/ Yugoslav avant-garde music collective Laibach. It saw the project offering up a sinisterly jarring, often disconcerting, at points downright demonic blend of martial beats, fascist-like chants, sampled orchestration/ horn work, unnerving samples, and deep guttural vocals. It’s a record that still sounds urgent, unpredictable and surprisingly undated. Here from Cherry Red is a recent three-CD reissue of the album- with the original album being presented alongside two discs worth of live performances of album tracks from over the years.
Lord of Misrule is a new British folk horror tale from director William Brent Bell (Orphan: First Kill, The Boy). New priest Rebecca (Tuppence Middleton) is more than happy to get involved with her village’s folk traditions, in fact she and her family are entranced by the showmanship of the annual harvest festival. But when her daughter (Evie Templeton) vanishes, Rebecca is drawn into a dark history which leads back to a threat beyond human comprehension.
The Lost is a teen serial killer film set in small-town USA. The early 2000’s film mixes drama, and cop investigation, with moments of brutal violence and female nudity. It features an impressively moody-to-darkly intense lead, as well as a fair bit of darting/ shifting editing and soundtracking. Here from Ronin Flix is a recent Blu-Ray release of the film- featuring a new 2k scan, and a good selection of new & archive extras.
From the early 1970 Mean Streets was the third feature film from Martin Scorsese. It’s largely an episodic fly-on-the-wall drama set in the streets & clubs of New York City's Little Italy- with light touches of crime thriller mixed into its make-up. The film is the first collaboration between director and actor Robert De Niro- who have gone on to work together many times over the years since. Here from Second Sight Films is a new box set release of the film- taking in a UHD & Blu Ray, a new 4k scan, a good selection of new/ archive extras, a one hundred and seventy-eight-page book, and eight art cards- all packaged in a ridged slipcase with new artwork.
Paris is a nearing forty-minute slab of searing meets atmospherically droning walled noise. Utterblight is a relatively new project from the UK, and this is its fourth release.
III takes in a twenty-minute example of rough, raw, and bone rolling wall craft from this Pirot, Serbia-based project. It comes in the form of a digital release- with the cover artwork featuring a moody monochrome picture of a three-towered rock outcrop.
Propagation Of Uncertainty is a two-CD set bringing together a selection of pieces from Estonia-based modern classical composer Arash Yazdani. His work mixes acoustic and psycho-acoustic elements- to create an often very wonky, highly disorientating, and at points downright unbalancing work.
Composed in the early 1970’s Femenine is a seventy-one-minute minimalism composition- which blends in light touches of jazz, ethnic percussion and climbing soulfulness. It’s one of the better-known pieces by New York's Julius Eastman- a gay African American composer, pianist, vocalist, and dancer. He sadly passed in the year 1990 at the age of forty-nine, before his work could get the full attention/ respect it deserves.
First released in the year 1993 Prospectus I is a key and important record for several reasons. It defined the project's distinctive take on dark ambient, as well as helped create/ form that genre. It helped put the then up-and-coming Swedish label Cold Meat Industry on the map. And it’s gone on to not only deeply influence the underground ambient genres, but it’s made a sizable impact on wider ambient & atmospheric music. Here is the 30th-anniversary edition of the album- which appears as a joint release from Cyclic Law & Yantra Atmospheres- been presented as a four-CD boxset.
Build’s latest release, Orienting Points, is a collection of radically different moods and techniques, which do not always mesh well with one another.
Mausoleum is schlocky, campy, and at points nonsensically OTT shot of 1980’s horror. It blends glowing-eyed demonic possession, gore-bound telekinesis, and hammed-up/mist-flowing gothicness. Here from the relatively new cult/exploitation boutique label Treasured Films is a new UK release of the film. With the Blu-Ray featuring a 4k scan, a new commentary track, and a good selection of both new & archive extras.
Ten years since their formation in Santa Cruz, Dipygus release their third album, Dipygus. It's not often a non-debut album gets the eponymous treatment, but maybe it's a statement from the band that they're starting fresh, strong, and true to themselves. Blasting across ten tracks in forty-one minutes, this self-titled rager, these death dealers tackle evolution, cryptids, and various hominids with disgusting aplomb. Delightfully vile and dark, Dipygus is a worthy follow-up to 2021's Bushmeat, and an excellent look at what the future holds for the band.
Nowadays, no-one is just a musician, musical artists span multiple disciplines giving their work added complexity, interest, and nuance. And Christopher Bissonnette is no exception. The Canadian artist straddles the worlds of music, sound art and graphic design; spending his days exploring visual and audio art formats while performing and presenting his work at art galleries and music venues alike.
Here’s the fifth in Imprint's excellent Essential Film Noir box sets. The Blu-ray boxset takes in four films dating from between the early 1940’s and early 1960’s. Once again we get a nice selection of different takes on the noir genre- going from an undercover agent meets slavery noir/ thriller. Onto an anti-communist noir, through to burglary come character study noir. Finishing off with a crime thriller meets early vigilante example of the genre.
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.