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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.
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.