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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.
8 Found Dead is the new slasher thriller from director Travis Greene (short films include Ten Essentials and Cookie Monsters). As two couples head out for a weekend partying at an remote, yet cosy, cabin in the desert they discover that the current occupants aren’t exactly all too up for leaving. What starts as an awkward altercation slowly becomes something more sinister, and as the bodies begin to pile up a pair of local cops are eager to solve this heinous crime.
Born In Waves is the debut album from this Estonia-born modern classical composer It’s a nine-track affair, which highlights the composer's ability to create compelling work that seesaws between discord & harmony, tautness & flow, and sourness & sweetness.
With a title like Meatcleaver Massacre, you might be expecting either a Texas chainsaw rip-off, or maybe a low-grade/ cheap 80’s (possible) SOV slasher. But instead, this mid 70’s film is a blend of psychic revenge horror, cop investigating mystery, and occult thriller….oh, and it features a (brief) appearance of none other than horror legend Mr Christoper Lee. Here from 101 Films is a Blu-Ray release of this slice of 1970s occultic-fed grindhouse fare- taking in two cuts of the film, and a few interviews.
Some Songs/Bandagen is a CD reissue of a 1989 C60 cassette. It finds this Mick Hobbs(Half Japanese) fronted project dipping its sonic toes into the waters of wavering indie rock-pop, off-kilter singer-songwriter fare, wonky folk, & off-kilter easy listening/ children’s music.
Fishes is album number five from the French experimental duo Geins't Naït. First released in the year 1989- the album is a strange ‘n’ heady mix of industrial-to-electro fired beats ‘n’ tones, dada-focused soundscaping, and cryptic-to-unsettling field recordings/samples
Released in the year 2000 the original Ginger Snaps was somewhat of a game changer- in both werewolf films and teen coming-of-age horror dramas. It centred around two death-obsessed teen sisters- who one night encounter lycanthrope, with one of them coming out the worse for wear. The film cleverly blended gore, dark humour, and teen movie satire- with moments of brutality and touching emotionality. In 2004 it was followed by two sequels Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, and Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning- which featured returning cast members, and unlike many horror sequels are fairly well thought-of. Here from Second Slight Films is a new Ltd edition Blu-ray box set of the trilogy- featuring a great selection of new and archive extras, a one hundred and twelve-page inlay booklet & five art cards- all packaged in a ridged slipcase.
The Night Of The Devils is an early 70’s euro thriller/ horror film that starts off alive with both a keen sense of mystery & growing dread. Before later moving into moments of chilling unease, which are peppered with moments of pumping red & brutal gore. Here from ‎ Raro Video UK/ Radiance Films is a recent release of this lesser-seen Italian/ Spanish film- taking in a new scan of the film, a commentary track by Alan Jones and Kim Newman, and a good selection of archive extras.
From the early 1970s, and boasting three horror film stars Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing. Scream And Scream Again is a decidedly unpredictable blend of serial killer mystery, medical thriller, and totalitarian drama- all edged with light touches of horror & gore. So, it’s certainly a rather distinctive creation- which it’s not wholly successful- but it has its moments. Here from Radiance Films is a Blu-Ray release of this difficult-to pigeonhole film- taking in an HD scan of the film, a new audio commentary, and a few extras- be they new or archived.
Jane Doe is a single-track release from this new wall noise project from Heede, Germany. The digital release features a thirty-one-minute wall, which sits between unsettling ANW & textured noise side of the walled noise genre.
From Tucson, Arizona’s Ennaytch here’s a two-track release that blends detailed textured noise with brooding to uneasy ambience. It’s a release that has more than a whiff of dark ‘n’ dystopian sci-fi about both its tracks, and artwork.
Split is a two-track affair that brings together two respected figures from within the walled noise genre- Julien Skrobek ( Ghost, Sumbru, Gesis, etc), and Damien De Coene( Charles Razeur). With each offering up an around ten-minute wall.