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Red Sun is a late 60’s West German melodrama come crime film- with the genre elements largely reduced and fleeting until it’s resolved. It’s a film that feels very much akin to the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder- with its wondering & loose structural feel, and the decidedly improvised to stiltedly theatrical feel to the acting. The film certainly is an engaging, at times subtle skewed cinematic experience. And here from Radiance Films is the first-ever region free blu ray- taking in a commentary track, a few other on-disc extras, and a bulky 52-page booklet.
Par-Antra II: TAA is the first album of new material from Finish dark ritual ambient collective Halo Manash in eight years, as well as a sequel/follow-up to one of their early albums 2004’s Par-Antra I: Vir. The CD release features five tracks.
Night Has A Thousand Eyes is an intriguing & wholly engaging crossbreed between tense noir and uneasy psychological horror. Throughout this late 1940s film, the tangible feeling of both mystery & eerier disquiet are kept very much alive- as they are skillfully blended with the noir tropes & atmosphere. Here from Powerhouse is a new Blu-Ray release of the film- taking in HD print of the picture, a new commentary track, and a mix of new/ archive extras.
Ronnie severs up two brain-battering examples of walled noise from the long-running/ highly prolific California project Koobaatoo Asparagus. Each track comes in at dead on the half-an-hour mark, and each is as densely sonically brutalizing as the other.
Here we have wall noise split, which rolls in at just shy of the two-hour mark. It features two fifty-three-minute tracks- one from Michigan-based Polarlicht which is an example of numbing ‘n’ grey drone bound ‘wall’. And a rawer ‘n’ rolling example of the form from Poland’s Sado Rituals.
Search for sound masking and you’re likely to stumble upon a host of corporate-minded demonstration videos marketing the technology as a means to improve the acoustic ecology of workplace environments by effectively combatting two separate but interrelated problems: lack of noise, such that one is able to hear everything and the other side of that coin (i.e., being too loud, so no one can productively accomplish their tasks). The idea is that the imperceptible injection of noise measured at the right frequency and amplitude will assure that neither of these ubiquitous problems of space and hearing will get in the way of a job well done.
Inspired by the Greek myth, Leda is the 2021 movie from producer/director/cinematographer/writer Samule Tressler IV (Syzygy, Headboy TM and Social Animal Social Soul). The film is his first feature-length directorial work, he has previously worked as an actor and most significantly as a cinematographer on the highly-rated 2022 crime thriller Boundary, directed by Anthony Faust. The film stars Adeline Thery (Are We Not Cats, Come to the Show and Suicide or Lulu and Me in a World Made for Two) in the title role, with CC King (Delivering Christmas, Marriage Story and Neon) portraying the younger version of Leda and Douglas Cathro (V/H/S/2, A Host of Sparrows and Heads of Tails) as her father.
Nailbomb was a collaboration between Max Cavalera( formally Sepultura, Soulfly, and Cavalera Conspiracy) and Alex Newport of noise rock/ metal project Fudge Tunnel. The project's sound blended together elements of industrial metal, Thrash, hardcore punk and groove metal. The project existed between 1994 and 1995- but they managed to release one studio album Point Blank, and one live album Proud To Commit Commercial Suicide. 1000% Hate is a two-CD set bringing together both of these albums.
Channeling the chants and ritualistic roots of civilization's ancestors, Italy's CHAIGIDEL & NERATERRÆ offer up their tribute to the Mesopotamian goddess Lamaštu. Dark and brooding, the eight tracks conjure up a time at the beginning of our recorded history, capturing the malevolence and terror of this ancient demon. Droning, deep, and rich, Lamaštu encompasses a range of the human experience through the lens of the darkly divine and menacingly mythological.
Ampscent is a two-piece project who creates an intense, shifting, busy and often disorienting brand of electronica/ IDM. This self-titled CD debut album follows on from their 2023 EP Nothing But The World. And this album is one manic, and at points highly dizzying ride- blended beat crafted, layered electro texturing, percussive & noise elements.
Exit Electronics is the rawer ‘n’ noise-bound solo project of Justin K. Broadrick (Godflesh, JK Flesh, Jesu, Final). Learn The Hard Way is the project's debut album, which originally appeared back in 2022 on Broadrick’s own Avalanche Recordings label. Here from Zoharum is a CD reissue of the album, and what we get is eleven tracks worth of crude bone-battering electro beats & skin scalding to roasting electronics.
Here we have the fourth box set in Imprint’s Essential Noir Collection series. The four Blu-ray boxset features five films, dating from between the years 1949 and 1953. And we get a good variation of different types of noir- going from a South African bound adventure. Onto a uncover investigation-based noir, though to a burst a crime syndicate take on the genre. Finishing off with a psycho drama come house invasion film, and a gothic-tinged noir-ish mystery.
Here’s a recent/ very well-deserved CD reissue of the soundtrack to Norman .J. Warren’s Sci-fi horror film Inseminoid (1981)- which was one of the more worthy/ managing to stand on its own Alien rip-offs. The score is by English composer John Scott (Repulsion, The People That Time Forgot, Doomwatch), and it’s purely a synth/electronic-based affair. With the twelve tracks featured here covering a fair bit of sonic ground.
AmnesiA (2001) is the first theatrical feature by Dutch director Martin Koolhoven best known for the international art house success Winter in Wartime (2008). The film is available here as an impressive two-disk Blu-ray set from the American label Cult Epics- which also features Koolhoven’s two earlier TV movies.
Witchtrap is a very 1980’s take on the investigating-a-haunted-house genre. It’s high in 80’s camp, full of stilted- often-unintentional amusing acting, cutting one-liners,and more than a few gore deaths. It’s a film that just sits on the edge of so bad-it’s-great, and while there are a few pacing issues- this is a largely entertaining slice of 80’s shlock. Here from MVD’s Rewind Series is a Blu-Ray release featuring a 2k scan of the film, a commentary track, and a selection of interviews.
In this feature directorial debut from Sebastien Blanc, we bear witness to a body horror nightmare of one man’s obsession to raise the dead. William (Tobi King Bakare) and his mother (Romona Von Pusch) both get involved in a serious accident, of which only William survives to go home to his adopted father Richard (Steve Oram). Plagued by visions of his dead mother, William struggles to recover but he soon discovers the dark secret his father has been cooking up in the basement. Richard has found a way to resurrect the dead, and he is not going to stop until his beloved wife has been returned to him.
Axe Witch are a Swedish heavy metal band formed in 1981 in Linköping, Sweden. Brought together by Anders Wallentoft (vocals) and Magnus Jarl (guitar) the band would go on to release 3 full-length studio albums (The Lord of Flies, Visions of the Past and Hooked on High Heels) and a couple of EPs (Pray For Metal and a 3 track maxi-single) before disbanding in 1987. The Last of A Dying Breed: 40 Years in Metal brings together classic tracks from 1982s Pray for Metal, 1983s The Lord of Flies and 1984s Vision of the Past, re-recorded for a new generation of metal fans and released in a beautifully packaged digipak CD for Hooked On Metal Records.
Lum is an Italian Black metal two-piece that weaves an often harmonic lined & grandly atmospheric take on the genre- which adds in touches of orchestration, folk and martial percussion to its make-up. Lunaria - I Racconti Del Falò is the band’s first full-length, following on from 2021’s EP L'feu e la Stria Ep. And I must say it’s a very well-realized full-length debut- blending well grimness, grandeur, melody & atmosphere.
Chicago progressive experimental metal outfit Yakuza has a long history dating back to their debut album in 2000. For what appears to be their 7th official album, Finland's Svart Records has released Sutra. Shifting between subgenres nearly every song, it is truly difficult to classify this band's music, though clever, well-paced songwriting makes it immediately satisfying and meaningful, as well.
Detroit seems to have always had a special relationship to the darker, weirder, and frankly, creepier, side of electronic music, and Mission to the Sun is no exception. The band’s name might lead you to believe we are traveling somewhere aglow, but once you make it through the sludgy, slow journey of their second album, Sophia Oscillations, it is abundantly clear that whatever mission – and whatever sun, for that matter – is one fueled by despair and desperation and not hope. Each of the eight tracks features recurring elements – voice, some form of damaged synthesis, and carefully strewn sonic ephemera – creating a kind of threadbare symphony for a blighted future. The disease that informs such compositions is right at home in the muffled vocal delivery – bassy but insistent – and the circular structure of each track. Things do not so much develop as return again and again to a point of origin, a cause, really, an etiology of downfall.
Here’s a long cassette from Yotzeret Sheydim, now established as a notable figure in contemporary HNW and noise. Self-released in 2022, Returning Home, Machine Gun In Hand has four long tracks, all just over 20 minutes, and blazes an idiosyncratic harsh noise wall trail. Yotzeret Sheydim is Alyx III, and the cassette is dedicated to her grandpa, Dan, who, according to the track titles, spent World War II killing, or attempting to kill, Nazis. The inlay is filled with photos of Dan: in uniform, looking dapper in a portrait photo, and with his grandchildren; so it’s a very personal release, and one charged with political intent too.
Disengage is the first sonic statement from five-piece Kodian Plus, which brings together some of the great names in the British and European improvisation scene. The four-track album is a decidedly varied and rewarding affair- which moves between textured minimalism, manic free jazz workouts, and building/ expanding jam-outs.
Kraftbalanse takes in two around eighteen-minute compositions for string and piano- which translate the hum of mains electricity into droning ‘n’ pressing sonic forms. The CD release appears of the ever reliable & always interesting output bound Sofa Music.
Getting together in Berlin, 2019, Two Form A Click (DJ Sna y and Wretchen Redspiders) and Horatio Pollard worked together to record the experimental electronic work that is Backpfeifenphaseshift. Capturing a vast range of sounds and techniques, the seven tracks show a collaboration of well connected musicians all approaching a shared goal, working in flow, and expressing their emotions electronically. While Backpfeifenphaseshift may be hard to put a finger on and pigeonhole, it's easy to play and get lost in, like one of the vocal ghosts in this album's machine.