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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.
Appearing in 1973, between two Giallo classics Four Flies On Grey Velvet (1971) and Profondo Rosso (1975). The Five Days was Dario Argento’s one and only departure from the thriller/ horror genres he’s most known for. It’s a period-based drama-comedy set in the final days of the Italian Revolution in 1848. And it’s well shot/ executed film that’s alive with moments of comedy- be it playful visual, slapstick, lightly sleazed or very darkly hued, satire, and dabs of bloody red violence. Here from the fine folks at Severin is the truly definitive version of this lesser-known Argento film. The three-disc set features three discs a UHD, a Blu-ray, and CD. It features a wonderfully clean & defined 4k scan of the picture, a great selection of new extras, and a CD full of music.
England Swings is the latest release in Righteous ongoing series of Lux and Ivy compilations. The series finds respected music journalist Dave Henderson crate-digging for 45’s, and as its title suggests there is very much of a UK focus to this release. The twenty-eight-track CD is another nicely varied & quirky selection of tunes from the ’50s and ’60s.
The Driver’s Seat is an uneasy & arty drama-come-mystery. It follows a glamorous yet disturbed middle-aged woman around Rome, as she is seemingly searching for someone or something. The mid 70’s film features none other than Hollywood acting legend Elizabeth Taylor as its lead, and it certainly stands as one of the key strange & arty films of the actress's career. Here from the BFI is a new Blu-Ray release of this oddity- with a 4k scan, a new commentary track, and a selection of new and archive extras.
I think it’s fair to say that Skinamarink is one of the more divisive horror films in recent memory. If you’re a horror fan, and regularly bob around online genre groups you’ll have heard of the film. And the decidedly mixed reviews it’s had- been either praised as a deeply chilling trip into a child’s nightmare. Or criticized as a pretentious art film- with little shape or sense. And after now finally seeing the film- thanks to this new Blu-Ray release on Shudder via Acorn Media. I’d say my opinion on the film sort of sits somewhere between these two polar opposition options….but there is no doubt it is a very distinctive creation.
Chris Dreier and Tim Löhde (aka MK/CT) have been swapping musical snippets while no one was paying attention, bridging their respective homes of Berlin and Düsseldorf via a familiar motif in the field of experimental ambience and electronics: the movement of water. The Rhine and the Spree, but nothing in the titles or field recordings would point in an obvious way to this fact; rather, it is the fluidity of the compositions – their specific drift – that feels undeniably hydrous, for lack of a prettier adjective.
Directed by action expert Eric Karson (The Octagon, Black Eagle and Lionheart), Opposing Force aka Hell Camp is a 1986 action movie starring Lisa Eichorn (Cutter’s Way, Yanks and The Vanishing), Tom Skerritt (Alien, Top Gun and Contact), Anthony Zerbe (The Omega Man, Cool Hand Luke and License to Kill) and the legend that is Richard Roundtree (Shaft, Q: The Winged Serpent and Speed Racer).
Dotyk collections together four examples of modern chamber music from Slovakenin composer Viera Janárčeková. Her work is often unpredictable- both tonally, and in its composition layout, which makes this CD primed perfectly for those who enjoy more adventurous & unbalancing chamber music.
Aaron Cassidy is an American composer whose work sits at the crossroads of intense modern classic music & searing improv. A Way Of Making Ghosts is a CD release from late 2022, which features eight works from the composer- and it’s most certainly a wild and often manic ride.
Moonlighting Wives is a mid-60s drama, which revolves around a prostitution ring set up by an ambitious suburban housewife. The film’s dramatics are lightly edged by moments of revealed flesh, as well as, one or two brief drives into roughie territory. It was directed by Joseph W. Sarno- one of the key figures in the development of American Sexploitation- though this is very a straight & true drama- with very slight braiding of sleaze/smut. Here from Dark Force Entertainment is a region-free Blu-Ray- taking in an HD scan of the film, featuring a few cut/thought-lost scenes. A commentary track, an on-camera interview with Joseph Sarno biographer, and a short deleted scene.
Klaus Wiese was a German sound maker whose work fell between ambient, minimalism, and pared-back/drone-focused world music. With a particular focus/ mastery of singing bowls, though he utilized other elements in his sound creation too. Between the early 1980s & early 2000s, he released over a hundred-plus albums.
Fusing together extreme metal and extreme jazz, NYC's Sarmat see their debut LP, Determined to Strike, released via I, Voidhanger Records. Pounding, chaotic, but extremely well put together, this first full length showcases the band's talents for not only playing such extreme songs, but arranging and producing these fantastically frantic pieces. Featuring guest stars on trumpet, guitar, and sax, Sarmat utilize their line up to create something really unique and worthy of many, many repeated spins.
After 82: The Untold Story of the AIDS Crisis in the UK is a 2019 documentary looking at the year the AIDS virus hit the UK, and its aftermath. It brings together impactful interviews with those who survived, those who treated people & a few politicians, and remembering those who passed - as well as a good selection of news footage/newspaper cuttings from the time. Here from Dreamscape Media is a bare-bones region-free DVD release of the film.
Based on the 1945 Chester Himes novel of the same name, Charles Martin’s 1968 adaptation of If He Hollers, Let Him GO! follows James Lake (Raymond St. Jacques); a man wrongly convicted of raping and murdering a white woman. On the night he escapes from prison he is picked up by the seemingly friendly Leslie Whitlock (Kevin McCarthy), the pair hit it off until Leslie attempts to blackmail James into murdering his wife Ellen (Dana Wynter) in an attempt to get rich from the inheritance money. Soon James finds himself on the run from the law again, and this time he’s going to make sure he proves his innocence.
Vainglorious is a three-track journey into searing ‘n’ roasting walled noise from British project Sacris. One track comes in at fifteen minutes, while the other two at twenty minutes piece- with the tone kept brutal and sonically unforgiving thorough-out.
Extra Terrestrial Visitors is a dementedly skewed low-budget Euro sci-fi film from the 1980s.Throughout it awkwardly seesaws between sinister-when aliens-invade picture, and when-a-kid-befriends-an-alien family film. With the picture's tone wildly shifting between brooding, cheesy ‘n’ camp, badly spirited, playful ‘n’ wacky, jarringly horrifying and sinisterly uneasy. Here from Severin is a double disc release of the film- taking in a Blu-Ray & CD soundtrack for the film- with a selection of new & archive extras on the Blu-Ray.
At a certain point, genre questions can really get you down. Take the Spanish, Occult-inspired collective, PYLAR (I think this is supposed to be capitalized?), who are prone to the self-labeling game, which has its pro and cons like anything else. I doubt many listening to their latest release,Límyte, will find much that jibes with doom, or even drone, for that matter, which hews more to a constant undercurrent of sonic material, whether evil or good or somewhere in between.
Godflesh has taken a rather novel approach to the rash of reissues celebrating 30-ish anniversaries of seminal albums – in this case, 1991/2’s Pure – by crafting a response to the original in the form of 2023”s Purge
Here’s the 14th release in Dark Force Entertainment's Drive-In-Double Feature series. And for this addition to the series, we have two decidedly aquatic-focused 70’s films- sharksploitation Mako: The Jaws Of Death, and stalking merman creature feature Bog.