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Resonances And Observance is a five-track CD album that focuses on the more surreal, at times jarringly episodic, to the cryptical ambient side of Mlehst- aka UK noisemaker/ electro experimentalist All Brentnall.
Melvin Gibbs is a stalwart of the downtown scene of the last decades in New York, and one of the most prolific bass players in jazz and experimental circles. His low-end voice can be heard on works ranging from Sonny Sharrock to more contemporary collaborators like Jeff Parker. So, what is Gibbs up to when he is creating alone, without the usual host of instrumentalists by his side? His magisterial solo album of low-key electronic compositions maps completely uncharted waters for Gibbs, and perhaps for music more generally.
Voyage into Space is a 1970 action/adventure movie from Japan directed by Minoru Yamada, best known for a succession of similar TV series including Kamen Rider, Captain Ultra and Johnny Soko and His Flying Robot, Yamada’s work is a genre-mixing tour de force that is part atomic age spy thriller, part giant sci-fi robot sci-fi thriller, part kaiju, and is quite obviously the basis for the creation of The Power Rangers.
Kindness Of Strangers is a short, but effective slice of staying in someone's house horror. The low-budget modern genre film features a competent & fairly believable cast, moments of uneasy atmosphere, and a few effective practical effects.
Moonchild is an SOV dystopian sci-fi film which blends in fairly impressive action scenes, touches of horror, and a few neat man-to-wolf transformations. The mid 90’s film was helmed by prolific low-budget American filmmaker Todd Sheets, and it really is impressive what he managed to milk out of a tinny budget and minimal locations. From the folks at Visual Vengeance, the retro low-budget/ SOV label of Wild Eye Releasing is a Blu-ray & CD release of the film.
While the pandemic of 2020 changed the lives of everyone on our Earth, many artists used this period of tumult and isolation to create and dive deeper into their psyches to represent this unease and fear as gorgeous pieces of art. Ilia Belorukov is no exception, and he took his normal, home composing routine and took it in a new direction. Mixing analog and modular synthesis, field recordings, percussion, and processing, Scattered Underfoot was born into an unsure and drastically changing world. A definite product of that changing, growing, intermingling zeitgeist, Ilia's composition is getting to see the light of day through MC Crónica 195 on January 10th.
Pohjonen Alanko is a Finnish experimental electronic trio comprised of two vocalists and a producer. They had one previous release, an EP called Northern Lowland from 2018 which seems to be included as part of this new, larger release, a forty-one-minute album with nine songs, entitled Voice of Northern Lowland.
Distant Thunder is a late 1980s moody-at-points-tense drama focusing on the reunion between father and son. The father played in a wonderful, haunted manner by John Lithgow, is a highly troubled Vietnam vet. And the son, played by Ralph Macchio, a grade A- just graduated & turned eighteen-year-old. It’s one of the lesser-known of Vietnam vet genre films- that certainly doesn’t pander to normal father and son drama tropes, and later on adds in some rather intense action sequences. Here from Imprint is a recent Blu-Ray release of the film, featuring a new scan and commentary track.
Barfly is boozed up, rough ‘n’ ready, and often haphazardly charming/ darkly amusing mix of skid row drama and addiction romance. The late 80’s film loosely charts the life of Charles Bukowski- who in his often-autobiographical poetry, short stories, and novels charted a life of drinking, fiery relationships, low-rent apartments, and dead-end jobs. The film focuses on his life just before he was discovered - with Mickey Rourke giving a truly great lead performance, with Faye Dunaway believable playing his lover/ drinking partner Wanda. From Imprint here’s a double Blu-Ray boxset, which brings together the film/ bunch of new archive extras, and on the second with a four-hour selection of interviews with Bukowski.
Drift Nowhere Past features six pieces created by Dutch pianist and composer Reinier van Houdt during the Covid lockdown of 2020. It’s an album, that seemingly effortlessly drifts between the lulling and soothing, to the uneasy and unsettling- with moments of real disquiet and light noise sear occurring along its length.
Rose McGowan is a four-track walled noise release themed around Italian American actress and activist. Each track hits at dead on the quarter of an hour mark, and each is an excise tightly taut-yet often texturally rewarding wall craft.
As the title might suggest, Piano Bar is dominated by Zemmler’s piano, but shares time and space with ‘live loops’ and ‘live digital sustain’; this might suggest a recording that’s somewhat technology or gear orientated but the album doesn’t really carry that atmosphere or tone - for better or worse
Here’s a double-headed shot of cinematic oddness from Japan. Funky Forest: The First Contact is from 2005, and is a two-and-a-half-hour journey into surreal skits & interactions. And The Wrapped Forest is from 2011, runs at a shorter one hour twenty minutes- with a slight bit more coherency, though there is still a truckload of wackness and bizarre-ness. Here from the folks at Third Widow Films, is a double disc Blu-Ray release of the films- featuring directories commentaries and other extras.
Here we have a just shy of hour-long 'wall' from this Tucson, Arizona. It’s a dense, and busy affair with some nicely rewarding textural detail to be found within the thick weaves of noise.
Moribund Manifesto is the sixth full-length from this four-piece Philippino death metal crew. It’s an eight-track affair that finds the DM form presented in a blunt, at times very crusty ‘n’ cruel state- with touches of both doom and grindcore added into the mix too.
Silent Running is one of the more quietly impactful, at times moving Sci-Fi films of the ’70s. It’s an ecologically focused take on the genre, which wonderfully blends together an excellent central performance, impressive/ surprisingly un-dated visuals, and a good mix of drama, conflict, and moments of heart-warming humour. Here from Arrow Video, both in the UK and stateside is a new Blu-Ray release of the film- featuring a 4k restoration of the picture, a new commentary track, and a selection of archive/ new extras.
Michał Wiśniowski is a Polish sound artist hailing from Krakow, with his interests revolving around field recordings and ambience. Acts And Recitals, his latest album, is literally a sonic deposit of nine field recordings (or stories as the artist refers to them), captured in a one-month-long journey to Georgia. Wiśniowski created an audio log of found sounds, characterized by the spontaneous truth of the material, which is presented raw and organic. This is a fine and pure example of phonography.
Here from the BFI is a triple Blu-Ray set bringing together three 1970s BBC adaptations of chilling & uneasy M.R James stories. Each film manages to conjure up a true atmosphere of creepy dread, with some great acting and directing to boot. The set also adds in a good selection of new and archive extras- with commentary tracks for each film.
Harsh Reality is a two-track digital release from this Cincinnati, Ohio-based walled noise project. Each ‘wall’ hits near the twenty-six-minute mark, and each has its own take on grim ‘n’ grinding walling.
Here’s a walled noise release that shows the form at its most ragged, raw, and pained. This two-track affair is from Rochester, New York’s Haloperidol- with this being a self-released digital album.
From the early 1970s Quiet Days in Clichy is a wondering, and loosely plotted drama with perverse intent, which is edged with rough ‘n’ artiness, and moments of humour.
Hallucination aka Hallucination Generation is a mid-60s drama blending in themes of drop-out culture, drug taking, and later crime-fed drama. The film is shot in black and white, with jarring and colourful tripped-out imagery appearing in the second half. Here from Diabolik DVD is the first-ever digital release of the picture- taking in two versions of the film, and a few extras.
This first volume in Headpress’s Companion to Occult Music on Vinyl series by Mark Goodall is a welcome and eminently enjoyable read. Mark Goodall is a lecturer in film at Bradford University, the director of films (Holy Terrors and The Beckoning Fair One) and plays in indie chamber folk band Rudolph Rocker.
Disturbing and pitch-perfect are the words that come to mind after listening to Christina Vantzou's latest release, No. 5. The mood is eerie, devoid of light and simple exits, like a flattened sculptural frieze, frozen in time, without resolution