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Don't Trust Anyone Around You, Promises Are A Form Of Lies is a two-track release from the highly prolific and often texturally creative Russian walled noise project Sleep Column. Each track slides in near the half an hour mark, and each highlights the project's talent/ear for great & inventive noise texturing.
Here’s a short, but worthy walled noise split between USA’s Zachary Ledsinger, and Sweden’s Rien. The C10 features a single ‘wall’ per side of tape, showing two decidedly different sides to the wall noise form
The centre is missing from Roland Schappert’s Route 2, and I think that’s one of the points of the release. He uses a brand of “organic digitality” to create a sonic landscape populated by fragments, and ornaments which surround its empty core.
Zokki is based on Hiroyuki Ohashi’s manga of the same name, but that’s all I can tell you; it’s an odd little film, about two hours in length, presented here on blu ray with a couple of extras. There’s no simple plot or story to quickly lay out, instead the film is a series of smaller stories woven and crisscrossed together. These include: a man ‘traveling aimlessly’ on a bicycle, two loner schoolboys bonding over one’s love for the other’s imaginary older sister - for me the most effective strand of the film - and a father and son encountering a ghostly mannequin figure; each vignette has a different tone or atmosphere, and indeed the film has three directors each taking control of different sections.
Somatic Refrain brings together four decidedly varied and at points, earthy-sounding modern chamber works from Toronto, Canada-based composer Allison Cameron. Three of the pieces are played by the highly respected ensemble Apartment House, and one by the composer's own band.
From Austrian composer, organist, and improviser Klaus Lang Tehran Dust is recent(ish) CD, bringing together five pieces. These move from self-penned & often hoveringly malevolent chamber pieces, to reinterpretations of renaissance composer's work- so it’s an album that moves between angular brood and jaunting to lulling flows.
From the early 1990s, Wicked World is certainly one of the more bizarre, at times nonsensical, and downright odd slasher-come-psycho dramas. The film is full of WTH moments, as well as having a decidedly pessimistic/ gloomy outlook, and some rather suspected options- which do move towards being offensive, though fall short, due to their ridiculous presentation. As part of 101 Films UK's reissue of the AGFA cult film library, here’s region B blu ray release of the film- with the disc taking in a commentary track, a making-of doc, and a few more bits.
Ibbur is the fifth (to date) final solo album to appear from Hardy Fox- who was one of the key songwriters behind long-running experimental/ avant pop The Residents- he sadly passed away in October of 2018 from brain cancer. The eighteen-track CD rather sits in the more abstract side of the electronica come electro-sound scaping side of things, and it’s a soundtrack for his online published/ serialized novella The Stone.
Maniac Driver is a deranged, at times dizzy blend of brutal-at-points perverse gore, fetish-focused flesh-ness, and how really-mad-is he psycho-thriller. The 2020 Japanese production brings together visual elements of giallo, grimy unhinged loner drama, with a liberal dose of leering soft-core porn, be it cheeky strip ‘n’ fondle, stylized roughness, or bondage hip jiggling. Here from Germanys, 8-Films is a classy media book release of the film, taking in a Blu-Ray, DVD, and CD soundtrack disc- all finished off with a glossy and colourful sixty-page booklet, featuring loads of fleshy and gore-bound photos & German texts.
Finnish artists Olli Hänninen (Ronskibiitti, Hammaspeikko) and Sami Hynninen (Opium Warlords, Reverend Bizarre) have teamed up for the eccentric approach to Buddhist Hell with Chambers. Eighteen varied tracks bring together hip hop, industrial, experimental, and synth pop in a chaotic and interesting fashion. Always moving forward with a bleak outlook, Chambers will certainly get the listener thinking about hell, punishment, and varied musical approaches to tell similar tales.
Here we have a re-release of the debut album from the band born of the ashes of Zoviet France, originally calling themselves The Reformed Faction 0f Zoviet France, the trio of Andy Eardley, Mark Spybey and Robin Storey issued the album as a self-titled release on Klanggalerie records in 2005 before deciding to repackage it and reissue it a year later as Vota. The band also chose to drop the “of Zoviet France” from their name so as to help differentiate this project from their previous one.
From last year Hellbender is a coming-of-age rural set American horror film, which is edged with dark trip-ness and wonderful use of moody largely woodland set cinematography. Here from Acorn Media International, we have a DVD of this Shudder Channel original film- with the disc taking in a few featurettes and music videos.
Shrouded In Mystery is an eight-track collection of early work from German dungeon/ medieval synth project Forgotten Pathways. With the compilation covering a fair bit of ground- going from out ‘n’ out medieval jiggery, onto more epic martial percussion lined fare, through brooding bell chiming and moody effects laden dungeon synth romps, onto gloomy synth marches edged with gruff vocal mumbles.
Memories Complied: Three Tapes is the next in the series of reissues from the important euro ambient project Vidna Obmana by Poland’s Zoharum. It’s a three-CD set, which as its title suggests takes in original tape releases from the project that appeared between the years 1989-1991.
From Surrey in the Uk Bridget St. John is an artist whose sound sits somewhere between folk rock and female singer-songwriter fare. Her initially solo career ran between 1968 and 1976- releasing an impressive four albums in this short time, which were Ask Me No Questions(1969), Songs For The Gentle Man(1971), Thank You For…(1972), and Jumblequeen (1974)- the first three release appeared on John Peels Dandelion label, with the final album appearing major label Chrysalis. From Here/ To There is a three-disc CD box set focusing on the end of her initial career run- taking in her final album, as well as two CD’s worth of compilation/ unreleased tracks
Michael Gregory Jackson is a veteran American jazz guitarist whose output began during the original heydey of electric jazz in 1977 and has released infrequent recordings ever since. There was a bit of an extended hiatus in his career from the early 90s until 2010 or so, but in the last decade his releases have resumed. His new album Electric Git Box, a full record of solo guitar playing, follows last year's self-released Frequency Equilibrium Koan.
Bleating is the closest we can get an auditory form of bleeding, and there’s plenty of blood spattered on Imperial Triumphant’s latest release, the punishing, at times playful, Spirit of Ecstasy. Baroque it is, filled with a centripetal force that gives the horror of their horror vacui aesthetic a drive-in slasher feel, without much room to breathe. With all of the elements – riffy guitars, pounding double-bass drums, chanting, growling, sax, and groovy bass lines – the combination absorbs the individual elements into a miasmic chaos that is greater than the sum of its parts. The history of such practices feels vaguely nostalgic, as does most of what hails from Gotham these days, though this is not a reproach. Sonny Sharrock meets Fantomas in a tribute to the internal combustion engine that is New York, beset on every corner with ambition, greed, and the destructive force of capital.
Here we have a forty-one-minute wall tribute to Sabrina Carpenter- a twenty-something American actress, singer, and songwriter, who started off her acting career in the Disney TV comedy series Girl Meets World, moving on to film work in the likes of Horns and Emergency. I’m afraid to say I wasn’t aware of her before this release- but the cover artwork features a picture of Ms Carpenter on the red carpet in a long flowing glittery dress.
From the folks at Arrow Video- both in the UK and stateside- here is a blu ray boxset bringing together three of the great, but lesser known Italian giallo of the 1970s. With each film receiving a wonderfully new clean and crisp 2k print, a great new commentary track, and a few other extras to boot.
Newly formed Ancient North is a one-man, black metal venture from Oregon, USA. Behind the project is Forlorn, who has another solo BM project Necroseer. The Gates was originally released in April of 2022 in digital format, and now it found its way into a physical realm via Iron Bonehead.
Love On The Dole is a largely terminal grim 1940s British drama set during the 1930s depression. It focuses on a northern working-class family who are trying to survive against the bleak odds. The film was banned for some years, with the British Board of Film Censors declaring it was a ‘very sordid story in very sordid surroundings’. Here from Powerhouse, as part of their US-only released titles is a blu ray of the film- with a nice selection of archive interviews, shorts and documentaries from mainly the 1940s.
True is a densely tight and airlessly constricting example of wall-craft from this Brazilian project. The single just over half-an-hour track brings together tautly reeling pull ‘n’ grind, with lightly static grain feast.
Written, directed and starring William Lee (A Cold Day in Hell, Demons Rising and Dragon vs Ninja) 1987s Treasure of the Ninja is proof that you can put together a very enjoyable action epic on a minuscule budget.
The second in a series of intimate, sonic looks at life in New Delhi, Songs For A Tired City (Shiv Ahuja and Jayant Manchanda) have taken a more inward approach to the people and places with In Plain Sight. An engaging mix of minimal electronic soundscape, field recordings, hindustani vocals, bansuri, and found sounds, the album acts as an electronic travelogue. Bringing forth an inner mystique to imagine an alternative future, the duo says the album "invokes longing for a past [we] never actually experienced and a sense of disquiet for a future [we] don't want to experience."