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Released in the early 1970’s Get Carter is a realistic, at points stark and grim British gangster film. It’s a picture that has a largely glumly lulling flow, which is punched by moments of fleeting brutality, darting action, and heady sleaze. The film features Michael Cain, as a west-end mobster heading north to find out how his brother died. It’s one of the actor's key/ celebrated roles, with Cain creating a blend of cool and controlled power/treat, which is unlined by subtle moments of anger and emotion. Here from the BFI is a recent two-disc Blu-Ray release of the film, featuring a new high-def scan of the film, and a nice selection of new and archive extras.
Avalanche is nineteen-part work for solo piano celebrating as its title suggests all things snowbound. It’s a darting, at times manic and detailed composition, which has brief moments of lull 'n' sooth- but largely the just under hour work is a very spiritly and shifting affair.
Dries Tack is a Belgium-based clannists who creates abstract, at points quite noisy and seared work. After the likes of Luciano Berio, Stephen Eicher, and Mike Patton. Adjacent Spaces is his first solo album- which takes in six lengthy pieces, which utilize, of course, clarinets, as well as electronics and tapes.
With I Dreamt We Round A Way - the third album Bristol, UK,based sound artist Rob Winstone. We are invited to submerge ourselves into an ambient world where images and thoughts are running constant and deep.
From early on this year Mai Mai Kata Katanga is walled noise release, which features a single slice of roughshod 'n' unforgiving HNW. The release title/ theme is taken from a par-military rebel group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which advocates the independence of the Congo's Katanga Province.
Here’s a walled noise split that highlights two different sides of the genre- from Indonesia’s Broken Cursór we have a slice of taunt ‘n’ feasting HNW, and from Ohio’s Whore's Breath stark ‘n’ ANW.
Alexandra Spence is a sound artist from Australia and her latest release, a veil, the sea, feels like it’s part of a larger project, maybe research-based, but it’s not entirely clear. Like many a sound enthusiast, she has been lured by the ocean’s siren song, using the liquid medium to explore both technical immersion and topical relevance (ecological consciousness is a strong backdrop).
Human Hibachi is an often-stomach-churning take on the found footage horror form, which features subtle traces of dark comedy. The film concerns the birthday celebrations of a thirty-something woman, which turn decidedly gory ‘n’ gut munching bound. Here from Invincible Entertainment is a region one DVD of the film, which is a barebones affair.
YellowBrickRoad is an early 2010 take on the lost-in-woods thriller come horror film, which is competently enough executed with some interesting ideas/ imagery along its length. Though I’d say this is much more of a slow-burn drama/ light thriller - with the horror elements feeling somewhat underdeveloped/ not as impactful as they should be. Here we a recent Blu-Ray reissue of the film, taking in a director’s commentary & actor’s interviews.
Oneiric Visions is the second full-length album from Bangkok’s Shambles, and it’s a bluntly brutal yet bone-rattling slice of blacked death doom. The album takes in eight mainly lengthy tracks, which shift between speeding grim rawness, mid-paced black glamouring’s, and slugging to staggering doom-outs.
Here’s a three-CD collection focusing on Slave -a 1970s to 1980’s Ohio-based band, whose groove-lined sound blended funk, R&B, Disco, and upbeat soul. The forty-four-track release focuses on not just the most impactful work from Slave, but also split-off projects from the band like Aurra, and solo work.
Originally released at the tail-end of the 1980’s Face Of Despair was the second album from OZ Thrashers Mortal Sin. It’s a ten-track affair which found the band adopting a more technical, at times darting and sleekly meaty take on the Thrash metal form. And while it largely stepped away from the rough ‘n’ punchy feel of their early material, it still highlighted the band's compositional flair, and knack for writing good headbang-to-moshing riff craft.
More often than not entries in the bigfoot genre are moody, creepy and brooding affairs- with only fleeting glances of the lumbering hairy beasts and really little gore. Night Of The Demon stands as one of the more brutal and intense examples of the genre- we have limb ‘n’ cock ripping’s, brutal back crawling’s ‘n’ intestines pulling, and all manner of animalistic brutality. Here from the folks at Severin is a double Blu-Ray release of this early 80’s film- which landed up being banned in the UK, Norway, and Germany back in the day. The release features a punchy and bloody red 2k scan of the film, as well as over five and half hours’ worth of extras.
Portland, Oregon's deadly duo, Triumvir Foul, returns with their third LP, Onslaught to Seraphim. Ripping and tearing, this grim death metal album captures the culmination of 30 years of death metal within its talon-like grips. Mixing doomy elements, vile tones, and intriguing pacing, Onslaught is an excellent illustration in the evolution of death metal.
Euphoria Through Murder is a two-track journey into bone grinding and rotten flesh shredding HNW. Each track rolls in at the fifteen-minute mark, and each is similarly toned in it's necro-fed and blunt crudeness.
Born in North Ireland, but currently residing in Matsumoto, Japan, sound artist Darren McClure has been creating deep meditative ambient music since 2007, when Softened Edges his first album was released. He has a career resembling Pandora’s Box, packed with either solo or collaborative works. Slow Up, Speed Down is McClure’s twenty-first album, and it finds traversing between electronics, drones and processed field recordings.
Hate For Purity is an international walled noise split bringing together Ottawa, Ontario’s Reaching Needles and Pert Australia’s SALT. Both ‘walls’ feature creative at points woozily atmospheric take on the genre- all making for a most satisfying split.
(-) is the six-track debut album from doomy and necro-focused industrial project Womb 11. The project is a Russian one-man venture, and it’s certainly fair to say this grim and bleakly droning trip- with zero sonic light or hope.
David Gladwell’s classic twisted slice of folkish country life was first released in cinemas in 1975. Famous for his work as an editor (Gladwell worked on If.. and Oh Lucky Man for Lindsay Anderson) Gladwell directed several underappreciated gems including Requiem for a Village, Memoirs of a Survivor and the 1965 short 28B Camden Street, the last of which is included here alongside several other of Gladwell’s short films.
It was bound to happen. Those millennials we all feel crawling up our backs late at night will turn out to be the new musicians of this world. To call them musicians is a rather generous gesture on my part, for if you happen to come across Gryphon Rue, you just might wonder how something so half-baked, pretentious, and utterly devoid of any sonic interest whatsoever could be assembled and released to an unwitting public.
Experimental Italian guitarist Giuseppe Ielasi has released many works since debuting in the mid '90s, as well as co-founding multiple labels too. His largely improvisatory music explores the ambient soundscape possibilities of the guitar. His latest recording, The Prospect, is released on famed art ambient label 12k, and features two 20-minute tracks which function much like sides of an LP.
Here’s a collaborative album from Automatisme and Stefan Paulus, released on Constellation so I lazily assumed I’d be hearing post-rock or whatever it is called nowadays; however, instead Gap/Void is a monolithic slab of shifting tectonic techno and abyssal drones. The CD has ten tracks, and if I understand correctly the last five are field recordings made (and processed) by Paulus, whilst the first five are Automatisme’s (William Jourdain) treatments using these field recordings. The CD comes in a cardboard wallet depicting washed-out black and white images of mountains: the location of Paulus’ recordings and an apt visual focus for the album.
The Necro Files is a cheap, trashy ‘n’ sleazed slice of late 90’s SOV splatter, featuring a zombie rapist serial killer, shouty middle-aged cops, bumbling Satanists, oh and a floating ‘n’ taunting dead baby. It’s a gory, very bad taste, at times wackily amusing ride- sure it’s cheap & largely terrible acted, but there is a good pace throughout, and an often gleefully deranged flair on display. From the folks at Visual Vengeance, the retro low-budget/ SOV label of Wild Eye Releasing is a new Blu-ray release of the film. With the disc featuring a new commentary track, a host of archive stuff including Necro Files 3000- the film's 2017 sequel.
Savage Vows is a mid-90s SOV slasher featuring a bickering cast, a fair bit of knife-bound gore, a few dips in logic/sense, oh and SOV legend Mark Polonia as one of its cast too. It’s very much a film for the more seasoned SOV fan, as it does feature some of the genre's more trying elements- i.e. bad pacing, brutal-if-at points naff effects, and decidedly mixed acting…but it has its moments, and if you’ve already been hooked by the SOV line, I feel you’ll find worth here. This recent DVD release comes courtesy of the guys at SRS Cinema- featuring a commentary track and bloopers