More new Dead Cross! I'm digging what I'm hearing from this second album more than I did the first, can't wait to hear the entire thing, which is out October 14th on Ipecac Recordings. Pre-order a copy HERE.
Watch:
This dropped yesterday:
As far as Teaser Trailers go, I think this is perfect. Of course, there's the part of me that wants to see more, but really, I'd rather wait and get it all at once in my first viewing. Hey, it's gotta be better than most of the Dimension sequels, right? Let's hope this 20th Century Fox/HULU pairing the Mouse has going will turn out another unexpectedly fantastic sequel, like Prey.
Quote:
"Having made the world lousy, imagine ye are of significance to Heaven?"
- Austin Osman Spare, Anathema of Zos: The Sermon of the Hypocrite
One of my most anticipated albums dropping this year is Greg Puciato's sophomore Mirrorcell. I pre-ordered this as soon as it was announced a few months back, despite the fact that I wasn't sure where I would be living at the time of its release on the first of July (I used my parents' address, but there was speculation that they might move to TN as well). Regardless, our trip is more than halfway done now, we made an offer on a house that the seller accepted, so once the inspections and everything go through, I'll be able to lift that pre-order ban. Regardless, the album hasn't shipped yet, but Bloody Disgusting broke the news that Mirrorcell dropped early on Puciato's Bandcamp.
Watch:
On Saturday, K and I took my parents to the local AMC to see Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. I am NOT a Baz Luhrmann fan. Perhaps I shouldn't say that, because I've never actually been able to sit through one of his movies. I find his childish little "Look how anachronistic I am" proclivities to be infuriating, and the fact that he may be made the first good visual adaptation of my all-time favorite novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, only to eschew the Jazz music that is central to the book's themes for Hip Hop makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs directly into his face. I never bothered seeing that Gatsby (friends who did warned me to save myself, that the beauty of its visuals would only drive me crazy played under the soundtrack), but I'll say, this Elvis movie looked great. Plus, my Pops really wanted to see it. So we went.
On the way in, I almost made the statement, "If I hear one lick of Hip Hop or other modern music, I will get up and leave." Good thing I didn't, because of course, there are at least two instances in the first half of the movie with Hip Hop in the soundtrack.
It's so embarrassing. I mean, it's not that it's Hip Hop; if Luhrmann was adding Portishead, or Mastodon, or whatever other 'future music' to the film, I would have been equally pissed. He reminds me so much of Tim Burton - Lurhmann's idea of who he is as an icon or "brand" gets in the way of the decisions as to what's best for the movies he makes. The film also spruces up some of Elvis' music with a sometimes irritating modern twist, and some of the editing is a bit ridiculous in the amount of effect and flair. It works sometimes - more at the end of the film - and other times, not so much. Just looks like they were cutting it together in weird ways for the sake of making it a "Baz Luhrmann joint."
Still, the movie - despite all this - is fabulous. Austin Butler is FANtastic as The King, and Tom Hanks - Jesus. Really well done, and the script is great.
Playlist:
Powerman 5000 - The Notable Rot
The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes
Jackie Wilson - Higher and Higher
Card:
Solid foundation - perhaps a literal nod to the fact that we made an offer, they accepted the offer, and now we have to go through the inspection process. One of those inspections? You guessed it: Foundation. A lot of work still to come.
From Earth's 2014 masterpiece Primitive and Deadly, featuring the late Mark Lanegan on vocals.
NCBD:
A pretty smashing Wednesday at the shop, if I do say so myself:
Fucking LOVE this cover.
Deadly Class! Only a few more issues. I'm getting both excited and sad.
I would say I'm annoyed at how long this one has taken to come out, but when you look at the work involved, I think it's totally understandable. I mean, the detail on the cover - let alone on the pages inside - is almost mindboggling.
Prince Robot? Me thinks I smell a flashback.
This was accidental. I heard that Beta Ray Bill appears in Donny Cates' Thor #22 and picked it up late last week. When I did, I realized that issue is part four of a storyline called "The God of Hammers". I grabbed the first part - Thor #19, but quickly realized there were no copies of 20 or 21. Apparently, they sold fast, and reprints of 20 hit this week with 21 following next. All this has really just primed me with hype for a comic I normally don't care anything about.
I still love Two Moons, but resolved to wait to read this arc until it finishes, I was just missing too much going month-to-month.
As long as this continues to be primarily about Moira and Mystique, I'm in.
Read:
I was just about fed up with H.P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward when I arrived at the Fifth section of the book, V. A Nightmare and a Cataclysm. Here's an excerpt:
"The next few rooms he tried were all abandoned, or filled only with crumbling boxes and ominous-looking leaden coffins; but impressed him deeply with the magnitude of Joseph Curwen’s original operations. He thought of the slaves and seamen who had disappeared, of the graves which had been violated in every part of the world, and of what that final raiding party must have seen; and then he decided it was better not to think any more. Once a great stone staircase mounted at his right, and he deduced that this must have reached to one of the Curwen outbuildings—perhaps the famous stone edifice with the high slit-like windows—provided the steps he had descended had led from the steep-roofed farmhouse. Suddenly the walls seemed to fall away ahead, and the stench and the wailing grew stronger. Willett saw that he had come upon a vast open space, so great that his torchlight would not carry across it; and as he advanced he encountered occasional stout pillars supporting the arches of the roof.
After a time he reached a circle of pillars grouped like the monoliths of Stonehenge, with a large carved altar on a base of three steps in the centre; and so curious were the carvings on that altar that he approached to study them with his electric light. But when he saw what they were he shrank away shuddering, and did not stop to investigate the dark stains which discoloured the upper surface and had spread down the sides in occasional thin lines. Instead, he found the distant wall and traced it as it swept round in a gigantic circle perforated by occasional black doorways and indented by a myriad of shallow cells with iron gratings and wrist and ankle bonds on chains fastened to the stone of the concave rear masonry. These cells were empty, but still the horrible odour and the dismal moaning continued, more insistent now than ever, and seemingly varied at times by a sort of slippery thumping."
Subterranean exploration and Stygian catacombs are among my very favorite things- they tickle my imagination in a way I cannot express in words. This story went from being a massive chore laced with veins of Lovecraft's meandering prose and racist tendencies to being everything about his writing that made me fall in love with him in the first place, and I am very happy I stuck with it.
Playlist:
Chrome Canyon - Director
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Metallica - Kill 'Em All
Curtis Harding - If Words Were Flowers
Mr. Bungle - The Night They Came Home
Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum
The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia
Mark Lanegan - Straight Songs of Sorrow
Card:
This card is all about balance to me, and I pulled it right after texting with my friend Missi about finding balance. Her's is off today (this is Tuesday night), and so is mine. Between my lung issues and now an identity theft issue that came up last night, I definitely feel unmoored. But it's all about planting a solid foundation and using that to find a center of gravity. From there, things will unfold at a more controllable rate.
As if I'm not completely overtaken by my love of Greg Puciato's debut solo album Child Soldier: Creator of God, the former lead singer of Dillinger Escape Plan has put out a new, multi-media package. Available from his own Federal Prisoner label HERE, Fuck Content is a video/audio release featuring a ten-song live set and five new studio tracks. I love Puciato's music, but I've also become quite a fan of his aesthetic. All the glitchy, seizuring graphics, the black and white digital abstractions that almost resemble some cyberpunk version of newsprint. It's all very fitting for the noisy/melodic mash-up that defines this first album's sound, so the idea that his follow-up release is an audio/visual thing really just makes sense. Also, not nearly enough musicians do this.
Read:
I finished my re-read of Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn. It'd been over ten years since I read this the first time and inspired by the film, I decided to revisit, not remembering a lot of specifics, except that the movie is very different. Still, I really enjoyed both.
After that, I picked up that new Brubaker/Phillips Hardcover Graphic Novel Reckless, expecting to read it in several sittings. Nope. I blew through Reckless non-stop, and even though I just got done telling everyone Pulp is their best, Reckless comes in ahead of that one by about 100 miles.
This book is the perfect iteration of these gentlemen's ongoing collaboration, and if this is the case, we have nowhere to go but up. Hot damn, go buy this and read it now; Reckless is FANTASTIC!
Watch:
The Mandalorian's second season ended last night and I am going to feel every day between now and season three. I am absolutely floored, not only at how fantastic this show is, but how John Favreau has completely undone my hatred of star wars - a hatred rooted in a betrayal, the complete undermining and convolution of something that should have been so simple, namely, making new star wars movies. This veritable disgust that I feel for the franchise began to sink deep into my blood three years ago, when I sat in a movie theatre in LaGrange, Illinois and watched the trainwreck that is The Last Jedi.
Disney + has really been a gamechanger for the fan-driven content previously only associated at such a high level with movies released in megaplexes. If you watch The Mando show, you're missing something great if you skip the end credits (especially on this last episode. Whewww! and on that, I will say no more). When you watch all those names and roles scroll up your screen and realize that these television shows Disney is producing are every bit as accomplished as major motion pictures. That in itself just blows me away, the fact that Disney is so big they can change the game this much (also, I secretly hope all the Marvel/Star Wars stuff will go this route and we can go back to having non-blockbuster movies in theatres in a year or four).
Anyway, Favreau really should be crowned king Geek for what he did for starting the MCU with Iron Man and now reinventing and, frankly, saving Star Wars from itself by taking it back to its roots. This final episode brought me to tears. Not just because of the story, but because finally, after twenty years of new star wars material, SOMEBODY GOT IT FUCKING RIGHT.
Playlist:
Four Stroke Baron - Planet Silver Screen
Opeth - Deliverance
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
The Plimsouls - Everywhere At Once
Preoccupations - Eponymous
XTC - Drums and Wires
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw
Calexico - Seasonal Shift
Squeeze - Argybargy
Slayer - Live Undead
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun
Devo - Going Down (single)
Fleet Foxes - Shore
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God
Various Artists - Joe Begos's Bliss Spotify Playlist
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything
Code Orange - Beneath
Card:
A solid foundation for a solid trilogy. That's what I've been thinking about as I approach a stopping point in Shadow Play Book Two. I have to wind this plot down just right by the end of this section of three sections, so after I do one last post-Beta Reader edit on Murder Virus and release it, I can hop back into Shadow Play and really make that third act SPRING.
