Erykah Badu & The Alchemist - Witch Doctor

Take about stumbling across something you never expected. Skulking around on Bandcamp last Friday, I found this track from Erykah Badu & The Alchemist's album Before the World Blows Up. I was instantly hooked. I backed off a bit after an initial full listen to the overall album - I'm sorry, but it's pretty hard to take anyone seriously when they're still dropping N-bombs, especially on a modern soul record. There are a few other unfortunate instances of hip hop tropes that gum up the album's flow for me, but overall, this is pretty freakin' solid. 

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Watch:

By sheer chance, I read about Glenn McQuaid's new film, The Restoration at Grayson Manor in one of the most recent issues of Fangoria magazine shortly before ordering McQuaid's 2008 film I Sell the Dead during a recent Vinegar Syndrome sale, not realizing the latter was by the same filmmaker at all. I'd seen I Sell the Dead back when it first came out on video in the through-the-mail Netflix days, had thought about it now and again, and was excited to see it get a new transfer and release via VS's Glass Eye Pix/IFC partner labels. 

The Fangoria article definitely put Grayson Manor on my radar, and now I'm happy to see the possibility of a wide theatrical release. Full disclosure - I only watched about twenty-five seconds of the trailer but that's all I needed. There's something about the overall style here, combined with McQuaid's humor and the idea of "hand horror" in an Irish country manor that all combines to make me think this is going to be a great one.

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Playlist:

Young Widows - Decayed: Ten Years of Cities, Wounds, Lightness and Pain

Godflesh - In All Languages

Matthew Pusti - Onslaught OST

Erykah Badu & The Alchemist - Before TheWorld Blows 

Godflesh - New Flesh In Dub Vol. 1

Godflesh - Post Self

Chat Pile - Who Loves The Sun

The Cramps - Gravest Gravy

Gnarls Barkley - Atlanta

The Cramps - RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandXXX 

Isaac Hayes - The Isaac Hayes Movement

Miles Davis - Ascender pour l'échafaud

Chat Pile - God's Country

Lustmord & Dave Lombardo - Paleomagnetic Resonance (pre-release single)

Purest Form - Resistance EP

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

Dance with the Dead - Malombra

Ghost - Skeleta

The Jesus Lizard - Down

Carpenter Brut - Leather Temple

Pino Donaggio - Her Private Hell OST

Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast

Iggy and The Stooges - Raw Power (1973 David Bowie Mix)

Chelsea Wolfe- She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

Alabama Shakes - I Must Be Dreaming

Orville Peck - Bronco

Steely Dan - Aja

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Card:

Back to my trusty old Thoth deck this morning:

• 7 of Disks - Failure

• Ace of Cups

• 3 of Cups: Abundance

I need to change something proven. It will cause an upset that will feel like a failure at first, but will eventually lead to a breakthrough that will make my heart soar.

It's never a great thing to see a card like the 7 of Disks at first, but context always softens it. In The Book of Thoth, Crowley briefly breaks this card down as a warning as to what happens when all work stops. Dreams can die here. Thus, it takes emotion and will to keep the thread going and make something out of the nothing that sloth offers as a reprieve to working.

I love the obvious writing ones, that come directly after a session I can relate them back to. 

New Music from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard!

 

New music from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and it rules! I'll admit, I've never really made a serious attempt at getting into these guys. I'm not really sure why. That said, my friend Josh sang their praises in a conversation last week and Josh is one of those people whose opinion on music is very important to me. Coincidence or cosmic alignment, here we are with a new track from a new album, Petrodragonic Apocalypse or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of the Merciless Damnation, which you can pre-order directly from the band HERE.

This track RULES, so I think this was my fated window into KGLW!!! Thanks, Josh!

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NCBD:

A nice and light NCBD this week, and although I will most likely not show up at the shop until later in the week when I feel better, this is what will be in my box:

Looks like I jumped on The Seasons Have Teeth just in time last week, as number two hits the shelves today. 

X-Men 23 - I was wondering when we'd get back to Orchis, and look - the gangs all here. Even MODOK stuck around! I find it interesting that coming out of Sins of Sinister, I'd completely forgotten that Orchis's Ally Dr. Stasis is a Sinister - my bet is he's the one that we saw in 616 all through the 80s and the architect of the original Mutant Massacre and original Inferno, who did have quite the flamboyant personality the Krakoa era Sinister does. Also, apparently, writer Gerry Duggan is now helming Iron Man as well, and he's had Feilong take over Stark Industries, so that's an interesting asset for Orchis to have in their arsenal.

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Watch:

Still hanging around the house, letting the last of this vile illness loosen its remaining tendrils on me, so I watched some more flicks after a half day of work. 

First up, Richard Stanley's Hardware. Instead of reposting the trailer, which I've probably posted on here a handful of times previously, here's a cool little segment I found on the film's composer Simon Boswell's youtube channel where he talks to Stanely about scoring the film:

Next up, I've been diving into that Severin boxset All the Haunts Be Ours that I bought last year. Yesterday's film was Kåre Bergstrøm's Lake of the Dead, which I could not find a trailer for, so here's a poster:

From 1958 Norway, this is a tight little thriller, kind of a Nordic Twilight Zone murder mystery that I really enjoyed. Best of all, I now realize this is currently on Shudder! Not exactly what we think of as Folk Horror today, which is good, because I'm beginning to feel the genre is amassing a checklist. You know, "Add a ram skull, a forest, and a farmer and you have a Folk Horror flick;" not the case exactly, but it tends to happen to recently popularized genres. This is NOT that.

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Playlist:

Ghost - Phantom of the Opera (pre-release single)

Ghost - Jesus He Knows Me (pre-release single)

Ghost - Opus Eponymous

David Lynch & Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music

SQÜRL - Silver Haze

Spotlights - Alchemy

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night

Kermit Ruffins and the Rebirth Brass Band - Throwback

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Card:

Still not feeling super up to anything, so I thought I'd just pull one card from my trusty Thoth deck. When that one card is the 7 of Disks Failure, however, it's hard not to want some context:

Just a warning about a planned surprise I have slated for K's birthday tomorrow. Duly noted, Monsieur Universe. Duly Noted.

 

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2018: November 29th

A few weeks ago Chasms released the single "Divine Illusion." To read about the track on their bandcamp, the revelation that the track was a closing chapter to their shoegaze/industrial sound. What could possibly come next? Well, listen. I don't necessarily know what you call this, other than beautiful. Can't wait for the album. Pre-order HERE on Chasms' bandcamp.

Playlist from 11/27:
Ghost - Meliora
Mastodon - Once More Round the Sun
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien

Playlist from 11/28:
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Deerhunter - Microcastle
The Doors - Strange Days
Mastodon - Once More Round the Sun
Ghost Cop - One Weird Trick
Thought Gang - Eponymous

I pull A LOT of sevens. I don't know if this was always the case, or if now that, for about the past year I have been doing mostly daily pulls, it's just more obvious. Probably the second. Netzach is one of the Sephiroth I feel a natural inclination to, that one step beyond the perfection of Tipareth, which represented a certain time and place in my life that is now past. This is the Post-Self Number for me, in a way, as I count that bygone time/place as the first real iteration of this version of this ego-scaffolding I call 'me'. Now, what's that mean for today? Well, despite it's negative facade, I don't think this is a negative card at all. I think today's pull is just reminding me I'm Post that previous self, and this in turn will prevent me from doing what has been increasingly tempting to me of late, namely making music. I haven't picked up a guitar in close to two years maybe. Well, there's been maybe two dalliances with the acoustic that sits on a stand in my living room, but that's it. Nothing serious and no intentions. A lot of the music I'm listening to now has been inspiring my musical drive, but it's on Shut Down. I've made the deal with myself that when I finish the book, I'll maybe spend a little time on music.

Maybe.

2018: June 11th

My friend Duff and his band Junior Jr. released their first proper offering, Obligatory Demo, this weekend and it is fantastic. There's a rough-around-the-edges quality that might lead some folk to dismiss this out of hand, however - give it a few spins and you'll see, the song writing and performance are such that I expect Junior Jr. to evolve into a massive, massive band.

Playlist from 6/10/18:

Danzig - Danzig 7 I Luciferi
Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color
Lost Highway OST
Rammstein - Herzeleid

Card of the day:

Netzach, one step down the tree from the complete beauty of Tipareth, so there's longing, and maybe anarchy. And maybe that fits my mind frame at work right now, so I'll count this as a warning to curb my destructive thoughts.