Loathe - Screaming

 

Getting back into Loathe's 2020 record, I Let It In and It Took Everything, which I first fell in love with in early 2021. How did I go so long without listening to this? Sure, I've spun it a few times in the last three and a half years, but not as much as I should have, considering how obsessed I am with it at the moment. Can't wait for something new from these guys - they did release a counterpart record in 2021, the all-instrumental The Things They Believe, but I'm talking about a new, proper album. A lot of things I see online lead me to believe we can expect a new one any time now, so I'll be waiting...

 

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Watch:

I watched Ben Wheatley's A Field In England last Friday. I'd made two previous attempts to watch this one over the last ten years or so, and failed both times. I never once considered this was the film's fault, just a failure on my own part to relinquish myself to the slow-moving, otherworldly specificity of Wheatley's vision with this one. It was decided recently that we would cover Field on an upcoming episode of The Horror Vision's Sticks N' Stones - our Folk Horror discussion vehicle, and in looking for a unique angle to take I had the idea that I would eat the last of some psychedelic mushrooms I've had in my desk for going on two years now. 

A strategy was born, and I undertook the endeavor this past Friday night.

I'll save the details of this cinematic expedition for the episode of our show. For now, though, let me just say this was a perfect strategy, and while the mushrooms were not nearly as potent as they were two years ago (I should have frozen them!) they offered a deeper watch than I'd been able to achieve on those other two occasions. 

A really fine film, and a marvelous score by Jim Williams, who is very quickly becoming my favorite working film composer today.

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Playlist:

Alice in Chains - Dirt

Mudhoney - March to Fuzz

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Man or Astro-Man? - Defcon 5...4...3....2...1

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything

Loathe - The Things They Believe

X - Los Angeles

Pigface - Live 2019 Limited Edition Vinyl (Thanks, Mr. Brown!)

Tubby Hayes Quintet - Down in the Village (Live at Ronnie Scott's Club, London 1962)

Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire

John Carpenter - Lost Themes IV: Noir

Les Discrets - Prédateurs

Deadguy - Fixation on a Coworker

Pepper Adams - Encounter!

Oliver Nelson - The Blues and the Abstract Truth

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Jackie Wilson - Higher (single)

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons - Can't Take My Eyes Off of You (single)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ace of Swords

• V: The Hierophant

• Knight of Wands

Intellectual breakthrough possibly arrived at via a spiritual state. The Knight of Wands may indicate that what stands in the way of achieving this enlightenment is an imbalance between the intellectual and spiritual/emotional states, which kind of defines what it is to be human, especially in the chaotic period of upheaval that usually predates a breakthrough or epiphany.

New Music from 16 Horsepower's David Eugene Edwards!

Well, I totally fucked up Marty and Drexel's Live Music Week, so here's some new music from former 16 Horsepower's David Eugene Edwards. 

It's hard to imagine a band and album that affected me more in the early 00s than 16 Horsepower's Low Estate. I love everything they did, and everything David Eugene Edwards followed that band in Wovenhand, and now everything he's released under his name (which is still also known as Wovenhand? I'm not really sure). But everything has been chasing that feeling I got the first time I heard "Brimstone Rock" and the thirteen songs that follow it. But that's the thing with an artist like Edwards - he makes such a deep impact upon introduction because his approach, his songwriting, his tone and his lyrics all combine to make such a signature sound, that it's similar to but completely unlike anything you've heard before until you hear him. So too with this new track from the forthcoming album Hyacinth, out September 29th on Sargent House. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

I watched a couple flicks over the weekend, but none I enjoyed more than 2018's The Meg:

When I saw this in the theatre upon its original release, I didn't really care for it. Didn't hate it, but nothing about The Meg grabbed me at the time. After hearing Ben Wheatley is directing the sequel, and after seeing a trailer for Meg 2: The Trench a few weeks ago and really digging it (I can't turn the deep sea trench thing down, and there appears to be a lot more of that in this film), K and I decided to rewatch the first movie. You know what? LOTS of fun. I don't know if I was just in a more accepting mood because of my interest in the sequel, but I really had a good time with The Meg this time. 

 

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Read:

Less than one hundred pages from the end, I can tell you that Stephen Graham Jones's Don't Fear the Reaper is one of the best sequels ever! 

I blew through almost two hundred pages yesterday, which wasn't easy to do as we had guests visiting from out of town. This is one of those carry-it-everywhere-and-read-it-any-chance-you-get novels, and I am 100% riveted. If you've still not read My Heart is a Chainsaw and you love literature, Horror novels, Slasher flicks or just a damn good yard, grab that and this in one swoop and dig in. 
        

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Playlist:

Calderum - Mystical Fortress of Iberian Lands

Led Zeppelin - Eponymous

Led Zeppelin - IV

The Door - L.A. Woman

Dean Hurley - Anthology Resource Vol. 2: Philosophy of Beyond

Bohren and der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

Sandrider - Godhead

Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley

John Harrison - Day of the Dead OST

Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild

The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night

Johnny Cash - Live at San Quentin

Various - The Daptone Super Soul Revue LIVE at the Apollo

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Card:

• Three of Disks: Works

• Five of Cups: Disappointment

• Ten of Cups: Sobriety

I'm having self-doubt that I can pull off this new novel the way I want to. That's a bit vague, but the cards definitely seem to be referencing this fear. There is a height I feel as though this story can attain, I'm just not sure I'm completely on the path to achieving that. Which would be a shame, because if I finish it and it's not what I want, I'll have to take a break for a while and come back to it. The Three of Disks indicate success through effort but juxtaposed with disappointing results. The Ten of Cups indicates perfect alignment, which leaves me needing a clarifying card:

• XVII: The Star indicates a turning point for the positive. Also, from the grimoire:

"Fulfillment - when this comes up, go for your dreams - better than average chance something will pan."

 

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Mastodon - Pushing the Tides

 

New Mastodon before year's end and it's a double-fucking-album! In general, double albums don't work out so well, but Mastodon inspires enough faith in me that I don't think that will be the case with Hushed and Grim, dropping October 29th. Pre-order in the band's store HERE.

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Watch:

Hell, what haven't I watched in the last two weeks? Laid low by what definitely turned out to not be COVID-19, I still spent a week and some change on my couch. I read three books (well, read one and finished reading two others), and watched something like 15 flicks. For most of those, you can see my Letterbxd. What I specifically want to mention here are two readily available new flicks that I absolutely loved, Ben Wheatley's In the Earth, and James Wan's Malignant.

 

I loved this flick. Wheatley seems to never disappoint - I even dug his recent remake of Hitchcock's Rebecca he did for Netflix - and this is a bit of a return to his previous dabblings in UK Occult/Folk Horror, only this time, with a technological twist I found very much needed. Folk Horror is becoming a bit like Steampunk, i.e. there's a checklist of images and themes associated with it, and all a filmmaker needs to do is add those ingredients to produce an entry in what is becoming a somewhat tiresome set of tropes. A Classic Horror Story attempted to do this as well, I believe, but failed, while Wheatley conjures what could easily be seen as a sister-work to some of what Warren Ellis did with his and Declan Shalvey's comic series Injection.

I had no interest in seeing this but changed my mind for review purposes (The Horror Vision's deep-dive on Malignant drops tomorrow). In a nutshell, the only things I liked about the first 33 minutes of this flick were DP Michael Burgess' cinematography and Joseph Bishara's score. Then, around 40 minutes I understood what Wan was doing and totally fell for the film. 

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Playlist:

The Cars - Eponymous

T. Rex - The Slider

Concrete Blonde - Bloodletting

Concrete Blonde - Eponymous

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

Sleep - The Sciences

Ghost - Prequelle 

Powerplant - People in the Sun

Pearl Jam - Vs.

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

An Autumn for Crippled Children - The Long Goodbye

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Anthrax - Spreading The Disease

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Mastodon - Pushing the Tides (pre-release single)

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

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Card:

This makes sense - I've recently found a new path into the second Shadow Play book, which was very much needed. 

Mark Lanegan sings Joy Division's Disorder for Charity

Posted on Peter Hook's youtube channel. Here's the verbiage:

"As part of Sweet Relief Musicians Fund's recent 'For The Crew' fundraising event, Hooky's son Jack teamed up with Mark Lanegan (Mark Lanegan Band/Screaming Trees), Smashing Pumpkins guitarist Jeff Schroeder and drummer Shane Graham for a special live version of the Joy Division classic 'Disorder'. All funds raised by this event went towards supporting out of work touring crews who have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Please consider making a donation if you are able to: https://givebutter.com/FORTHECREW​

If you're in the US you can also text FORTHECREW to (202) 858-1233."

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Watch:

I had yesterday off, so Tuesday night K and I had a bit of a marathon. Being that it was my birthday, I wanted to reconnect with what I've come to think of my 'power movies.' There are quite a few, but here's what I went with:

 

Followed by:

 

Rounded out by my second viewing of Ryan Gosling's gorgeous directorial debut in the last two months (with a third already scheduled):

This was a great night for me; it'd been longer than I realized since my last viewing of my favorite Horror film of the 00s. Kill List I'd only seen once before but it left such a huge impression on me I'd been planning a follow-up for years. Luckily, thanks to Anthony (Butcher) from The Horror Vision, I located a B-Region BR for $5 a few months ago, so now I can watch my favorite Ben Wheatley film whenever I want. And Lost River has just become one of my all-times. I seriously think about re-watching it every day. 

Every. Day.

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Playlist:

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Cocksure - TVMALSV

Etta James - Eponymous

Tennis System - Technicolour Blind

The Dead Milkmen - Welcome to the End of the World

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Abbatoir Blues

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon 

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Card:

I felt honored and ecstatic to do my first birthday pull from Missi's Raven Deck. I wasn't disappointed, either:

The presence of Boaz and Joachim are very positively charged images for me, one of the reasons this might be my favorite card from this deck. Plus, I've always considered a strong, mythical female presence as the closest thing to a supreme power in the cosmos of my life. Here, flanked by Soloman's pillars and a weird forest-derived rendition of the Tree of Life, I see nothing but the actualization of the processes I have put into place over the last several years. 

 

DJ Muggs and the Black Goat - Nigrum Mortem

Another new track from the forthcoming Dies Occidendum, out March 12th on Sacred Bones. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

K and I finally watched Ben Wheatley's remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca over the weekend. Loved it; K only showed me the Hitch a few weeks ago, and I have to say, perhaps because I'd been wanting to see it for so long and had high hopes, I didn't love it. The third act is great, but it's a rough climb to get there.  The Wheatley version, however, moves at a better pace. It's not faster, it just doesn't waste as much time with A) Miss Van Hopper (ugh), and B) meandering in the relationships it sets up. It also stages the mechanics of its denouement with a better sense of grace, without sacrificing the gorgeous ambience that often trips up Hitchcock's film. 

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Playlist:

Melvins - Working with God

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

The Replacements - Tim

The Raveonettes - In and Out of Control

PJ Harvey - Stories From the City Stories From the Sea

K's 70s Gold Playlist

 

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Card:

I feel like I wasted a lot of time resting yesterday, but after working a pretty rough week and a Saturday to boot, this card confirms I needed it. Now? Time to finish up this last (I swear) edit on Murder Virus, then, onto Shadow Play again.

New Arab Strap!

Holy cow! This is the third single from the upcoming new album by Arab Strap? Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton's first album as Arab Strap in... a really long time! How did I miss that this was coming? The good news is the album is out March 5th on Rock Action Records, so it's not long now. The bad news? The vinyl is currently completely Sold Out. I'm hoping for a re-stock, so if you're like me, you'll be checking the Pre-order link for the next few weeks.

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Watch:

Near the end of the newest episode of The Horror Vision Horror Podcast, Ray Larragoitiy asks Tori and me what we're excited about coming out in the next few months. I wasn't prepared for the question at that time and was pretty bummed to realize I could barely think of a thing. Seems like the COVID effect on productions has finally caught up to us. There are a few things, though. One of them is this:

Ben Wheatley's new film In the Earth should be along within the next few months (I hope) and I for one can't wait. 

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Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - The Helm of Sorrow 

Thou - Rhea Sylvia

Arab Strap - As Days Get Dark (pre-release singles)

Alice in Chains - Dirt

The Veils - Nux Vomica

U2 - War

The Twilight Singers - Dynamite Steps

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets

The Soft Moon - Feel (single)

Joy Division - Closer

Nothing - The Great Dismal

Exhalants - Atonement

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Card:

 Taxes are good.