Justin Hamline's The House With Dead Leaves Out Today!!!

Out today! Justin Hamline's cinematic score for a Giallo that only exists in his head, The House With Dead Leaves!!! Justin was gracious enough to allow me access to this ahead of release, and I can tell you that this is a lush, imaginative masterpiece that instantly became a daily listen. Fantastic mood-setter for the YA Giallo Novel I'm currently writing!

I've mentioned here previously that I am kind of predisposed to appreciate scores for films that don't exist due to a long-standing love of all things Barry Adamson. When I finish writing a book and prep it for release, I try to put a playlist in the back as an accompanying feature, but what I haven't managed to make good on yet is the half-finished scores I have sitting on an old hard drive. I made a conscious decision in 2015 to focus almost solely on writing, so for nearly ten years, all of my musical 'urges' get trasnmuted into writing fuel. These cinematic emanations aren't exactly for films that don't exist, they're just for stories that don't tangibly exist yet, which I'm betting is how Justin would describe The House with Dead Leaves as well. I've long wanted to release a score and a novel simultaneously, and reveling in the sonic joys of Justin's accomplishment has put that back in mind (though something like that probably won't be happening any time soon). 

The takeaway here is that with the imagery Justin's been peppering his social media accounts with to accompany this album, I feel I can almost see his movie, as though the horrific events the music buoys are playing out nearby, on the other side of a thick wall of fog. Doesn't that sound almost exactly like something from a Giallo film?

Well played, sir. Well played.

---

---

---

Watch:

Finally! Evil Season 4 announced as arriving in May! This is one of the most low-key fantastic Horror shows ever made, in my opinion, and I couldn't be happier that it's finally coming back with the long-awaited Fourth - and final - season!

 

Regarding the cancellation, I was under the impression - perhaps erroneously - that this season was meant to be the last regardless. Either way, Paramount ordering an extra four episodes to help wrap everything up definitely helps. Can't wait.

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

The Veils - Total Depravity

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak)

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

Matt Cameron - Gory Scorch Cretins

Fabula - Lost in Stars

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Ween - Chocolate and Cheese

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Darklands

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: A Dialogue with the Stars

Fvunerals - Let the Earth Be Silent

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

Nobuhiko Morino - Versus OST

---

---

---

Card:

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

• King of Pentacles - Earthly Intellect

• Eight of Swords - Transformation of relationship (status quo)

• Nine of Pentacles - Earthly accomplishment

Lots of Earthly concerns represented in the cards this morning. That makes sense - money was a free-floating variable for a few days as I scrambled to get my taxes done and a few unexpected trips to the Emergency Room/Urgent Care piled up over the course of last weekend (everyone is fine). Having the Eight of Swords bisect the two nods to Malkuth looks to me as an indication that a deep-seated perspective on Earthly concerns (again, money) is about to change. What's that mean, exactly? Well, I'm hot and cold with spending, and I think it's a good time to go cold again and amass larger savings. That's a goal K and I have discussed recently (we even began calls with a free money-manager person through her work), a week ago today, actually, so this Pull makes sense in terms of a reminder to 'stay on the path.'

Justin Hamline - A Veil For Three Sisters

Justin Hamline is a guy I know only through his Instagram profile and some interactions through that platform; a like-minded Horror/Synth/Punk fan, I no longer remember how I came across him, but we have similar interests and ended up following one another for a couple years before I realized he was also a pretty freakin' awesome musician. Apparently, he took a break for a while but came back recently and has been releasing material left and right. Next up for Justin is the soundtrack to a Giallo that only exists in his head - The House With Dead Leaves! This is the kind of project I love, a la Barry Adamson's first albums; not just music but the story that goes with it in the artist's mind. I'm really digging this stuff - here's the full track:

Really digging this and can't wait to hear the finished product. The House With Dead Leaves drops next Friday, and I have a feeling I'll be incorporating an edible and a nice block of time to just sit in front of my big-ass stereo speakers and take the journey Justin has mapped out for us. 

---

---

---

Watch:

There are two new Horror flicks coming to theatres this week, and I'm going to try and see them both!* Here's the trailer to Alan Cumming's Out of Darkness:

 

As usual, I watched about five seconds of this - just enough to see the set-up that the film takes place in 43, 000 BC, and I stopped it. That's enough to make me interested, and from here I'd just rather go in blind.

---

---

---

Read:

As I mentioned in this week's NCBD segment, I picked up the first issue of the new Ram V/Laurence Campbell Futuristic Neo Noir The One Hand yesterday purely on a lark. 

After reading it, I am super excited for this book. But not only this book, because there is a second, complimentary series by Dan Watters and Sumit Kumar coming on February 21st! 

The Six Fingers takes place in the same Blade Runner-esque Future metropolis, Neo Novna, and based on the title and what I know after reading issue one of The One Hand doesn't just tie in but possibly completes the story in the first book. 

Image is just killing it right now. There's an article Image has up on their website HERE that talks about this a little more in-depth. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

QOTSA - In Times New Roman

Raspberry Bulbs - Before the Age of Mirrors

Justin Hamline - A Veil for the Three Sisters (Un velo per tre sorelle) (single)

Windhand - Eternal Return

Donny Benét - The Don

Amigo the Devil - Your Until the War is Over (pre-release singles)

Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven (pre-release singles)

Mannequin Pussy - Patience

Mannequin Pussy - Romantic

T. Rex - The Slider

---

---

---

Card:

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

• King of Swords

• VIII: Strength

• IV: The Emperor

Man, I see a lot of that Tony Iommi King of Swords in this deck! Does that make Iommi my spirit animal?

I'll tell you right off the bat, what I see here on a very surface, "what do the illustrations tell me" way two things I've been thinking a lot about. Two things that used to be a big part of my life but no longer really are: Guitar and Magick. I've been feeling a tug back to picking up an instrument, but I have several unfinished writing projects at the moment (one very close to completion and release, one a few months out). This is the struggle - stay focused. So, while it would definitely be more in my current inclination to read this one as telling me to go ahead and follow that tug, I'm actually going to look at it a different way - have the strength to recognize that the King of Swords - in Thoth the Prince - is a card that, by Crowley's own interpretation, indicates lots of good ideas but an unstable purpose. That's why I'm seeing this so much! Finish the interpretation off with The Emperor's nod toward linear thinking, and I see that this is in no small voice telling me to figure my shit out, commit and finish. 

New (?) Music From Stereolab!

I'll admit that I'm not nearly the Stereolab fan today that I was in the late 90s-early 2000s. I had quite the collection of their albums on CD, but eventually realized it was hard to listen to a lot of those records in any mind-frame other than a passive one. The textures of their music are amazing, but a lot of it ends up being 'mood' pieces. Kind of sonic wallpaper, as one friend put it. That's not a dig, however, my listening has become increasingly 'active' since I first fell in love with the band. Still, very cool to see they're releasing another of their Switch On series, which, if I remember correctly, are all B-Sides and rarities. In keeping with these past releases, and again emphasizing the sheer volume of music this group has released in the last several decades (quantifying how many decades will put me in danger of feeling frighteningly old) I'm not entirely sure if Super-It ever saw the light of day before, however, here today, it sounds pleasingly fresh. 

You can order Electrically Possessed, the fourth volume in Stereolab's Switched On series, one HERE, it drops Friday.

---

---

---

Watch:

I have been wanting to see The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears for a couple years now, and it finally landed on Shudder, so I left work on time yesterday, loaded up a chillum when I got home,e and fell straight into this one:

The first 40+ minutes are a delight. After that, however, despite fighting like made to keep an open mind and positive outlook, this one devolves into what I would say is little more than aesthetic. I want to love this film, but a perhaps overly generous three-stars is all I could muster on Letterboxd. Still, Tears is GORGEOUS even as it tries your patience, and the OST is fabulous.

---

---

---

Playlist:

The Soft Moon - Black Sabbath

The Soft Moon - Criminal  

The Soft Moon - Deeper

Stereolab - Electrically Possessed (pre-release singles)

The Raveonettes - In and Out of Control

Ghost of Vroom - I Hear the Ax Swinging (pre-release single)

Ghost of Vroom - 2 (Single)

---

---

---

Card:

Pretty gnarly advice for me and a friend (I think) on how we can get tripped up by our own thinking and expectations of what we believe is "going to happen" based on pre-existing experience, which emotionally, can masquerade as emotional empirical evidence, such a thing that is not to be taken on faith. 

From the Grimoire: "Beware the mire of the mind; consciousness needs to flow freely, not become muddied by obsession. Push past what you think you know and be open to the Universal influence that can often reinvigorate our thoughts and practices."

New Chromatics!

You can order the digital version of the new album Closer to Grey HERE. Not sure if there's a physical one looming, which would be a shame, because the album art is a fantastic take on old Giallo poster art.

K and I saw IT Chapter Two last night. I had a few issues, but overall I really dig it. Very horrific, with a nice mix of jump scares and sustained fear, my real issue was simply that it felt light on plot and more a succession of scenes where Pennywise attacks but doesn't really harm all the characters. Of course at some point that stops being true, and the filmmakers offset that with a healthy dose of new children who serve as fodder for the monster, so I'm wondering if upon second viewing this might flow better for me. Regardless, this isn't a negative review - I dug a lot of what the film does.



The score is pretty cool, too. Benjamin Wallfisch hits a sweet spot that seems to draw on a lot of horror's greatest composers; this track reminds me a bit of Pino Donaggio and Joey Bishara, a pedigree guaranteed to get a result from the audience.


**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3

**

Playlist from 10/04:

Type O Negative - Dead Again
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Ghosteen
Bauhaus - This is for When (Live)
Opeth - In Cauda Venenum
Type O Negative - The Origin of the Feces

**

The reminder I needed today to stop and pay attention to the moment. Not the surface moment, but those things going on below the surface, which I have very much been losing sight of lately.

2019: June 21st - Lightning Born!

Thanks to Jonathan Grimm for the heads up on this one - I'd not even heard of Lightning Born until I woke up at 4:00 AM this morning, rolled over and saw a text from Grimm:

... and that about says it all. The band's self-titled debut is out today on Ripple Music, so it's available everywhere music is can be acquired. Or, order the record from the band themselves HERE.

**

I watched two fantastic movies yesterday. First, Knife + Heart just dropped on Shudder and I stumbled into it without knowing much. LOVED it. A kind of software, gay Argento-homage, the flick stalls a bit at times as it goes to incredible lengths to soak the viewer in atmosphere and aesthetic of 1979 Paris' underground gay culture. It does an excellent job with this, but imagine those overly descriptive paragraphs that plague genre books at times? There's a correlation to that here. Still, the movie is gorgeous, and what I did not realize it until this morning is M83 scored it. Basically a gallo that follows an underground porn studio's actors as they are picked off one-by-one at the hands of a masked killer, Knift + Heart doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's a great watch. Here's the trailer:



Next, 1990's Hardware. I'd never seen this until yesterday and I absolutely LOVED it. Kind of a third rate Terminator knock-off, I'll take this over Cameron's epic any day. I loved the colors, the sets, the tech - everything. And a very cool soundtrack that juxtaposed Simon Boswell's neo-futuristic, Vangelis-light score with tracks like Stigmata from Ministry and this epic from PIL:



**

Playlist from 6/20:

The Verve - Northern Soul
Zen Guerilla - Positronic Saygun
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
David J and Federale - The Day David Bowie Died
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
Public Image Ltd - This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get

**

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "The beginning of a new project or job." Well, that could not be more appropriate. I took a few days off writing after finishing Shadow Play Book One, tonight I plan on walking to my coffee spot and digging into Ciazarn!

2018: September 2nd

Thanks to Jeff at the Comic Bug I found Vaguess. As you can no doubt hear from the above, they are awesome. Guilt Ring will definitely end up on my favorite albums of the year.

Long day of work and sinus infection yesterday. This iteration of the infection proved what the previous one (last year) suggested: the Z-pack antibiotic no longer works. The doctor I saw at the urgent care the other day backed this up, saying he has seen approximately 40% resistance to azithromycin. As a back-up, he prescribed me a secondary prescription of doxycycline hyclate. All this just further proves a theory I have had for about fifteen years now - being that bacteria lives generations for every day we do, eventually it will outrun our defenses and conquer us. The widespread proliferation of antibacterial hand sanitizers and a quick-to-subscribe attitude to antibiotics has expedited that outcome, so be prepared. And if you can't seem to beat your sinus infections, use doxycycline hyclate - until that no longer works.*

I watched a 1971 Italian Giallo last night called Black Belly of the Tarantula. Talk about an awesome title! Directed by Paolo Cavara and scored by none other than the great Ennio Morricone, I loved the flick and intend on hunting down the score on vinyl. It is gorgeous! Here's a taste:



Playlist from 8/31:
Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le Mani Destre Recise degli ultimi Uomini
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Roxy Music - Eponymous
Windhand - Grey Garden (single)
Kyuss - And the Circus Leaves Town

Playlist from 9/01:

Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Yonatan Gat - Universalists
Vaguess - Guilt Ring
The Veils - Total Depravity
BeNNi -The Return
Chris Connelly - Artificial Madness
Bowie - Stage
Bowie - Outside

Here's a card I haven't drawn since I began doing these daily pulls. See how intoxicating the visuals are, with their soft pastels and robust female figure? The surreal aspect, where her lower half almost looks more like a mermaid's fin than legs? Of the Swan - which Crowley refers to as a Pelican, and although that may have been his intent, Lady Frieda Harris most certainly painted a swan - tending its young is motherly. I'm interpreting this as my nurture of my ideas, which are essentially like children to me.

*Yes, I realize I am both lambasting and advocating the use of antibiotics here. I only use them for sinus infections, which I get about twice a year. 

2018: August 13th

Happy birthday to one of my best friends in the world! I hope You have an amazing day, Missi!

Been a few days. Leaving one project behind and starting the final stretch on another. Had to put Please Believe Me away for a few days in order to gain perspective on it, as I'm not sure it's 100% finished, even though I 'finished' it last Thursday. Something is telling me there's a coda, of sorts, that has to go in. We'll see.

Attended my second HWA meeting yesterday. What an absolute inspiration these folks are! So great to talk about the craft in such a wonderful environment.

Playlist from yesterday was short because I've been listening to that SC3T Giallo ST almost none stop; I've felt it building to inspiration on a project and this morning it was revealed to me what exactly that will be, and I am psyched!

Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Card of the day:

Needed to see this today, and the fact that it comes up in my pulls so often is definitely a reassuring sign.