From their 1995 Masterpiece, A Northern Soul. K and I listened to this out under the stars Saturday night and it proved balm for the weary soul. Been too long; I need to work this one back into the rotation for a while.
Watch:
Noah Hawley's ALIEN EARTH gets a trailer!
Still no exact release date for this one yet, just a reiteration of "Summer 2025." I have a feeling I'll be avoiding this until then, but I had to watch it once.
Read:
My good friend and co-host from The Horror Vision, Anthony (also known as Butcher), recently started reading Jeff Lemire and Andrea Torentino's Gideon Falls, and this has provided the perfect excuse for me to launch my own re-read.
This will be the first time I've read this since it was monthly, so it will be a much more revealing experience. I've forgotten a lot, but not enough to have lost the reverence for this series I hold.
Can't wait to really get into it for discussion's sake, as there will be a Hororr Vision down the road where Anthony and I deep-dive this.
Playlist:
Baroness - Blue Record
OLD - The Musical Dimensions of Sleastak
Blood Incantation - Absolute Everywhere
Dreamkid - Daggers
Oranssi Pazuzu - Live At Roadburn 2017
Tad - Inhaler
Nirvana - Bleach
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
I'm way late to post a tribute to MF Doom. I love this guy, but honestly, haven't listened to him on a regular basis if at all in quite some time. One of the 'methods' to my creative process is curating (read: micromanaging) the media I consume, and just like I haven't read any of the novels Irvine Welsh has released since Skag Boys - and he's one of my favorite authors ever - I very rarely listen to Hip Hop. RTJ4 broke that mold a bit this year, and if there was ever a time I felt like I needed to step out of my own headspace and try and reconnect with the world around me, it was the summer of 2020, hence I dialed back in a lot more Public Enemy, Kendrick, etc. But a lot like Guru and his Gang Starr and Jazzmatazz, MF Doom, or perhaps more accurately, Doom and Madlib's 2004, one-time collaboration Madvillainy, I just haven't gone back there in quite some time. Doom's recent death made me revisit the record, and move beyond it to some of the stuff I missed.
READ:
I finally finished my re-read of the entire Gideon Falls series by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino. I will say, great book, great ending, but the abstract, Twin Peaks-meets-Grant-Morrison-like premise and evolution of the book left for a slightly frustrating aftertaste. Still, really cool series and, reading it in a binge is a totally different experience than reading it monthly/yearly, as you really see how much heavy lifting Andrea Sorrentino's art does. The issues fly by at about five minutes a piece, so there's a cumulative frenzy effect after you pass the half-way point.
The art in this book really blows me away. I don't normally bond this strongly with the art in the stuff I read, but this... this really transcends a lot of what people are doing to push the medium. And while some of it is obviously influenced by and predicated on books that Grant Morrison and various artists conceived over the last 25-30 years, Mr. Sorrentino really stands on his own.
Playlist:
Steve Moore - Bliss OST
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta: Saturnarian Poetry
The Used - Vulnerable
Turquoise Moon - The Sunset City
Cocksure - TVMALSV
Drab Majesty - The Demonstration
Card:
Illumination.
This really feels like where I'm at in this particular moment. The best thing I've done in a while was take yesterday off work. I filed the Copyright for Murder Virus, got Jonathan Grimm the specs to do the art (and he already sent me a mock-up that far surpassed what I had in mind), and my mind and body feel rested. It's been a few weeks since I could say that.
I really can't say enough about Michael Kiwanuka's KIWANUKA album, except that it's made me a fan of his for life. The entire album is immaculate. This person song, though? This is the gateway drug that will lead to the rest. I'm so happy real Soul music appears to be back on the rise and striving.
NCBD:
I had my dates wrong last time. Today, it's here, the end of one of the staples of my comics reading for the past few years, Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Gideon Falls:
My re-read on the entire series as a run-up to this stalled out before I even hit the first issue, so it'll be a bit before I actually read this one. That said, just to have it in my possession will feel like a pay-off. And that cover - good god. So ominous!
Also out this week:
I skipped the first issue of Sea of Sorrows but doubled back when Indie Comics Jones gave it high marks, and as usual, Mr. Jones was not wrong. The first issue set up some creepy AF Underwater Horror, and if this awesome cover art is any indication, we're about to get into it. Can't wait. Underwater Horror is a great subgenre that seems poised for a resurgence. This would make me insanely happy.
And this... well, a sequel/continuation of The Picture of Dorian Gray? I don't really know much about this book, but Vault has become my go-to company for new books, so I'm excited. And this cover art? Boy Howdy, that's just freakin' gorgeous in a very creepy way.
Playlist:
Deftones - Ohms
My Morning Jacket - Z
Spoon - Gimmie Fiction
Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God
Dante Tomaselli - Out of Body Experience
Card:
Act fast - action is Futility's nemesis! Pretty relevant as I sit down and try to shift gears for the third time this year. I have today off and will be attempting to get back into a full re-read/final pass edit on Murder Virus. I have all my Beta Reader's notes, so between that and a fresh take after not looking at the manuscript since August, I'm hoping this last go-through further sharpens what I'm already feeling is my best novel to date (granted, it will only be my second published novel, but I have a few in various states of undress that are complete and will eventually see the light of day, just like this one, which I originally finished in 2008.)
I was super happy to finally get a copy of Criterion's recently released Blu Ray for David Cronenberg's Crash. Not only has the film become my second favorite Cronenberg just in the two years since I first saw it at 2018's Beyondfest Cronenberg retrospective, but Howard Shore's score is probably my favorite of his music for Cronenberg's films. Here's the title theme, some of the sickest guitar I have ever heard.
Watch:
I guess I won't be getting rid of my Disney + sub any time soon... Wow. Just wow. The mind reels at what we could get from a What If? series down the road. Some of my favorites from the comic series - which I didn't buy regularly but always picked up if one of the 'What If' scenarios spoke to my particular Marvel series proclivities:
We're not really in a position with the MCU to see this kind of stuff happen, but then again, who is to say that the What If? show will only stick to variations of what the MCU has done so far?
Read:
In preparation of the upcoming final issue of Rick Remender and Jerome Opena's Seven to Eternity, I've just completed a re-read of the series to date. Next? The final issue of Gideon Falls lands this Wednesday, and as such, I have begun to work my way back through that series.
Creepy AF, and featuring some of my favorite art EVER, I'm super psyched to be taking this trip again just in time for the end of the story.
Playlist:
Joseph Deluca - Evil Dead 2
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Radiohead - Kid A
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher
Meg Myers - Sorry
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - Hollywood (pre-release single)
La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again
Howard Shore - Crash OST
Cynic - Kindly Bent to Free us
The Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God
Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA
Zeal and Ardor - Wake of a Nation EP
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Loathe - I Let It in and It Took Everything
Deafheaven - 10 Years Gone
Card:
8 of Wands - Swiftness. Eights always move on from the stoic, sturdy Netzach (7s) to a transient moment of swift action and/or decisiveness.
Time to switch gears again. My beta reader has finished Murder Virus, I have all her suggestions and edits logged and, mostly, completed. Now I need to pursue the cover art I want and get this fucker ready to publish by the end of January.
Well, I fell down a Mastodon hole yesterday and am having difficulty climbing out. When I first spun Medium Rarities, I thought it was cool, but being that Mastodon is such a great 'album' band, I didn't see getting all that attached to an odds and sods compilation. Also, listening at work on my blu tooth speaker, I was in and out of the office and missed quite a few parts. I know this because I had not even realized that Mastodon faithfully covers The Flaming Lips' A Spoonful Weighs a Ton. I'm not sure how the hell I missed both hearing the track and noticing the name on the tracklisting - one check in the 'con' column of digital music, I'd say, is that you don't have the liner notes in your hands for careful consideration before even playing the damn album! Anyway, it was the ever-vigilant Mr. Brown who mentioned it to me, and since hearing their rendition, I've pretty much fallen in love with Medium Rarities.
For comparison's sake, here is the original:
NCBD:
Of particular interest this week is the fact that Gideon Falls #25 comes out. Now, every week we get a new issue of Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Weird Fiction/SciFi/Horror mash-up is a great week, but this week's issue comes hot on the heels of the recent revelation that the series comes to its grand finale in December with an 80-page issue #27! Holy cow, I'm starting that re-read SOON just to be prepared.
Next, here's a new book from Vault I'm looking forward to, a book about Autumn that takes place in Chicago:
Issue Three of a series I've very much been digging so far:
And finally, I'd recently found myself wondering whatever happened to that Sam Keith Batman/Maxx crossover that began last year. I missed issue three, but four and five never came out. Now, they're on the horizon, and I'll be picking up this bargain-priced Compendium of the first two issues to prepare for it:
I wasn't crazy about the first two issues - you can't go home again - but The Maxx is one of those things I'm a completionist about, so they get my $$$!
Playlist:
The Veils - Total Depravity
Mastodon - Medium Rarities
Marilyn Manson - We Are Chaos
The Dean Ween Group - The Deaner Album
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Dance with the Dead - Loved to Death John Carpenter and Alan Howarth - Prince of Darkness OST
Card:
Stability and control, because I've finished the first draft of the first act (of three) of Shadow Play, Book Two! Onward to part two!
Yes please! Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou have a collaborative album coming from Sacred Bones, dropping on - how perfect - October 30th. You can pre-order May Our Chambers Be FullHERE.
**
NCBD today. It's been a few weeks since I've been in to collect my books, so I'm really going to try and make it in today.
First up is the second issue of Aftershock's Dead Day. It's been a minute since issue #1, so I'll no doubt re-read that first. As I'm sure I've said here a thousand times, I'm generally pretty exhausted with the Zombie genre, however, every once in a while something new comes along that gives it a fresh spin. This book appears to be doing just that.
Gideon Falls #24 - speaking of re-reading older issues, I really need to find the time to go back and start Gideon Falls over from the beginning. I'm keeping up with the story month to month just fine, however, I'd really like to experience everything thus far in a tight burst; this book is so freakin' out there, I really want to let its odd narrative wash over me and see what more I get out of it.
The second issue of Simon Furman and Guido Guidi's newest chapter in the Transformers original comic Universe that started in the 80s at Marvel hit the stands today, and already has me panting - look at that cover! Shockwave vs. Grimlock? I don't geek out over much that holds this beloved brand's name anymore, but these guys are definitely my window into that world.
New song from Austin's Exhalants. For my money, these guys are the closest band I know of to that old school Jesus Lizard vibe I love so much. I ordered their self-titled debut last year from bandcamp and love it, now it would seem we have a new record coming soon. Can't wait.
**
NCBD:
Didn't 22 just hit the stands last week? Looks like there was one in the queue when the Diamond hiatus happened, so we're getting an extra treat here on the backend. Very nice.
I KNEW IT! I knew that zero issue for Transformers '84 that Simon Furman and Guido Guidi did last year would lead to a series. SO excited. I don't read any other title associated with this beloved childhood franchise, but if Furman writes it, I am there! And look at that cover - does anyone ever get sick of watching Starscream and Megatron try and kill one another? I know I don't.
Love this cover too! This series continues to blow me away with its new direction, so I'm psyched to have 106 come in so close to 105.
**
Playlist:
Andrea Moscianese and Francesco Zampaglione - Tulpa OST
Iggy Pop - Lust For Life
Exhalants - Band (single)
Exhalants - Eponymous
Brainiac - Bonsai Superstar
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
War on Women - Capture the Flag
A few days ago, Doves released the first track from what will eventually be their looooong awaited fifth album. "Carousel" is the first since 2009. I'm a huge fan of these guys, in particular, 2000's Lost Souls. The song "Rise" from that album has somewhat of a recurring role in the novel I just finished writing, which will be out later this year, and which I still don't have a title for. Serendipitous then, that this new music drops when I'd gone back into something of an extended Doves mood.
**
Already primed for another narrative podcast to listen to via The Magnus Archives - which I mentioned here a few weeks ago - my good friend Missi recently turned me on to Qcode's Borrasca. Cole Sprouse stars and produces - you might recognize the name as the actor who plays Jughead on Riverdale. While I've never been able to get into that particular show - despite my curiosity about its second season having what I've read described as a 'Giallo' thread in the plot - I'm extremely impressed by everything about Borrasca. At first it seemed a little too "Young Adult" for me, but that isn't the case at all as I've gotten through the first five weeks of what I'm assuming is the first season that's dropping now, new episodes every Monday.
**
NCBD - nice to have this back, eh? I've got some books this week, and one from last week to grab. Here is what's going to be my haul tomorrow:
So nice to get back into this one. There was a moment a few issues back where I thought Gideon Falls might have lost me. No dice. I'm so ready to go deeper into this world:
A new one with art by Jacob Phillips, son and collaborator of one half the dynamic crime fiction duo Brubaker and Phillips. Very much looking forward to this, and I'm hoping for more of that substantial backmatter that makes these books well worthwhile reading month-by-month.
Waiting four months or so since TMNT 104 has been difficult. That issue set up such a rich new world for the brand that I'm even more excited than before with where this title could go. Also, mutant metal bands? Fuck yes!
**
Now that Joe Bob Briggs' The Last Drive-In is over for another year, what the hell will I do with my Friday nights? Well, I recently signed up for HBOMax, and despite my annoyance that it does not work with my firestick, K and I decided to make Fridays Turner Classic Movie night, because TCM is one of the properties lumped in with the sub. There are a lot of movies on there, and being that K is a HUGE fan of old Hollywood, this is perfect.
**
Playlist:
Perez - Les vacances continuent (single)
Deafheaven - Black Brick (single)
Deafheaven - From the Kettle Onto the Coil (single)
Apparat - Soundtracks: Dämonen
Baroness - Gold and Grey
**
Card:
Seems about right, as since I have hit the beta reading phase of the new book, I've already spent an hour or so this morning dusting off something new-ish. Just a short story as a palate cleanser before I dip back into the outline for Shadow Play Book Three!
I knew this was coming, but I never dreamed it would look this good! More excited for this than pretty much anything else at the moment, and it serves as a nice bookend to the fact that I'm finally reading the series - only have Vol. Six and the one-off Vol. Seven left to go and I'll be completely ready for what looks like, at this point, the series of the year.
**
It's time once again for...
Over the last three days I've watched two more episodes, thus rounding out the Season One tier on Mr. Brown's Playlist. First, Season One, Episode thirteen, "Beyond the Sea," which not only featured Brad Dourif as convicted serial killer-turned-helpful-psychic Luther Lee Boggs (aided by another killer named Lucas Henry - see what they did there?), but also had Twin Peaks alum Don "Major Briggs" Davis as Scully's father. Super cool episode; fairly tight script, good character development, and an almost over the top performance from Dourif that was just plain fantastic to watch. Probably my favorite episode so far.
Next up was Season One, Episode Nineteen, "Shapes." Basically a Shapeshifter/Werewolf story set on an Native American Reservation, this episode also featured a Peaks alum, Michael Horse, aka Deputy Hawk. This one was a slosh clunkier than the last insofar as script, but overall, a solid, simple approach to the kind of archetypal folklore that makes this show fun.
Next up - and this I'm very excited for because although the episode resounds in my memory for all its infamy, Season Two, Episode Twenty's "Humbug" is not something I'm one hundred percent certain I've actually seen before.
Can't wait. So far, this little collaborative experiment between Mr. Brown and I has been quite fun, and really, we're just getting started.
**
NCBD yesterday:
This book gets more and more insane every month. I'm a little concerned at this point, it might not be able to stick the landing to whatever godforsaken place it's going, but it's still one hell of a ride getting there.
I am so very glad I started reading this book. Seriously, it's the type of dark, Ancestral Horror that used to populate paperbacks in the late 70s/early 80s, and although I was mostly too young to read that stuff at the time, I definitely picked up on its tone while stalking the shelves of the local libraries I used to frequent as a child. The Plot feels like a book that may end up leaving me with a gasp or two, which would be pretty cool, because with TWD gone, I need something to do that for me.
Whenever a major franchise book flips a landmark number, you have to kind of reassess. After the cataclysmic events of TMNT issue fifty, I felt the book took a few issues to really grab me again. Because of that, I've been a little concerned that for all its grandiosity, issue one hundred might do the same.
Nope.
I LOVE the new direction of this book. I won't go into spoilers, but we're finally done paying homage to all the stories of the past iterations of the characters, and are into completely new ground. And it. Is. Glorious, dark, and a little bit sad. And that's exactly where the characters should be. One thing about TMNT - probably the thing that always set it apart for me - for such a zany concept and highly marketable image, Eastman and, in the old days, Laird both excel at taking the characters and the readers out of their comfort zone. So yeah, I can't wait to read the next issue, and TMNT has pretty much replaced TWD as my new "gottareaditrightfuckingnow" title. Which makes me extremely happy.
**
Playlist:
NIN - Year Zero
Yves Tumor - Safe in the Hands of Love
Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts
The Damage Manual - Limited Edition
The Rolling Stones - Dirty Work
Kevin Morby - Oh My God
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw
Federale - No Justice
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
One of the bands that Jonathan Grimm turned me onto during his visit last month is Blackwater Holylight. I dug their sound the moment I heard it, but didn't get back around to giving them my full attention until yesterday, when I listened to BWHL's 2018 self-titled album about six times in a row. Fantastic record, kind of sounds like the mythical place where Black Rebel Motorcycle Club meets the Doom scene, if the ladies from Veruca Salt were on back-up vocals. This is one of those every-song-is-great records, so when you have a moment, check it out.
**
Gideon falls continues to blow my freakin' mind every month. I had not anticipated the scope of this book to incorporate anything that happened in this week's issue 13, least of all that the promise made by the cover would bear fruit. Subtle shades of Victoriana (it's not ostentation enough for me to call it full-on Steam Punk, but it has a hint of that delicious flavor, a flavor like most, best used sparingly):
Playlist from 5/15:
Godflesh - Streetcleaner
Faith No More - King for a Day
Beastmilk - Climax
Beastmilk - Use Your Deluge
Grave Pleasures - Dreamcrash
Blackwater Holylight - Eponymous
Atrium Carceri - Cellblock
Tennis System - Pain EP
Misfits - Earth A.D.
Uniform & The Body - Mental Wounds Not Healing
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha - EP
To continue the 'unsung' string I began the other day by posting FNM's Ugly in the Morning, I thought I'd start today with a track from Godflesh's 2001 final album (at the time) Hymns. I love this entire album; some purists disregard later Godflesh for the way Justin K. Broadrick begins to segue into the more ambient, pastoral sound of Jesu. For me, my love of Godflesh isn't about one album or another, but the overall arc. Which, by the way, continues to this day in fine form. Anyway, a great track from an outstanding album.
**
NCBD is a light one. Good deal; saves me some money and drops the latest issue of one of my favorite books in my hands. Win win.
Man, look at that cover! Gorgeous!
**
Playlist from Tuesday, 5/14:
Godflesh - Hymns
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Vol. 1
Blut Aus Nord - Odinist: The Destruction of Reason By Illumination
Blut Aus Nord - MoRT
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Sect(s)
Blut Aus Nord - 777 The Desanctification
Fenn - Dustwalker
Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God
Jed Kurzel - The Babadook OST
**
Card of the day:
Okay, full disclosure: if you go back a few months, I pulled this card. I'd left it in the deck on purpose, thinking I may find a way to interpret it into my overall, personal theory of reading this deck as a singular quanta of information, instead of as a collection of individual cards. Does that make sense? Maybe not. This is kind of free-form, impromptu logic, but isn't that what Tarot and Divination supposed to be at least partially about? What good is it to memorize 'readings' and definitions for objects that are supposed to represent aspects of our collective and individual unconscious? Anyway, after the first time I pulled this card and logged it here, I didn't draw it again until recently. But now, I've pulled it three times in the last two weeks, and although I'd kind of reversed on logging it here until now, with this new draw, I feel I have to look deeper (I say that sometimes and then don't have time to do it). To begin with, I pulled two more cards after, to try and clarify:
Okay, so it's going to take all - or at least a lot - of my Will to discover something that has been occulted to me. After some digging, it looks as though I will be beginning HERE and, perhaps more interestingly, HERE.
This new Curtis Harding single and it's awesome! Total 70s Isaac Hayes/Black Cesar vibes, with the cinematic string arrangements and lush reverbs that defined 70s soul. Very cool.
Also in the music department, that new Ghost Cop came out. I haven't had a chance to give it a good listen yet, however if you want a very cool limited edition physical copy, one that is filled with art and even some fiction, go HERE.
NCBD this week and I'm excited for a new Gideon Falls! Also, Cemetery Beach:
Playlist from yesterday:
Various Artists - Twin Peaks The Return OST
Interstellar Funk - Caves of Steel EP
Burial - Kindred EP
Remco Beekwilder - 10th Planet EP
The Ocean - Anthropocentric
Ghost Cop - One Weird Trick
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Card of the day:
Two cards today. Not on purpose. There were actually three, as I had a kind of discombobulated draw as I rushed to leave late for work. Can't remember what the third card was now. But look at the color scheme here; Enlightenment is imminent.
Man, feels like I just checked on the new Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats album a week or two ago and there was no pre-order up, then yesterday I realized Wasteland has indeed officially dropped. Of course ALL the nifty colored vinyl is gone over at Rise Above Records, so for now I'm just listening on Apple. Great record, and as you can hear above MAN! What an opening track!
31 Days of Horror continued last night with Candyman! Only the second time I'd seen this flick, it's a great example of a 90s horror flick that doesn't seem as dated as, say, Species. Leave that to Bernard Rose's direction, Clive Barker's oversight, and poverty anachronistic staying power. That's the world folks.
31 Days of Horror:
10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
NCBD today and it's a great day because Gideon Falls returns!!!
Playlist from 10/16:
Second Still -
Windhand - Eternal Return
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
