All You Need is Lankum

 

As I reference below, my days have been filled with elemtns of Folklore of late, and one of the musical accompaniments for this is Dublin's band Lankum. One of the things about Paul Duane's All You Need Is Death that struck me during the screening at last year's Beyondfest was the score by composer Ian Lynch. Last week when Invada Records put the score up for pre-order (HERE), it led me to discover Lynch's band Lankum. I've been listening to their most recent album False Lankum ever since. A feast for the ears, you can listen to and purchase the record directly from the band over on their Bandcamp HERE. Really cool stuff, perfect for the thunderstorms we've had on an almost nightly basis of late. 

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Over on The Horror Vision, we had the chance to interview Writer/Director Paul Duane last week. Mr. Duane's latest film, All You Need is Death was one of the highlights of 2023's Beyondfest, and after re-watching it now that it's available on VOD, we were all very excited to pick his brain about the film, Folk Horror, Documentaries, you name it.

Mr. Duane is a gracious man, and his film a marvel that will no doubt stand at or near the best of the year when I compile my list in December. Very much looking forward to seeing what else he does, as he teases a bit of what he's working on in the episode.

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Read:

We recorded a new episode of The Horror Vision Presents: Sticks & Stones, our Folk Horror sub-show that had been dormant after two episodes Ray and I did in early 2022. Folk Horror is a huge topic, and had proved difficult for us to get a handle on after the veritable explosion of new films in the sub-genre back late 2021/2022. The purpose of this episode, then, was to use two films at the opposite ends of the Folk Horror spectrum to define what Folk Horror is to us and how we would cover it going forward. One of the two films we chose was Djordje Kadijevic's Leptirica, AKA The She-Butterfly. 

After watching this film for what was my third time, I found myself interested in reading the story upon which it is based, Milovan Gilsic's After Ninety Years. There is a fairly recently published translated version by James Lyon available on Kindle for a pawltry $4.99, so I went ahead and ordered it.

Not sure when I'll get around to actually reading this, as the stack for the year just continues to grow. Still, it's nice to have it close at hand for when I do. This Serbo-Bosnian Vampire folklore is fascinating, especially when you consider it not only pre-dates Bram Stoker's Dracula, but also served to inform aspects of F.W. Murnau, which I won't elaborate on here, as Professor John Trafton delivers a bit of show-stopping information during the course of this upcoming Sticks & Stones episode, so keep an eye out of that.

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Playlist:

High on Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis 

Gary Moore - Still Got the Blues

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Robot God - Portal Within

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse

Opeth - My Arms Your Hearse

Motörhead - 1916

Black Sky Giant - The Red Chariot

Mountain Realm - Frostfall

Lankum - False Lankum

Sunn O))) - Domkirke

Godflesh - Purge

John Carpenter - Lost Themes IV

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Card:

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

• Knight of Swords

• Ten of Wands

• Ten of Cups

Earthly matter abound, distractions from more intellectual pursuits should be minimized until such time as I can clear some bandwidth for them. 

Drumcondra, Ireland You're Haunting My Dreams...

Image courtesy of geograph.ie

It's been nearly ten years since I was out of the country. I've never traveled abroad as much as I would have liked to, however I've done a small amount. Problem is (not really a problem though) when I do get out there's really only three places I like to go. There's other places I want to see, but only three places I go: England, Ireland and Scotland.

Now, this morning I dreamt seemingly non-stop about Ireland. Specifically for some reason I dreamt of Drumcondra, a suburb of Dublin. I don't know much about Drumcondra - I was there during the earliest days of 2002 with my friends Grez and his cousin Tony and a certain other person who, well, scared the hell out of me and almost inadvertently got me killed. In a nutshell, she was crazy. Beautiful, but crazy. And I paid for that.

Anyway... I didn't dream about any of this; none of these people, none of the places I was at while I was there. What I dreamt about were a bunch of places and people I never encountered before in 'consensual' reality but in the dream felt like I'd met and now somehow stumbled into a very pained remembrance. I was with my wife and my folks, we were walking the green streets of Drumcondra, and suddenly I wandered away or fell behind for a moment and then lost them, only to enter a place and recognize it immediately. From there it seemed I climbed and descended endless staircases, on almost each level re-meeting people I had somehow forgotten and only just then remembered, but remembered in a way that made them very important to me. New bonds were established and then somehow there was someone following me - chasing me even - and I was trying to avoid them. When a confrontation eventually happened it was for naught, and then this older dude at work who I don't particularly care for (nothing against him - just keep my distance for perceived reasons) showed up and whisked me back to where my wife and family waited.

What the hell?

Saint Germain - Sure Thing LIVE!!!

Best song ever? Some days.

There's a skosh of distortion on the recording, but the performance is the shit!