Chelsea Wolfe - The Liminal

 

My copy of Chelsea Wolfe's She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She arrived on Saturday and I managed to hold off listening to it until the precise criteria I insisted upon were met - Saturday night after recording the latest episode of The Horror Vision Presents: Murderboad - A True Detective Night Country Discussion, I placed the beautiful colored vinyl on the turntable in my office, smoked a quarter of a joint and laid out on the floor and let the sounds wash over me. This one's an immediate shoo-in for my top ten list this year. It's both similar and completely unlike anything Ms. Wolfe has done previously; similar, because her voice is unmistakable; different in that there are a lot of what I can only call "Industrial Trip-Hop" elements in these songs. 

I know, I know... it's not bad enough we subdivide music into oft-confusing subgenres, but now you're creating hybrids of those subgenres? Well... there's just no other way to say it. 

Industrial is appropriate because alot of the songs have a mechanical feeling to their percussion or groove, Trip Hop because the closest thing I can compare of the arranging on this album to is Portishead or Massive Attack. I can split hairs all day long on the sound, but believe me, this is a spectacular piece of work from one of the most interesting artists working in music.

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Watch:

I had the revelatory experience of watching Jennifer Reeder's 2019 Knives and Skin on Saturday night. Here's a trailer that I have vetted; it gives nothing away (also doesn't do this film any kind of justice, but you really can't encapsulate Knives and Skin in a trailer anymore than you can a Lynch film):

Ms. Reeder has been slowly moving up my radar ever since I watched 2020's Night's End hit Shudder back in the fall of 2022. I posted about her most recent film Perpetrator a few weeks ago, and that viewing, combined with this latest one, seals the deal: she's easily my latest "favorite directors." There's a moment in this trailer where the pull quote says, "Twin Peaks meets Donnie Darko." That's not exactly right, but it's not exactly wrong, either, and it's close enough to tell you why I like it so much and whether or not you have any hope of connecting with it. All I can say is K and I were absolutely mesmerized while watching.

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Playlist:

Matt Cameron - Gory Scorch Cretins

David Bowie - Black Star

David Bowie - The Next Day

David Bowie - Outside

David Bowie - Aladdin Sane

Turnstile - Glow On

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

Various - Learn to Relax: A Tribute to Jehu

Grace Jones - Warm Leatherette (single)

Daemien Frost - Corpus Demo

Donny Benét - Konichiwa (single)

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

The Veils - Total Depravity

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Card:

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

• VIII: Strength

• Four of Pentacles

• Knight of Wands

A lot of strength and foundation, which I feel like has been under assault in our house the last few days. Took K to the emergency room on Thursday night around midnight (she's fine), took our cat Sweetie to the pet urgent care on Saturday (we think she's fine), and something popped in my right knee that has left me in intermittent crippling pain since Saturday morning. All this, juxtaposed with this Pull, tells me we need to finally ante up and put our health back into the actively attending to column.

David Bowie - Move On

 

"Move On," the second track from 1979's Lodger, the final of the Bowie/Eno Berlin Trilogy. Easily my least favorite of the three records, Lodger has never 100% caught me, but there are moments that really resonate with the rest of the Trilogy, and I'd argue that track two, "Move On" is one of them. 

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Watch:

A couple of nights ago, I watched Jennifer Reeder's latest film, Perpetrator. Here's a trailer that I offer with the caveat you only watch the first minute:

Did you see the pull quote that said, "The meeting point between John Hughes and David Lynch?" Not too far off. I don't know that everything about this one 'worked' for me, however, I was distracted during the first forty minutes or so with some emergency yoga, and Perpetrator is SO insanely original, I'm definitely going to watch it again. 

Between this and Night's End - which I also loved - Jennifer Reeder is now a filmmaker on my "watch everything" list. 

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Read:

My Horror Vision Co-Host Anthony recently talked me into giving SIKTC's sister book, House of Slaughter, another shot. I read the first two arcs and wasn't super into it, despite really liking the concept. One character introduced that has stayed with me is Jace, and he is the focus of the third arc, Return of Butcher.

So far it's pretty good, but I'm still not sold. This got me thinking about why that is, and I think I've come up with a fairly easy answer. SIKTC is one hundred about the momentum of the story, which is ongoing as it follows Erika Slaughter. House of Slaughter is different; five-issue arcs that jump around to give us windows into the world Tynion has built; ostensibly a welcome idea, it just does not inspire the passion in me that SIKTC does. I've always taken more to books with ongoing continuity - my first comic love was, after all, Larry Hama's G.I.Joe:ARAH and I never really cared much for Special Missions. The exact same paradigms apply here - ongoing vs. individual stories that are a part of the overall tapestry but do not add momentum to it. 

Regardless, House of Slaughter is still a quality book, and in no way am I complaining about reading or purchasing it. I just don't feel the allegiance to this book that I do for its sister. 

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Playlist:

Marilyn Manson - We Are Chaos

Massive Attack - Protection

Cypress Hill - IV

David Bowie - Lodger

The Stooges - Eponymous

The Stooges - Funhouse

††† - Good Night, God Bless, I Love U, Delete.

Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals

The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette

Killing Joke - Eponymous

Rein - God is a Woman

David Bowie - Black Star

The Cure - Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me

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Card:

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

• Eight of Swords

• XIX - The Sun

• Four of Swords

Okay, now I'm really paying attention. I was all set to move on from the Truce/Rest interpretation from yesterday because not only did I go to bed at 8:00 PM Wednesday night, but I stayed in last night as well, taking a nap after work that made me feel the best I have so far this trip. But here it is again.

It dawned on me that the Truce also might apply to a small situation at work, which I came in a skosh concerned about and have definitely applied the Truce aesthetic to. Things feel better there than they have in over a year, so there's that. Aside from those two instances, what do today's other two cards suggest?

Eight of Swords - Eight. Hod - Learning and Ritual in the real of the Intellect.

XIX The Sun - Interestingly, I noticed Grimm posted this card on social media recently, accompanied by the lyrics to Sabbath's "Nativity in Black," and I can't help wondering if there's something there. 

"Some people say my love cannot be true Please believe me my love, and I'll show you I will give you those things you thought unreal The sun, the moon, the stars all bear my seal!"

Maybe not, or, if so, that's a code my conscious mind probably won't crack. So while that simmers on the ol' brain stove, I'm looking toward the "Optimistic" interpretation and stepping back to apply all of this - wait for it - to my worldview. In multiple conversations since I arrived here and have had the chance to reconnect with folks I haven't seen or talked to in months, world events come up and I always begin with the "I'm a pessimist" clause. L.A. just brings it out of me. I walk the streets of West L.A. and just can't believe the filth. Yet, also, this time, I honestly think things may not be as bad as they were in October. Maybe. 

My pessimism probably isn't going to recede permanently, but maybe I can give it a rest at least for a little bit and try and, ahem, Think Positive Thoughts. The Sun, The Moon, The Stars. 

AHS NYC

 

Happy Monday, October 17th! Here's some Dance with the Dead to wake all our asses up! From the B-Sides: Vol. 1 collection, which is available on the group's Bandcamp HERE.

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31 Days of Halloween:

10/1 - Trick 'r Treat

10/2 - Barbarian

10/3 - Hellraiser ('84)

10/4 - Phenomena

10/5 - Hellraiser (2022)

10/6 - The Dark Backward

10/7 - Sick/The Beyond

10/8 - Werewolf By Night

10/9 - Something in the Dirt

10/10 - Let the Right One in Episode 1/Lux Aeterna

10/11 - My Best Friend's Exorcism/Grimcutty

10/12 - Smile

10/13 - Monstrous/VHS (Amateur Night segment)

10/14 - Halloween Kills

10/15 - Halloween Ends/Ed Wood/Plan 9 From Outer Space

10/16 - Spider Baby/101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments/Night's End/Behemoth

Jennifer Reeder's Night's End hit Shudder a few months back as a Shudder original and kind of got pushed right past my radar by all the other titles that came in hot on its heels. Luckily, while browsing back through the "All Movies" heading, I stumbled on it. Fantastic film. a tight 81 minutes, this one really pulls you into the protagonist's inner world with visual cues, then kind of explodes all over the place in the final act. Loved it.

Also, we have the first episode of AHS NYC dropping this coming Wednesday, and I'm pretty excited. I don't think it's any coincidence that this season lands just after David Bruckner's Hellraiser and appears to focus on a lot of the same imagery and even, possibly, an extension of the scene that inspired Barker to write the original The Hellbound Heart. 

Will this be American Horror Story's version of Hellraiser? Probably not exactly, but it looks like it will scratch a similar itch.

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Playlist:

Boy Harsher - Burn It Down EP

Boy Harsher - Careful

Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Public Memory - Veil of Counsel EP

G.I.S.M. - Detestation

Jammes Luckett - May OST

Goblin - 2013 Tour EP

Claudio Simonetti - Phenomena OST

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Say no more. This is one of those "loud and clear" readings: I haven't gotten shit down with writing in weeks. The second week in LA, when I stayed with friends, fine. That's an excuse. Working, commuting, seeing almost a flick a night and a concert? But I've been back a week tonight (technically a week tomorrow morning) and I've only written once. That has to change. I need to focus my energies on that time, and apply my Will.