Is this new single the harbinger of a new Besnard Lakes record? I certainly hope so. LOVE this; it's the Lakes at their Dreamiest, and they can get pretty damn dreamy. Then it kicks in and you feel like you're soaring through the clouds. Guess they picked the perfect title.

You can buy the single over on the group's Bandcamp, HERE.

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NCBD:

First morning back after our mini vacation in Mississippi and I had a fantastic Comic Pull to look forward to. Let's get into what I brought home from Rick's Comic City yesterday! NOTE: I wrote all this before I picked up my comics yesterday, I just didn't have a chance to post this one until today.

I CANNOT wait to read Cobra Commander #5! Everything has been leading to this, and with the Destro and Scarlet mini-series starting in June, this should set us up for some interesting developments in Robert Kirkman's Energon Universe!

Still really digging this return to Vertigo with John Constantine: Dead in America. The book has been a road trip across the States for JC, and I'm not sure if that was done since Brian Azzarello's run back in the early 00s. There are so many ghosts for a wayward Con-Man/Magician to tap into in the depths of this country, and so far, we've seen some doozies in classic Vertigo commentary-but-not-commentary style.

The final issue of Fall of the House of X. That just leaves Rise #5 next week and X-Men 35 the week after. Then I. Am. Out. Whewwww. I will say that I've decided to sell off a lot of last year's six months' worth of X-Tiles, but I'm not going to part with Fall. I haven't loved this series, but it's worth keeping for no other reason than the cover of Issue 2. Plus, I'd say Gerry Duggan has done a great job dealing with the steaming plate of >>>> Gillen and the Editorial Department handed him. 

What can I say other than I miss this book so much when it's away, that I'm always super happy to see it when it comes back.

The cover says it all: Springer!

Ash continues his trek through the future to find his way back to the past. Not gonna lie - turning one of the three Necronomicons into a demon baby reeks of Grogu, and while I consider myself a fan of both the Mandolorian and Grogu, I've begun to roll my eyes at the proliferation of the 'child' character in genre as a result of Grogu's popularity. 

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Watch:

Upon returning home last night, I found a couple packages waiting for me. One was a recent Vinegar Syndrome order wherein I purchased BluRay copies of Ted Geoghegan's Brooklyn 45 and Lorcan Finnegan's 2016 feature film debut Without Name. I can't wait to tear into both of these, but it'd been a couple years since my first and only other viewing of Without Name, and I'd spent a large part of my reading time during the trip to MS reading about Folk Horror, so that proved to be my priority. 

The film is brilliant; a quiet contemplation of the haunted nature of the Irish Countryside, but what I really want to talk about here is the transfer, because this one is fantastic! I wish I could find a still or two from this one - a lot of times, BluRay.com will have side-by-side screenshot comparisons from different releases, but Vinegar Syndrome's release is still young, so that's not yet the case. Please believe me when I tell you that VS did an absolutely stellar job with this film. 

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Playlist:

Tangerine Dream - Strange Behavior OST

Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation

Rodney Crowell - Tarpaper Sky

The Jesus Lizard - Down

Big Black - Songs About Fucking

Frank Black and the Catholics - Eponymous

Barry Adamson - Cut to Black

Cocksure - K.K.E.P.

Robot God - Portal Within

Melvins - Tarantula Heart

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

The Cure - Disintegration

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk)

Pastor T.L. Barret and the Youth for Christ Choir - Like a Ship Without a Sail

The Bangles - Different Light

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7 Days of Badalamenti: Day 6 - She Would Die For Love

 

"She Would Die For Love," from Julee Cruise's 1993 album The Voice of Love, produced by Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch. The instrumental version earned considerably more momentum as the opening credit sequence soundtrack the year before in Lynch's much-maligned prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The the latter is the version I am more familiar, and taken, with, but both have their merits.

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Cast:

This morning The Horror Vision launches a new spin-off podcast, The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror. This is a project that brings in my good friend Missi, as well as the other THV folks when they're able. My 2022 Wrapped from our hosting platform Anchor shows The Horror Vision created more content this past year than 77% of our contemporaries, and that felt good. This new show is something I'd been wanting to do for a while: a place where we could talk non-genre flicks that contain Horror Elements. And oh, what a list we have so far! The first episode is on Jim Jarmusch's beautiful, beautiful film Only Lovers Left Alive, but from here we have some films I cannot wait to talk about. Here's a small tease:

Ryan Gosling's Lost River

Nicholas Verso's Boys in Trees

Adam Rifkin's The Dark Backward

David Lynch's Lost Highway

And a whole lot more beyond those. That's just scratching the surface! The first episode is now on all streaming platforms - you can even hit play up on the little Spotify widget in the upper right-hand corner of this page. 

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Watch:

Saturday night I caught Lorcan Finnegan's new film, Nocebo:

Another solid film from Finnegan, who popped onto my radar with his Without Name. 

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Read:

I finishe Irvine Welsh's The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs last night in one Heruclean jaunt of reading that lasted most of the evening and well into the small hours of the night. Just like the first time I read it, back in 2006 upon its release, I could not put those last two hundred pages down. Having only gotten back into reading Welsh after a self-imposed hiatus (his voice tends to affect my own writing, and I wanted to steer clear of that for most of the projects I've been on for the last decade), I'm temped to say this is Welsh's best behind Glue, which will most likely always remain my favorite. Secrets is fantastic though, and creates such unrelenting pathos for all the characters through rotating first-person accounts from nearly the entire cast, that when you reach the last act, well, it's fraught with tension. He sets up several really great "gotta-sees," and balances them in such an expert way that you often lose sight of one for whichever is currently "on screen," only to have Welsh juggle them in front of you again and immediately re-ignite your curiosity for what's been in the background for several chapters. 

Really great book. Now, I'm feeling that void of having just finished a great book and really wanting to jump into one of Welsh's newer books that I haven't read. Not sure that will happen before the end of the year, so I will most likely pick Will Carver's Psycopaths Anonymous back up. 

I began it directly after I finished Hinton Hollow Death Trip and quickly realized my genre interests had shifted a bit. From what I did read, there's a definite Fight Club influence here, although not in an egregious way. I loved HHDT, so I'm very much looking forward to more Carver!

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Playlist:

Zombi - Shape Shift

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Beach House - Depression Cherry

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Rodney Crowell - Christmas Everywhere

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Card:

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

More on the money front, which has been an open loop for a while. I need to square this CC bill soon, before the no-interest period runs out, but hidden costs continue to keep the balance level. This is nothing dire, but it would definitely be nice to be at 0 by year's end. 

Lynne Davison's Mandrake

 

Opeth isn't the only band that breathes November to me. TV On the Radio has also long been synonymous with the penultimate month of the year, though I'm not entirely sure why. With both bands, I think it goes back to the first couple of years after I moved to L.A. I was really digging in and establishing myself, and I spent a lot of time listening to music (as I always do). Whatever the reason, TVOTR is always a band I "feel" more when the skies are grey and the air has a nip to it.

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Watch:

Yesterday I watched the latest film to hit Shudder, Lynne Davison's Mandrake. Super solid Irish Folk Horror. 

If you dig flicks like Lorcan Finnegan's Without Name or George Popov's The Droving, you'll dig this one. Very subtle, brooding and ominous. Here's the press solicitation:

Mandrake follows probation officer Cathy Madden, who is given the task of rehabilitating notorious killer ‘Bloody’ Mary Laidlaw back into society after twenty years of jail. Cathy has always believed that every client deserves a shot at redemption, but her beliefs are firmly tested when two children disappear near Mary’s farm.

This is the kind of movie where the setting is as much a character as the actors, and Davison and crew could not have chosen wiser. Mary's "farm" has so much character, you can practically smell the place whenever the film takes you there. Mary herself, played by Derbhle Crotty could not be creepier in her stoicism, leaving you wondering about her motives and machinations pretty much from the first time she appears on screen. Likewise lead Deirdre Mullins's aforementioned Officer Madden. Mullins plays this character so close to the chest that you can feel the disappointments in her history before they're ever mentioned in the film. 

Over the last year, Folk Horror has become such a thing that I went from being excited by it to having a healthy dose of skepticism whenever a new film hits. Mandrake, however, is quite solid and a definite recommendation for those nights when you're looking for something more cerebral and less bombastic. Not that there isn't blood, because there most certainly is that, too.

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Playlist:

Opeth - Watershed

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

Boy Harsher - Lesser Man

Revocation - Teratogenesis EP

Revocation - Netherheaven

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Card:

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

A lot of emotional work ahead in order to advance to a place where those 'feelings' won't interfere with my better judgment.