Showing posts with label Talk to Me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Talk to Me. Show all posts

Friday, July 28, 2023

Talk to Me

 
Another new Ghost of Vroom track dropped two days ago, and it's probably my second favorite from the pre-release singles for the upcoming album Ghost of Vroom 3, out September 1st on Mod y Vi Records. You can pre-order the vinyl from Doughty's website HERE.




Watch:

Last night K and I saw Talk to Me at the local theatre. I am still thinking about it. This was one of those films that afterward, I didn't come home, open a beer and throw something else on. I dug right into those articles in the new issue of Fangoria that I'd been saving. 


Luckily, after seeing the trailer back when it first hit the internet, I have not watched it since, so I barely even remembered anything about this one. There's hype building around it that's turning some folks off, but I'm here to tell you, that hype is deserved. I've seen Beyondfest post on their socials numerous times declaring the first feature by twin brother directors Danny & Michael Philippou as the best Horror film of the summer, and Fangoria put it on the cover of that aforementioned new issue. Also, I've heard there is a lot of viral marketing that somehow I was fortunate enough to have missed. So I went in pretty virgin.

Even if you're inundated with the marketing, I'm recommending you see Talk to Me and you see it in a theatre. The sound design is a large part of how effective the film's unease is - it's LOUD and SHARP and often pummels you in short, declarative bursts. No explosions - just visceral, meaty stabs of sound. The performances are all fantastic, and the overall manner in which the plot unfolds felt fresh to me. 

The Philippous have created a Horror Prop that, in my opinion, has similar potential to Hellraiser's Lament Configuration, so we'll see if we get a sequel. 
            


Read:

This morning I discovered that there's a new novel on the horizon from Jonathan Lethem, author of a couple books I adore, namely Motherless Brooklyn; Gun, Occasional Music, and Amnesia Moon. Not to mention his batshit crazy Omega the Unknown for Marvel back in the early 00s. 


From the official Publisher's solicitation for the novel: 

"On the streets of 1970s Brooklyn, a daily ritual goes down: the dance. Money is exchanged, belongings surrendered, power asserted. The promise of violence lies everywhere, a currency itself. For these children, Black, brown, and white, the street is a stage in shadow. And in the wings hide the other players: parents; cops; renovators; landlords; those who write the headlines, the histories, and the laws; those who award this neighborhood its name. The rules appear obvious at first. But in memory's prism, criminals and victims may seem to trade places. The voices of the past may seem to rise and gather as if in harmony, then make war with one another. A street may seem to crack open and reveal what lies behind its glimmering facade. None who lived through it are ever permitted to forget. Written with kaleidoscopic verve and delirious wit, Brooklyn Crime Novel is a breathtaking tour de force by a writer at the top of his powers."

Brooklyn Crime Novel drops on October 3, and can be pre-ordered on Indiebound HERE or wherever books are sold. 




Playlist:

Sigur Rós - Ágœtis Byrjun
Sandrider - Godhead
Sinéad O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
H6LLB6ND6R - Side A
Ghost of Vroom - Ghost of Vroom 3 (pre-release singles)
Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous



Card:


• Knight of Wands
• Six of Swords - Science
• XV The Devil

Will applied to Will, a strengthening of resolve and a healthy dose of knowledge - possibly from a less-than-ideal source or possibly even a dodgy source.

Because I didn't ask a specific question, I have to read this as applying to my current writing project. If you read these pages, you know that's how I usually do Tarot. The specific question thing always seems a bit... dodgy to me (look! The cards are already sussing things out). It works, for sure, but I've never seen Tarot as a mystifying oracle, i.e. Omnipotent third party. I mean, I don't know that anyone who seriously studies the cards looks at them that way, but that's something that's definitely in the air. that said, I've done a specific question or two lately and the resultant Pulls have been spot-on, so it does work. The thing is, that just means I already know the answer to the question, anyway...

How this relates to the current project? Not so sure yet. I'm thinking it has to do with the ending, which exists in a theoretical way, but doesn't quite have the steam behind it for the prose to manifest yet. Perhaps I need to carouse some other works of fiction to look for some kind of jumpstart phrase or idea?



Tuesday, June 6, 2023

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Dragon!

 

New King Gizzard and the Lizzard Wizard! Many thanks to my friend Josh who recently reminded me to check these guys out, as they'd been on my radar for quite some time and I still had not heard them. Loving the 2019's Infest the Rats' Nest record, and now both these new songs from the forthcoming album
Petrodragonic Apocalypse or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of the Merciless Damnation, which you can pre-order directly from the band HERE.

This one starts out with a King Crimson-like intro and then turns into all-out thrash for most of the song, and boy does that combination work! Also, I love that both this and the previously released Gila Monster go right into one another. If the entire album has that 'one long track' feel, I think it will just up the overall power the band has set to capture and display with this record.

Oh, the video begins with a photosensative warning - do not take lightly; you may not want to watch this if you think there's a chance it could induce seizures. It is an unfortunate effect of awesomeness that it sometimes messes with our, ahem, lizard brains.




Watch:

A new trailer for A24's Talk to Me dropped. As is my current custom, I'm posting it here but not watching it. Have heard some good things about this one, and favorable experiences watching A24's Bodies, Bodies, Bodies and Beau is Afraid have definitely staved off the burgeoning tendency to roll my eyes - temporarily at least - at the "Elevated Horror" assessment that fans have tirelessly attributed to the company (I recently saw someone wearing an A24 t-shirt). 

  

Out July 28th, pretty sure this one is going wide. Can't wait to see it, as early reports suggest directors Danny & Michael Philippou hit this one out of the park!!!
 


Playlist:

Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 2
The Smiths - God Save the Queen
Phil Collins/Genesis - Collins. Phil Collins Playlist       
Ghost - Impera
Orville Peck - Bronco
Ganser - Odd Talk
Ghost Cop - End Credits
Spotlights - Seance EP
Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart
Witchfinder - Forgotten Mansion
Low - Trust
Low - Poor Sucker (single)
M83 - Fantasy
Dorthis Cottrell - Death Folk Country
Les Discrets - Prédateurs
Prey - Iress
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
 



Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Cold Sweats in the Basement, Baby!

 

Jonathan Grimm drove down a few days ago and we had a fantastic extended weekend drinking beer, watching movies and bullshitting. Grimm is definitely a stabilizing force in my life, not to mention a huge influence, and his visit really supercharged my creativity again. We capped the evening yesterday driving to Nashville and seeing Lord Buffalo, Valley of the Sun and Church of the Cosmic Skull at the awesome Basement East. It feels fortuitous indeed that the first show I see in my new state was at this venue, because I loved it. Basement East reminds me a lot of my favorite venue back in LaLaLand, Echo Park's Echoplex. I'll be keeping their calendar firmly in mind from here out, as it's the kind of venue I'll take pretty much any excuse to return to, again and again.




Watch:


Curious to see this entire film. I love the idea of teenagers playing with a makeshift "Hand of Glory," though I didn't watch enough of the trailer to see if it actually came off a "hanged murderer." Makes me want to dig back into some of my Arcana and see what Eliphas Levi or, perhaps more appropriately, Alan Moore might have to say about how stringent the cocktail that produces that particular Magickal accoutrement is.
 



Playlist:

Etta James - (Third Album)
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night
Locrian - Return to Annihilation
Locrian - New Catastrophism
Godflesh - Nero EP
Behemoth - The Satanist
Etta James - The Second Time Around
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Eldovar - A Story of Darkness and Light
Various Artists - Jonathan Grimm's Stoner/Doom Spotify Playlist
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Goatsnake - Black Age Blues
Holy Serpent - Endless
Bettye LaVatte - Scene of the Crime
Pigs x 7 - Viscreals
            


Card:

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


Where this might normally make me think some form of unpleasant emotional change is jump up the road, I instantly read it as a lifting of my already generally unpleasant emotional state that dug in during my extended stay in LaLaLand and has left me off-kilter and unusually anxious since.