Take about stumbling across something you never expected. Skulking around on Bandcamp last Friday, I found this track from Erykah Badu & The Alchemist's album Before the World Blows Up. I was instantly hooked. I backed off a bit after an initial full listen to the overall album - I'm sorry, but it's pretty hard to take anyone seriously when they're still dropping N-bombs, especially on a modern soul record. There are a few other unfortunate instances of hip hop tropes that gum up the album's flow for me, but overall, this is pretty freakin' solid.
Watch:
By sheer chance, I read about Glenn McQuaid's new film, The Restoration at Grayson Manor in one of the most recent issues of Fangoria magazine shortly before ordering McQuaid's 2008 film I Sell the Dead during a recent Vinegar Syndrome sale, not realizing the latter was by the same filmmaker at all. I'd seen I Sell the Dead back when it first came out on video in the through-the-mail Netflix days, had thought about it now and again, and was excited to see it get a new transfer and release via VS's Glass Eye Pix/IFC partner labels.
The Fangoria article definitely put Grayson Manor on my radar, and now I'm happy to see the possibility of a wide theatrical release. Full disclosure - I only watched about twenty-five seconds of the trailer but that's all I needed. There's something about the overall style here, combined with McQuaid's humor and the idea of "hand horror" in an Irish country manor that all combines to make me think this is going to be a great one.
Playlist:
Young Widows - Decayed: Ten Years of Cities, Wounds, Lightness and Pain
Godflesh - In All Languages
Matthew Pusti - Onslaught OST
Erykah Badu & The Alchemist - Before TheWorld Blows
Godflesh - New Flesh In Dub Vol. 1
Godflesh - Post Self
Chat Pile - Who Loves The Sun
The Cramps - Gravest Gravy
Gnarls Barkley - Atlanta
The Cramps - RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandXXX
Isaac Hayes - The Isaac Hayes Movement
Miles Davis - Ascender pour l'échafaud
Chat Pile - God's Country
Lustmord & Dave Lombardo - Paleomagnetic Resonance (pre-release single)
Purest Form - Resistance EP
Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire
Dance with the Dead - Malombra
Ghost - Skeleta
Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast
Iggy and The Stooges - Raw Power (1973 David Bowie Mix)
Chelsea Wolfe- She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
Orville Peck - Bronco
Steely Dan - Aja
Card:
Back to my trusty old Thoth deck this morning:
• 7 of Disks - Failure
• Ace of Cups
• 3 of Cups: Abundance
I need to change something proven. It will cause an upset that will feel like a failure at first, but will eventually lead to a breakthrough that will make my heart soar.
It's never a great thing to see a card like the 7 of Disks at first, but context always softens it. In The Book of Thoth, Crowley briefly breaks this card down as a warning as to what happens when all work stops. Dreams can die here. Thus, it takes emotion and will to keep the thread going and make something out of the nothing that sloth offers as a reprieve to working.
I love the obvious writing ones, that come directly after a session I can relate them back to.
