Mark Lanegan - Skeleton Key

From Straight Songs of Sorrow, the new Mark Lanegan out May 8th via Heavenly Recordings. Pre-order HERE. Apparently, this record is "closely aligned" with Lanegan's forthcoming memoir Sing Backwards and Weep, out April 28th. Pre-order that HERE or HERE.

I can't wait to read that book!

**

Over the weekend, in the interest of starting something new and mostly unknown, K and I started Netflix's Black Spot, which comes to the US via France.


BLACK SPOT trailer season 1 vfsta from MEDIAWAN RIGHTS on Vimeo.

Although highly derivative of Twin Peaks, Dark, and True Detective Ssn 1, I'm enjoying Black Spot quite a bit; it borrows heavily from all three aforementioned shows, but is definitely its own thing. I'd definitely recommend it for fans of those shows and thrillers in general. I've seen references now to both this and Dark as belonging to a genre being called "Into the Woods," and although genre splitting and tagging can become tiresome, I kinda dig that. Suffice it to say, Black Spot is creepy, extremely well lit and well shot, and the voice they've given to the forest is mysterious and exciting.

**

This happened last night and I am still unable to completely wrap my head around it:

Apparently, in honor of Relapse's 30th Anniversary, they chose people who pre-ordered records in the past few months and randomly awarded them these nifty golden tickets. What's it good for?

Whoah. I don't know that I've won anything since 1991, when I called Chicago's seminal Rock statin The Loop and won 10 free lawn tickets to see Guns n' Roses on their Use Your Illusions tour. Of course, I never got to cash those in, because two nights before that Chicago show, Axl jumped off the stage in Cincinnati, OH and clocked a dude with a camera, subsequently landing in jail.

One reason why I've always disliked Axl.

Anyway, looks like I have a lot of vinyl coming my way this year. Very cool. Thank you Relapse Records and Happy 30th Anniversary - here's to 130 more (at least)!

**

Playlist:

The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Digipak)
Mol - Jord
Various Artists - The Void (OSM)
Frederic Kooshmanian - Black Spot (OSM)
Me and That Man - Songs of Love and Death
Burzum - Filosofem
Grimes - Miss Anthropocene
Greg Dulli - Random Desire
Various Artists - Garage Rock (Compilation used in Black Spot)
Slayer - Show No Mercy
Nothing - Guilty of Everything
The Gutter Twins - Adorata
Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper

**

Card:

I've done a few pulls over the last few days that haven't been logged here, almost all of which have been Swords. The Nine of Swords - Cruelty has followed me a bit. Swords is the Suit I know the least in the Tarot, and this card in particular is, at a glance, always tempting to fear based on face value. However, from the Grimoire:

"The airy nature of Intellect, it is difficult for Swords to rest. Rabid analyzation and thinking in general can produce a loop that one becomes trapped in, the ultimate revelation that Nothing really leads Anywhere and in the end, there is Nothing."

Now, juxtapose this with a clarification card I drew and an interpretation begins to take shape.

Reality is breaking a bit, as Chuck Wendig's Wanderers escalates into a pandemic that cuts a massive swathe through the human population. Oh, and the disease's origin? Bats.

Can you see how that would start to saturate my reality? Also, it was the day after I started reading this book that the first really scary images from China began to appear back in January, and since, well, the arc of the book has been so parallel to the arc of real life (except, thus far, we're on a MUCH smaller scale) that I've had a lot of time to reflect on everything. Interestingly enough, long periods of time reflecting on everything, on all of our existence, leads to the ultimate understanding that Nothing is at the heart of it. Humanity holds itself up by the bootstraps, and although there are more good than bad humans - I think - if things go ugly, it doesn't really matter for the overall organism of the Planet Earth. In fact, it might be better for Her if we were to largely die off. I hope not, because there's a lot of humans I really like - including myself. But then, it's one thing to have an objective view of an extinction event, it's quite another to be able to conduct yourself that way.

Greg Dulli Random Desire Out Today

Greg Dulli's new solo album Random Desire is out today, and as I sit here this morning listening to it, it's fantastic and will no doubt jump start a binge on his various projects. This is the first of Dulli's solo albums I've listened to, and I'm remedying that as well. 2005's Amber Headlights is cued up and ready to roll in just a little bit.

**

Last night while reading Chuck Wendig's Wanderers, the book jumped from a solid three to an all-out five. Page 392, just over the half-way point. Game-changing development I did not see coming. At all. This book is about so many things, such an intricately crafted puzzle that also, reads in an eerie harmonic with events unfolding in China. This real-life effect is a first for me with a novel, and it's adding a layer that is as disconcerting as it is riveting.

I am so utterly infatuated with this novel now and fully intend on reading more of Mr. Wendig's work.

**

Playlist:

Antemasque - Eponymous
The Mars Volta - De-loused in the Comatorium
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror
Drab Majesty - Careless
Myrkur - M


**

Card:

Appropriate, yet a bit harrowing based on all the "Age of Horus" that comes up in a lot of the research I've been doing for Shadow Play Books 2 and 3, particularly ideas I'm playing with from Donald Tyson's essay, Enochian Apocalypse, which I first encountered in Disinformation's Modern Occult Tome Book of Lies, but which is readily available online HERE. I fully realize Tyson's work here is complicated in its presentation - read some valid critiques of it HERE - but the idea of Crowley cracking open the Watch Towers and poisoning humanity's collective unconscious just before the start of WWI is as chilling as it is fascinating.

Hilary Woods - Tongues of Wild Boar

I know nothing about Hilary Woods, but this song and its accompanying video are gorgeous in the creepiest possible way. The album drops March 13th on Sacred Bones - and it brings me a little spark of joy knowing that's a Friday to boot. Pre-order HERE.

**

NCBD:

Nothing new this week that's on my radar, but I still have to grab Trees: Three Fates #5. from two weeks ago (not sure how I keep missing this one or why I never put it on my Pull):

Trees: Three Fates has been a nice mostly dose of Warren Ellis' comics writing, and its helped me postpone getting involved in Batman's Grave on a monthly basis. As I editorialized on the most recent episode of Drinking with Comics, I'll read an independent monthly, but I'm done reading Big Two books in a format constantly interrupted by shitty ads. Plus, admittedly, Ellis always reads better in trade.

I know Trees won't be coming back for a while, but I'm really looking forward to the return of Injection, which I believe I read will be starting up again this year. Injection stands as my favorite Ellis book since Doktor Sleepless, and I miss it dearly.

**

I finished David Cronenberg's Consumed. Outstanding. Five stars - six if it was possible. I really can't wait to see this rendered by the author into a visual, episodic format. There's some serious body horror here, and it runs the game from subtle-but-terrifying to remarkably vulgar. Thus, it should make for a fantastic Cronenberg project.

In the wake of Consumed, I've become a book my friend Jesus gifted me for Christmas, Chuck Wendig's Wanderers:

One-hundred and six pages in and I can't put this book down! I know nothing about the story going in - I hadn't even heard of it before Jesus put it in my hand - and that's definitely making for a great read. Also, its always nice to see a tense or horrific story start with a twist on something so basic - what if your loved one started sleepwalking and would not stop for anything?

**

Playlist:

Steve Moore - Bliss OST
Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST
Zombi - Shape Shift
Umberto - Helpless Spectator
Tangerine Dream - Exit
Godflesh - Post Self
Godflesh - Hymns

Card:

Yesterday's card was XXI: The Universe, and it compelled me to work for an extended period of time on the "Bigger Ideas" of the final book in the Shadow Play series. I've made a pact with myself to not begin writing the second book - which is painstakingly outlined - until I have the entirety of the third volume outlined as well. This has proved challenging, to say the least. My writing sessions, have been long and consisted of reading research material, outlining, story boarding (of a sort), and all kinds of other fun tasks, but nothing that scratches the itch to write. Still, a solid three hours yesterday and I made what feels like serious progress.

Serious. Professional. Driven. All qualities I could stand to aspire to of late; as much fun as this phase of the Shadow Play project is, it's susceptible to distraction. I downloaded a new focus app, called Tomato Timer, and it's helped me get a handle on this a bit. And on that note, off to work!