The final song on Human Impact's new album Gone Dark, which dropped this past Friday, October 4th. Fantastic record and the final two tracks really seal the deal.
I knew this was former Unsane guitarist/vocalist Chris Spencer's band. However, I did not realize that the other members hail from equally awesome groups, with Cop Shoot Cop's Jim Coleman on Electronics, Daughters' drummer Jon Syverson and Eric Cooper from Made Out of Babies. Syverson and Cooper replaced Drummer Phil Puleo and bassist Chris Pravdica, both of whom previously played with Swans.
31 Days of Halloween:
Holy cow. What. A. Fucking. BANGER!
I don't know what to say other than what I always say: I went in 100% blind, you should too!!!
1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer
2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)
3) Loop Track
4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS
5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway
Read:
I pulled out some of my old issues of Craig Miller and John Thorne's Wrapped in Plastic to prep for a new episode of The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror, where we're going to deep-dive David Lynch's Lost Highway.
If you don't know, Wrapped in Plastic was a bi-monthly magazine published by Win-Mill Productions, which also published Spectrum magazine. WIP was published for 13 years, from 1992 - 2005. I came into it around issue 17 in 1995. This was pre-internet for me, and I no longer even remember how I became aware of the publication, although smart money is on Amazing Fantasy Books & Comics - still my Chicagoland shop of choice - as I remember them having it on their shelves, and '95 would have been about the time I began frequenting A-F every week. Issues 28 and 29 hit hot on the heels of Lost Highway's theatrical release, and I probably read these issues half a dozen times each. My idea in pulling them out was to supplement this next viewing with some outside analysis, and I have to say, it added a lot.
Incidentally, WIP went digital a few years ago, and you can now buy a digital bundle on their website HERE.
Playlist:
Moon Wizard - Sirens
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous
The Mystery Lights - Purgatory
Human Impact - Gone Dark
Double Life - Indifferent Stars
Ministry - Hopium for the Masses
System Of A Down - Eponymous
The Mysterines - Afraid of Tomorrows
Various - Lost Highway OST
Wilco - A Ghost is Born
Iggy Pop & James Williamson - Kill City
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Card:
My card today for exploration today is 7 of Cups - Debauch:
I think I've found a better way to do these research entries. I've been treating them like a Pull, in other words random. Here now, though, I think grouping them from here out might be better. I didn't pull this card from the deck today, I specifically chose it to follow the 7 of Swords.
From Crowly's Book of Thoth: "The Seven of Cups... its mode is poison, its goal madness. It represents the delusion of Delirium Tremems and drug addiction." False pleasure.
From the Split Single Sing Each Other's Songs for You, on which King Dude does a very sedate but ultimately charming version Rockin' Back Inside My Heart.
Watch:
Continuing on that Netflix Trailer dump from a few days ago:
"From the creators of Dark." That's all I needed to know to get excited about 1899, which I feel like I've been waiting on for a really long time.
Read:
One of the things I've been meaning to do for a couple years now is to begin re-reading Wrapped in Plastic magazine. This was a Twin Peaks/David Lynch-focused magazine published from roughly 1992 to 2005 by Craig Miller and John Thorne. In the wake of Julee Cruise's death, I decided to pull out issue 61, which has Cruise on the cover and chronicles the 2002 Twin Peaks Fest, which she attended as a guest.
In doing this, I realized that the first issue Cruise appeared in, October 1993's issue 7, was one of the early issues that came out before I knew about the magazine. My collection runs issue 16 through the final issue, June 2005's issue 75, with a reprint of issue #1. I never made it around to filling in those gaps, and obviously, with Cruise's death, the going eBay price is, for the moment, astronomical. That said, issue 7 has a gorgeous cover, and I wanted to post it here:
Wrapped in Plastic was a HUGE part of my life for about ten or eleven years, and I flip through the issues often, however, I haven't really read one in ages.
Playlist:
Julee Cruise - Falling
Julee Cruise - The Voice of Love
Julee Cruise - The Art of Being a Girl
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Ghost - Impera
Battle Tapes - Sweatshop Boys EP
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Mike Doughty - Live At Ken's House
Card:
Dipping once again in Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot for today's reading:
My general definition of the Four of Swords is based on Crowley and Freida Harris' Thoth, which subtitles the card as Truce. That said, I've decided I am not going to look at the Bound Tarot in the 'learned tradition of tarot, but in a more personal interpretation.
Decisions that hang heavy over your head: this card evokes a tough decision that will open the door for indecision to immobilize you. I'm not sure if this has to do with something coming up at work, or our impending trip to Tennessee in about a week's time, when we will begin looking for our new home. Our pre-approval came back as a win yesterday, so with that out of the way, we really just have to get there and try and find something. By the looks of what we're seeing online, our new focus in Clarksville may mean we have to decide between several places, all of which seem fantastic. I can see how that would be a crippling decision.
(Obviously, most if not all of the homes we're seeing now as available on our Real Estate Agent's portal are going to be under contract before we get there, however, what we are seeing is an indication that there are a lot of places that will tug at our heart strings.)
You can buy a set of these amazing cards on Grimm's site HERE.
Calling it now: RTJ4 will be my album of the year. Everything surrounding this one is perfect. The digital form of the album dropped months early on Wednesday, June 3rd. The physical is still slated for September, so you know the boys saw the opportunity to issue their statement when it was most needed, in the midst of the Protests and Riots that surrounded George Floyd's murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. This particular song directly references Floyd's death, leading me to believe RTJ was recording lyrics up until only a few days or possibly even hours before they dropped the album. That is legendary in my eyes.
I've never been a huge fan of the previous three RTJ records. They're good, and I may grow to like them more in the wake of the impact 4 has made on me, but all my qualms are shattered here. The instrumentation and arrangements are amazing; bombastic, interesting, and weird. Catchy to boot. The lyrics, too, are a level up. As are their delivery, there's a new urgency on this album, one that I can only equate to Chuck D of Public Enemy fame, for my money still the best rapper ever.
**
I should offer a small explanation on my continued use of the "Isolation" moniker for these posts. While a large part of the rest of the world have shrugged off Science's warnings about the continued threat of COVID-19, I am not so cavalier. K and I will be continuing to practice isolation for months to come. Especially after the spike we're already seeing in local microcosmic environments, rising numbers it seems most of the population is content to ignore because they have, "had enough."
Whatever. Thin the population - it does nothing but help the planet and those who will remain.
**
New season of Dark arrives in just two short weeks. That means K and I have to re-watch seasons one and two soon. Nothing like the anticipation that comes from being invested in a series that is not only fantastic, but that has been finite and perfectly plotted from the jump.
**
Jesus, talk about watch list overload. Here's a trailer for the new season of Doom Patrol. Luckily, I won't have to waste my time and resubscribe to the DCU app, as I recently signed up for HBOMAX. That said, after subscribing I realized Max does not work on Firestick, so I have to figure something else out. Either way, this is a MUST.
**
I finished reading Laird Barron's Worse Angels (Fantastic) and Cliver Barker's Books of Blood Volume One, and now I'm on to a book my good friend Chris Saunders (DwC, The Horror Vision) gave me recently. Mark Frost's The List of 7. I've known about Frost's Arthur Conan Doyle novels since their publication in the early 90s thanks to Wrapped in Plastic magazine, the David Lynch/Twin Peaks magazine I subscribed to in the wake of discovering Twin Peaks as it aired. I always knew I'd get around to reading this and the sequel, 6 Messiahs - which Chris also gifted me - and now is as good a time as any.
Here's an awesome website entry about this book that I found while looking for a picture of the cover.
Chris's gifts came at a most opportune time, because the Al Jourgensen auto is proving difficult to get through. A lot closer to what I would expect from a Tommy Lee auto, all braggadocio and not a lot of believable substance at this point (granted, I'm still pretty early in the book). Of course, I expect sex and drugs from any rock star auto, but Al spends a lot of time jerking himself off - metaphorically, in the book there's plenty of random folks to do that for him - and I can't help juxtaposing this with Chris Connelly's auto Concrete, Invisible, Bulletproof, and Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock, which I read well over ten years ago now, and which is both eloquent and humble. None of that in Uncle Al's early days thus far, and I can't help but wonder if his depiction of ages 13-16 is this filled with conquests and little else, what will the Ministry years be like? I'll get back to this eventually, but I'll probably have to ramp up my Ministry rotation in order to inspire myself to do so.
**
Playlist:
Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow
David Bowie - Outside
Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
Flying Lotus - You're Dead
Flying Lotus - Flamagra
Jawbox - For Your Own
Old Tower - The Last Eidolon
Black Magic - Alastor
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
NIN - Ghosts VI: Locusts
Underworld - 1992-2012
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
Run the Jewels - RTJ3
Hi-Lo - Poseidon (single)
Kendrick Lamar - Damn.
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
DAF - Die Kleinen Und Die Bösen
Amon Düüll II - Vive La Trance
Makaveli - The 7 Day Theory
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Zombi - Breakthrough and Conquer (pre-release single)
Zombi - Earthscraper (pre-release single)
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
**
Card:
Explosion of energy/creativity. Fits perfectly, as over the last 48 hours, I have doubled down on finishing the book. By the end of the weekend, I'm hoping to be in a position to begin reading it aloud to K - one of my most important QC steps, as well as pass it off to two friends who I pay as beta readers. SOON.
Wow. Didn't expect to see this. Very cool to see two very different icons come together to perform the music of a third.
**
I fell down a youtube rabbit hole after clicking on this video of David Lynch directing the infamous "Gotta Light?" scene from Twin Peaks: The Return. There's some really great supplemental Lynch material that came up based on viewing this one. I'm not sure how the algorithm works, so I'm not sure if you'll get the same videos I did, but my trip was both wonderful and strange...
Speaking of Lynch, I realized recently that the Wrapped in Plastic fanzine I subscribed to throughout the 90s and into the early 00s now has every issue available in ebook format. Read about it and link to buy HERE. John Thorne and Craig Miller's studious magazine is one hundred percent worth your time if you're a fan.
**
I took a break from Clive Barker's Books of Blood to blow through Sarah Lotz's The White Road. HIGHLY recommended. I literally blew through this one in a day.
The novel deals with the Third Man Phenomenon in and around extreme caving and climbing scenarios. It's horror, but it's Earthy and believable while still coming across visceral and haunting. I loved it.
**
The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
David Bowie - Outside
David Bowie - Black Star
L7 - Bricks Are Heavy
Body Count - Carnivore
Body Count - Cop Killer (Anti-Single)
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
NIN - Bad Witch
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Lustmord - Hobart
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
**
Solid ground again after an anxiety-ridden couple days waiting for a COVID test result that, thankfully, came back negative. Sinus infection, I've never been so happy to see you!
