I don't even remember how I discovered Black Prism this past week, but I woke up ridiculously early this morning and while scrolling through Apple Music for something to listen to while finishing Joe Hill's novella "Loaded" - scary shit, that - I landed on this and realized I had not listened to it yet. Forty-Seven minutes later I was starting back at track one again.
Released independently on Christmas days, 2016, Black Prism's eponymous debut full-length album is a tight little chunk of Sabbath-influenced, down-tempo Stoner/Doom that, while that influence is evident from the opening track, quickly finds its own unique footing in the annals of the Iommi-verse that has blossomed in the past ten years or so.
You can buy the digital album on Black Prism's Bandcamp HERE, or, if you're really lucky, you can track down a moderately priced copy of their 2013 7" Satan's Country that was released on Easy Rider Records, before they changed their name to Riding Easy Records. Here's the video for that one, and it's a super cool throwback to those Lo-fi Satanic Panic images that line the shift of the 1960's Free Love movement into something much darker and more mysterious:
I can only dream of a future double-bill where Black Prism opens for Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats; the two would be perfect touring together.
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Well, my grandiose plans to plow through the entire season of Netflix's new live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation were ambitious, to say the least. Got home from work later than anticipated and ended up taking a much-need nap before meeting some friends at Torrance, CA's Monkish brewery for a few beers, so by the time we returned home and fired up the tube, the 50-minute pilot was all I had in me before I fell asleep. But so far, I really like what I've seen.
Bebop is holy to me; I realized recently that it's probably my second favorite show of all time, right behind Twin Peaks. So I should be one of those people who get turned off by the liberties of adapting something like this into "real life." But no, I dug the pilot and can't wait to go back for me.
Here's the ending credit theme of the original show:
Oh yeah: Monkish? That was our first time there and hot damn, all those folks who have sung their praises as the best brewery in Southern California were not lying. I had the Dark and Mild Dark British Ale, and it is one for the books. I'll be heading back sooner rather than later. Maybe tonight, after a bunch of us spill out of a 7:00 PM showing of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which I've surprised myself by being extremely excited to see,
Playlist:
The Ocean - Fluxion
Underworld - 1992-2002
Deee-Lite - Dewdrops in the Garden
Deee-Lite - Groove is in the Heart (single)
Deee-Lite - Call Me Remix (single)
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
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Finishing (for now) one project opens a path to a new journey. Or maybe just a renewed one.
A friend of mine posted about Bnny's new album Everything a few days ago. I'd never heard of this artist, so I took a little stroll into her music and wow. Blown away. I spend a lot of my time pretty keyed up on various incarnations of Metal these days - it's just what gets me through the days. But it's always good to counterbalance the chaos with some downtempo stuff, especially when it's this good and desert-flavored.
As a strange aside, I messaged my cousin Charles last night to see if he'd heard this album and it turns out this was his upstairs neighbor at one point. I love those kinds of synchronicities.
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I don't know if this movie looks good or bad, hard to tell from this trailer. However, it's got one hell of an awesome-looking monster, so I'm in and will remain cautiously optimistic. Honestly, it's the guys in the movie that look like they might take it down a notch or two for me. Why is it that, in the 80s and even into the 90s, action actors could pull off military or tough-as-nails roles without coming off like douche bros, but now, that's almost always the case? What we need to be asking ourselves as a society is, how do we fix that?
Playlist:
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Jerry Cantrell - Brighten
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto - Devil Music, Vol. 1
Slayer - Live Undead/Haunting the Chapel
Motörhead - Bastards
The Damage Manual - Limited Edition
Crystal Castles - (III)
Bnny - Everything
Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch - Censor OST
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A reminder that movement and change are the antidote for stagnation.
Heaven is an Incubator recently posted about the upcoming From Without EP that drops in January (pre-order HERE). I'd never heard of the band, and when I clicked over and heard the 1-2 of Life Melts Away that opens From Within, well, I was totally sold.
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So I made it through Mike Flanagan's Midnight Mass. Not an easy task until the last three episodes, which ended up really coming through and making the rest of the show worthwhile. Not that it's terrible, but a lot of the 'aging' make-up used is pretty bad, and the lead character is just pointless and annoying. I mean, really. He ultimately serves no purpose that could not have been collapsed into another character. Ah well, in the end, I really dug the juxtaposition of religion and the supernatural, so it's a recommendation, although I can pretty safely say I'll never watch this one again.
Next? Castle Rock! I've been meaning to watch this for, well, years now, and I'm finally doing it. Three episodes into Season One and I'm digging it. Fantastic cast. Here's the trailer:
I've read a pretty fair amount of Stephen King, but not enough to deftly spot every reference in this one, so I'm gingerly taking mental notes and will look up all the references afterward. The obvious one here is Shawshank Prison, which I didn't realize played such a big part in this first season's story. Very cool.
Playlist:
Anthrax - Among the Living
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Bnny - Everything
Hotel Decor - Could It Take Me Any Longer EP
The Fixx - Reach the Beach
Slayer - Decade of Aggression
Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees
Zetra - From Within
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A reminder that methodical approaches to projects and problems are the way to go. Timely, as I have one big, open-loop issue in my life right now - the eventual move - and on any given day, it feels over-fucking-whelming.
My friend Dave recently hit me up with a link to his group Spizm's new track, B4uDie. Wow. Dave's a pretty incredible drummer - weird that I know two guys named Dave in Chicago that are both incredibly talented on the skins - and a lot of what I've heard him do before was instrumental, often a super unique fusion of jazz and jungle. Those styles are present on this new track, but Dave has taken to adding vocals and they just blew me right the fuck away. Check out Spizm's Bandcamp HERE, and if you ever get the chance to see them live, take it. Just the way Dave plays the hi-hat is enough to make me gawk in wonder.
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I have tickets to see Julia Ducournau's Titane tonight at a theatre near my work. Wheew - thought I'd missed this one. Can't wait. I know I've posted this trailer here a few times, however, I'm posting it again. I get such a strong Cronenberg Crash vibe from this, but amped up, like Crash on Methamphetamine. Really looking forward to this one.
Also, anyone interested in hearing what I thought of Lamb, hold tight. Ray and I are hooking back up with Seattle University Professor of Film Studies John Trafton to do an episode that discusses both of these this coming Wednesday, so it'll be available to stream the following Tuesday.
31 Days of Halloween:
1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)
2) The Mutilator
3) Demons
4) Vortex
5) Possession
6) The Black Phone
7) Slumber Party Massacre
8) Antlers
9) No One Gets Out Alive
10) A Nightmare on Elm Street '84
11) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010
12) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
13) Satan Hates You
14) Night of the Demons
15) Lamb
16) The Company of Wolves
17) There's Someone in the House
18) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Playlist:
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto
White Zombie - Astro Creep 2000
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Electric Youth and Pilot Priest - Come True OST
Waxwork Records - House of Waxwork Issue #1
Vreid - Wild North West
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Slowly starting to work out a new system for writing, as I've been out of the loop and pretty non-productive since my trip.
Heard this the other day and it sent me down a Gesaffelstein rabbit hole. Love this track, as well as pretty much everything I've heard from this artist since. Here's the Gesaffelstein Bandcamp - check it out!
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Last night, K and I watched the first two episodes of the new American Horror Story. The Season is dubbed "Double Feature," however, the first two episodes - part of what I'm assuming is the first feature and will comprise half of the new season - are titled American Horror Story: Red Tide.
I've always maintained that AHS is a mixed bag. While I genuinely like the seasons I've watched - Murder House, Asylum, Hotel, Roanoke and 1984 - all of those except Roanoke and 1984 suffer from being too long. One of the things about Roanoke that blew me away was that, after all the previous seasons clocking in with 12 -13 episodes a piece, Roanoke went 10 and finished cleanly, without dangling plotlines hanging around, needing cleaning up after the major arcs closed. I'm hoping the double feature format will mean both of the stories that will populate this new Season will at worst leave me wanting more.
So, Red Tide is Vampires, and I have to say, the explanation they give for the show's reinvention of the fictional species is possibly my favorite EVER. Yeah, if what Even Peters's character told Finn Wittrock's characters is true, this is some serious outside-the-box thinking on an iconic horror creature that has, frankly, been pretty tired for some time now (with a few exceptions peppering the last decade).
Can't wait for more!
Playlist:
The Rolling Stones - It's Only Rock 'N' Roll
The Rolling Stones, Nicky Hopkins and Ry Cooder - Jamming w/ Edward
Discovering Black Mare last week has sent me into a spiral with Sera Timms music. Following my own advice and clicking on that Bandcamp link for 2020's Death Magick Mother, I sat completely transfixed by the record yesterday in the wee hours of the morning. This record has an extremely ethereal quality. I can hear Pornography-era Cure, Cocteau Twins, and contemporaries, L.A.-based Chasm, but the space created within the walls of this aural shrine are all Timms's own. Turning this one on feels like stepping into an hour-long fog bank. Through the obfuscation, you see outlines of landmarks you think you recognize, except they're all wrong, and give you an immediate impulse to be at the ready.
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A few weeks back, my cousin, Charles told me about the Youtube channel Twin Perfect's video, "Twin Peaks Actually Explained (No, Really)." I'd seen this floating around in my feed and ignored it. Despite the fact that I often create or take part in videos similar to this - well, NO video is similar to this one - I rarely watch them, and I certainly go out of my way to avoid any video that claims to explain any movies or shows I dig, most especially Peaks. However, Charles told me enough to get me interested, and if you'll recall, there was one other Twin Peaks Explanation video I took to heart a year or so ago - Wow Lynch Wow's "Was Mr. C Victorious?" This new video, then, wasn't exactly unprecedented. What was unprecedented was the fact that, after watching about the first twenty minutes of this 4 hour+ video, I truly believed in my heart of hearts that holy F'ing shite - this guy COMPLETELY EXPLAINS TWIN PEAKS. It's not what you think it's going to be, it's far better. I cannot recommend this one enough unless you do not want to have the show explained.
Seriously, without spoiling anything, when you get to the part about what the light shining on Laura Palmer's face at the end of FWWM means, you'll know if you're on board or not.
Playlist:
Black Mare - Death Magick Mother
Metallica - Seek and Destroy (single)
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Faith No More - The Real Thing
King Woman - Celestial Blues
Windhand - Eternal Return
Conan - Monnos
Guns N' Roses - ABSURD (wow, this is awful)
Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual
The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs - Original Series Soundtrack
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Okay, so what am I battling here? I feel like most everything is in line.
A recent discovery about which I know very little other than the fact that I really dig this album. Black Mare's Bandcamp is HERE, and there still appear to be vinyl copies of her 2020 record Death Magick Mother.
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I saw two huge movies this weekend and the results are not what I expected at all. First up, David Lowery's The Green Knight
From my Letterbxd review:"Gorgeous. A must on a big screen. Andrew Droz Palermo deserves so many awards. There are some technical issues I had with the way it’s written and directed, as well as a few scenes that felt like missteps - to quote Peter Griffin, “the movie insists upon itself” - but overall this is a beautiful attempt at Pure Cinema, which can NEVER be a bad thing."
Next, James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, which I would have been perfectly content to - just like the first one - never watch until a confluence of events made me curious enough to try.
The result? Possibly my favorite comic book movie ever. Wow. Just wow.
Playlist:
Pilot Priest and Electric Youth - Come True OST
The Plimsouls - Everywhere At Once
King Woman - Celestial Blues
Bloodslide - How Glad I Am (single)
Yob- Clearing the Path to Ascend
Sacred Reich - Independent
College - Teenage Color EP
Polica - Give You the Ghost
David Lee Roth - Apple Music Essentials
Windhand - Soma
Droids Attack - Sci-Fi or Die
Black Mare - Field of the Host
Dead Milkmen - Welcome to the End of the World
The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
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The Alchemical marriage - recognizing disparate and/or complementary elements and bringing them together to marry their strengths in a way that supports the great work. That's kind of a hoighty toighty, old school Aleister Crowley interpretation - High Magick and all that rigamarole, but it applies. I'm seeking to write an extremely short story for submission to an anthology. Brevity is definitely not where my overall strength in writing lies. However, I'm excellent at slicing and dicing in the edit. So... edit in the head, before the fingers hit the keys.
Fell back into Chicago's super underrated industrial grindcore masters Plague Bringer yesterday. This band should be so much more well-known in the metal/industrial community than they are. There's literally nothing I can think of that batters me like this album does. From the drawing of breath that opens the first track, I smile and prepare to be undone.
While looking around on their Bandcamp for any sign of recent activity (none), I discovered that in 2017 they released this "Lara Flynn Bringer' shirt and now I am extremely sad that it's sold out, there are none I could find on ebay or etsy, and I'm shit out of luck acquiring one.
Maybe Plague Bringer will resurface and do another run of it. Maybe. In the meantime, if you dig this kind of sonic madness, PB's Bandcamp is HERE.
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After hearing about Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz's 1973 underrated Horror film Messiah of Evil for the first time back on the old Shockwaves podcast a couple years ago, I started to look around for where to watch the film. The title alone had me, along with the fact that I couldn't remember ever hearing of it before. Back when I was cutting my teeth and really getting into the genre twenty years ago, the two friends who indoctrinated my interest and made it an obsession both had extensive film collections, so the fact that, between the two of them, I don't think either ever mentioned it surprised me. Turns out that's because the film wasn't released on DVD until 2009. That brief mention on Shockwaves sent me into a tizzy trying to track down a streaming service that featured the film. No dice, until two years ago I found it on Prime.
Score, I thought. Only no, no score at all. I started the film and turned it off after only a few minutes because, whatever source the streaming giant culled the film from, the picture quality was unwatchable. Maybe my relatively recent conversion to the Cult of Blu Ray at the time - something I swore for years I would never do - had spoiled me. I've become a bit of a stickler for clean picture transfers, and this one wasn't even what I'd call weak. It was awful. This prejudice is not a bad thing at all, I realize now, except that, for Messiah of Evil, it meant I would have to wait.
Fast forward to last week when I fired up Shudder and found that not only had they added Messiah of Evil, but the picture quality is gorgeous! So after a few false starts over the last five days or so, I finally watched the film last night. I was not disappointed.
First, I don't know if it's just the similarities between Phillan Bishops's electronic score for the film and Carl Zittrer's for another under-seen film from the 70s I adore, Bob Clark's inimitable Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, but Messiah of Evil's score made me warm to the film immediately. Add to that the fantastic settings - most especially our heroine Arletty's missing father's home on the beach, the design behind which was created by artists Jack Fisk and Joan Mocine, the former of which would go on to work with David Lynch on Mulholland Drive and Paul Thomas Anderson on There Will Be Blood and The Master, and I could not take my eyes off the screen. If you read this blog, you'll know how important both Lynch and PTA are to me, so you can imagine what a harmonic charge I felt realizing there was precedent here that fit with my own personal film aesthetic.
There is not a lot of information about Messiah of Evil out there on the internet. However, in regard to the design and look of the film, I found what I feel is the holy grail over on Dr. John Trafton's website. His article Messiah of Evil: Film and the Influence of L.A. Pop Art absolutely blew me away. Mr. Trafton's wealth of knowledge on not only Los Angeles' history, but Film, Pop Art and the overall social fabric of the City of Angeles post-1940 makes for fantastic reading. I can't recommend this enough, whether you want a deep-dive into Messiah of Evil, or just an interesting read that focuses on Art can influence Cinema; you can find the article HERE.
Messiah of Evil has a real work-with-what we have vibe; Katz and Huyck smartly use a lot of California's most attractive and, when shot right, surreal asset: the beach. The sound of the waves is nearly omnipresent here, and if you've ever stayed in a town where that is indeed the major sonic background, you'll know it makes for a heightened, slightly surreal experience. The constant sound of the ocean seems to work in contrast to the everyday world we humans have made for ourselves, especially here in LaLaLand where commerce is god. This makes sense when you think about it; the ocean has always been a transcendent experience for me because to sit on the beach and quietly listen to the waves, you're literally sitting on the edge of humanity's world, listening to the planet breathe. In other words, this is one of the few experiences available to us where humanity is dwarfed by the larger organism that birthed us: the Earth.
It's worth mentioning that this oceanic setting firmly establishes Messiah of Evil in a sub-genre I have recently become quite enamored with, the aptly named Seaside Horror. I guess I've always been mildly aware of the feel of this genre-within-a-genre, however, it wasn't until Joe Bob Briggs showed both Dead and Buried and Humanoids from the Deep on his Last Drive-In double feature this past season that I fell in love with both and gained an understanding of the Seaside Horror aesthetic as a style for which many filmmakers have contributed entries. The idea of a double or triple feature with Messiah and either or both of these films, or John Carpenter's The Fog or even Dan Gildark's Cthulhu makes me nearly giddy with excitement. Hell, perhaps I should look into organizing a Seaside Horror Marathon?
Finally, another aspect of this film I found fit its tone perfectly was the Night of the Living Dead references in regard to its ghouls. Messiah seems to split the difference between zombies and vampires, which is cool because I don't know how much of either creature I need to see again at the moment. Mr. Trafton talks at length about this in the piece I linked to above, so I'll just implore you to go read what he has to say, while I wrap up this rather lengthy post and get on with working on the sequel to Shadow Play.
Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest
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In some respects, I have been listening to my own personal dogma and not to my intuition. This is a nice reminder to be aware of that. We all need help thinking outside the paradigms we draw up for ourselves.
I have become quite enamored of late with Denmark's Black Metal auteurs Sunken and their 2020 album Livslede. The entire album is quite a deep ride; there are so many textures here, beginning with what you might call a more traditional, second-wave Black Metal approach and then slowly mutating into a swirling mass of orchestrated, melodic chaos. This is beautiful brutality, which is serendipitous since my Beautiful Brutality (and Horror Vision) podcast cohost her_black_wings is the one who turned me onto Sunken in the first place.
I finally sat down and watched Billy Senese's The Dead Center. Wow. I really dug this one quite a bit. Shane Carruth leads a cast that all turn in fantastic performances, and the editing creates a kind of spiraling sense of unease that climaxes with a supremely nihilistic ending.
This one is included with Prime at the moment, so if you're in the mood for something that is both familiar and unique, give it a whirl.
Playlist:
Agnes Obel - Aventine
16 Horsepower - Hoarse
King Woman - Celestial Blues (pre-release singles)
This past weekend I stumbled on the band Voyag3r. Never heard of these guys before, and I think Apple Music did me a solid by rotating Lord of Doom Fortress in right after a Steve Moore track. I'm still getting used to this new update Apple has that makes their service a bit more like Spotify by continuing to play music after whatever album you're listening to ends. I both like and dislike this feature, but in this case, definite mark in the "Pro" column, because as I said, I don't know that I'd ever have heard Voyag3r otherwise.
Listen to the outro of this track. It's gorgeous. After it ended, I listened to the entire record and absolutely loved it, so I'm on board. LOVE the use of guitars with the synths, it really makes these guys stand out from a lot of the other synthwave stuff out there. You can head over to Voyag3r's Bandcamp HERE and check out their music, or dial them up on your favorite streaming service.
So F*&king down.
Playlist:
SURVIVE - Mnq026
Blood Spore - Fungal Warfare Upon All Life
György Ligeti - Essentials
John Carpenter - Lost Themes III: Alive After Death
16 - Dream Squasher
Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow: Live at CBGB
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Prioritizing Earthly concerns, or in layman's terms, starting to save $$$ again. I did really good last year, but some unexpected car maintenance set me back last month. No biggie - gotta keep the machine running, right? Anyway, April was that rare bird where I had three paychecks in 30 days, so this is a reminder to roll into May feeding my savings account again. Can't keep paying rent forever, even in LALA Land.
I had never heard Small Black before Heaven Is An Incubator posted about their upcoming album Cheap Dreams one day last week. Seeing the album cover, I KNEW this would be awesome, and it is. You can pre-order Cheap Dreams from Small Black's Bandcamp HERE; looks like there are a few copies of the 'Red Rain' variant left for the vinyl. "Tampa" is the B-side from lead single "Duplex", and both are killer tracks. And this album cover is haunting!
I just want to walk into that scene and disappear.
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We finished the first season of CBS's Evil on Netflix and here I am, thinking I can just subscribe to CBS All Access and see the second season, and WHOAH! Not out yet!
WTF?!?
For a procedural, this show is NUTS, and it has some genuinely scary AF moments and Michael Emerson gives Paul Reiser's Burke from Aliens a run for his money in the slimy scumf&ck department.
Playlist:
Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss
Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon (pre-release single)
Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
Small Black - Duplex Single
The Bangles - Different Light
Credence Clearwater Revival - Eponymous
Drab Majesty - Careless
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Sudden change. I feel a touch hesitant about this.
Just from the opening strains of the keyboard, I want to listen to this song SO BAD. I mean - new Besnard Lakes! However, I already try to adhere to very limited ingestion of advance tracks from my favorite bands' records before I can hear the track in the context of the entire album, but with this new Lakes record that's dropping on The Besnard Lakes Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings - which according to the write-up on the band's Bandcamp is designed as one continuous cycle of songs - it's really hard. Because I want this one to wash over me as an entire expression.
From the Bandcamp:
"The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings honors the very essence of punk rock: the notion that a band needs only be relevant to itself. At last, the Besnard Lakes have crafted a continuous long-form suite: nine tracks that could be listened together as one, like Spiritualized's Lazer Guided Melodies or even Dark Side of the Moon, overflowing with melody and harmony, drone and dazzle, the group's own unique weather."
The digital is out out January 19th, and pre-order for the GORGEOUS physical album is at the Lake's Bandcamp HERE.
Also, I'm very pleased to see the return to form on the album's title. I know the band had previously expressed concern people would get sick of the format, but I for one, love it. However, it also makes me wonder if this is the final album from the Lakes. Let's hope not.
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I watched Bea Grant's 12 Hour Shift last night. WOW! Fantastic dark comedy. Go HERE for a short, spoiler-free Letterboxd review and the trailer. This is currently a $6.99 rental on Prime and absolutely worth your hard-earned money.
Vólan is a band from Moscow I'd never heard of until this morning when this live session from Audio Tree popped up on my youtube feed. Pretty awesome! You can hit their Bandcamp HERE for more music and merch!
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I'm a pretty big fan of Robert S. Wilson's Nightscape Press, and as such I backed their recent Kickstarter HERE. I'd actually meant to post about this earlier, but there's still twelve days left, and even fully funded, this is absolutely worth contributing to. Nightscape is a fantastic and fully independent publisher, and my hope is they will be around for many years to come.
Previously, I've mentioned Nightscape's brilliant Ashes and Entropy anthology - easily one of the best books I read last year. I also recently picked up Dark and Distant Voices, Nightscape's short story collection by Tim Waggoner. I'm only one story in - ALL my pleasure reading is on hold as I work on final edits of two different versions of my forthcoming novel (I'll explain that at some other point). The point is, Mr. Wilson runs a top shelf company who deserve our support.
**
Playlist:
The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
Aerosmith - Pump
Motörhead - 1916
Nirvana - Nevermind
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Urge Overkill - Saturation
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New song from Austin's Exhalants. For my money, these guys are the closest band I know of to that old school Jesus Lizard vibe I love so much. I ordered their self-titled debut last year from bandcamp and love it, now it would seem we have a new record coming soon. Can't wait.
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NCBD:
Didn't 22 just hit the stands last week? Looks like there was one in the queue when the Diamond hiatus happened, so we're getting an extra treat here on the backend. Very nice.
I KNEW IT! I knew that zero issue for Transformers '84 that Simon Furman and Guido Guidi did last year would lead to a series. SO excited. I don't read any other title associated with this beloved childhood franchise, but if Furman writes it, I am there! And look at that cover - does anyone ever get sick of watching Starscream and Megatron try and kill one another? I know I don't.
Love this cover too! This series continues to blow me away with its new direction, so I'm psyched to have 106 come in so close to 105.
**
Playlist:
Andrea Moscianese and Francesco Zampaglione - Tulpa OST
Iggy Pop - Lust For Life
Exhalants - Band (single)
Exhalants - Eponymous
Brainiac - Bonsai Superstar
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
War on Women - Capture the Flag
Available July 3rd. Buy it on Bandcamp, and Ms. Rundle will receive all the proceeds, as 7/03/20 is another 'no fees' day for artists.
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It's been about five or six years since I last listened to The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, but I've been meaning to revisit it for some time now. I'm starting with Episode 37: The Shunned House, because honestly, this story came up elsewhere and I have no recollection of ever reading it.
This Lovecraft Amnesia isn't new; I began reading his work circa '92 or '93, when lyrical nods from Heavy Metal bands sent me in search of his work. At that time, it was nearly impossible to find Lovecraft's work in conventional bookstores - this predates Borders - and I ended up buying a copy of The Lurker At the Threshold at a local Record Swap store in Tinely Park, Il.
The shop had a kind of alternative press literary section, not very big at all and filled with titles like The Anarchist's Cookbook, and tomes written about the cinematic underground of Japan. Amidst those titles I came across Lurker, bought it, and promptly read it. It was't until years later I learned this was not a Lovecraft story proper - he'd helped initiate it - but was actually penned by his friend August Derleth, who functioned as a sort of understudy to H.P., eventually opening Arkham House Publishing after his mentor's death. Anyway, Del Rey began publishing cool paperback editions of Lovecraft's work shortly after that - the ones with the Michael Whelan covers - and that was how I initially read what I assumed was all Lovecraft's work. A lot of those stories didn't stick though, so that as years have passed, whenever I go back to them, it's always like I'm discovering them for the first time. After hearing a description of the climactic moments of The Shunned House though, I'm pretty sure I missed this one. I figured I'd brush up with the podcast, and dig into the story this weekend.
If you're a Lovecraft fan, The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast is absolutely worth your time. Also, Chad Fifer and Chris Lackey's wonderful analytical conversations are both fascinating and oddly soothing, making them possibly my favorite podcast hosts ever.
**
Playlist:
Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery
RY X - Unfurl
House of Pain - Same As It Ever Was
Orville Peck - Show Pony EP (pre-release tracks)
Andy Fosberry - Death Ship 2047
Ry X - Thunder (single)
Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST
Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather
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The fiery aspect of Earth, which can be dangerous if not controlled. I think this is a warning in regards to the story I'm editing at the moment, which is giving me a bit of trouble, as it has off and on for well over a year now.
Last Friday, seminal LA punk rock group X released their first album with the all-original line-up in, well, I don't really know how long, but a pretty damn long time! Especially good news is the fact that founding guitarist Billy Zoom has conquered his health problems and returned to the fold. I saw X live (with Dwight Yokam!) five or six years ago and Billy was not present. They were great, but it's just not the same without that man.
A couple of days ago I finally watched V/H/S/2 and V/H/S: Viral. Part 2 is more or less fantastic, the Indonesian segment being one of the scariest things I've seen in a while. Viral is, as several friends warned me, not all that great. The one segment I absolutely loved though was "Bonestorm," and turned out to have been done by Benson and Moorhead, the guys responsible for Resolution and The Endless, which I talked about recently in these pages.
I finished Preston Fassel's fantastic novel Our Lady of the Inferno and have moved on to Clive Barker's Damnation Game and Al Jourgensen's autobiography Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen, the latter of which Mr. Brown lent me months ago and I've been chomping at the bit to read since.. I'm not huge on reading multiple books at a time, but I'm stumbling through the last three chapters of the novel I'm editing/re-tooling, and when I write, I tend to need to be reading fiction at the same time. I actually consider this part of the writing process. I don't punch-in and out for it, like I do with actual writing writing (I use two apps, ATracker PRO and Focus Keeper), but I recognize that it's most definitely an integral part of my process. That said, Jourgensen's biography is conversational, not prosaic like Juan F. Thompson's Stories I Tell Myself, thus it's not fitting the bill. So I'm splitting my time, treating Uncle Al's book like having a beer, and Barker's like sharpening my craft.
The Damnation Game is actually one I read long ago, back when I first discovered Barker's work in the early 90s. I believe I was a Sophomore or Junior in High School when I checked The Great and Secret Show out of the library. That one blew my mind - still meaning to re-read it and hit the sequel Eversville - and I went straight into The Books of Blood and subsequently The Damnation Game afterward. Funny thing, although I remember quite a bit of Great and Secret and Books of Blood, but I remember next to nothing about Damnation. Which is cool, because already, only a handful of pages in, and Barker's sumptuous prose has already had a massive effect on me.
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Cocksure - Operation C.O.C.K.S.U.R.E.
X - Alphabetland
X - Under the Big Black Sun
The Neighbourhood - I Love You.
The Neighbourhood - Wiped Out
Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion
Void King - There Is Nothing
I've been digging into Revocation's back catalogue on my writing sessions, and this FNM cover popped up at the end of 2011's Chaos of Forms. Great album, great cover! My writing music has been an example of the pendulum effect I complain about everywhere else in life; if I told you to consider Revocation and Lustmord as two nodes on the graph, you'd get the idea, yeah? It makes for some interesting ideas, one of which pretty much just changed the entire course of the third act for the better! Now I'm chasing that down and preparing for the final edit, which seems a bit like the ghost house that I relentless walk toward but never achieve. I have faith, though. Faith, and a killer work ethic. And music like this to keep me properly motivated (That and gallons and gallons of coffee, which I think is starting to fuck with my nervous system).
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Bandcamp did another Artist Relief day this past Friday. I snagged the new, Digital Cocksure EP and a vinyl copy of their 2014 debut T.V.M.A.L.S.V., along with a copy of a single the Living Nudes released a while ago. I paid more for all three than asked for, because, while I didn't have a lot of money to throw at all the independent artists I love, I had some, and wanted to make it go as far as possible for the artists, not my collection.
So much new music this past week because of the Bandcamp relief, it was hard to narrow things down. I think I did pretty good, though.
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After missing it at last year's Beyondfest, I finally got around to watching Travis Stevens' Girl on the Third Floor. I dug this one quite a bit; reminded me a lot of a kind of cross between American Horror Story and The Shining.
Dark Sky films can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes.
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Playlist:
Revocation: Chaos of Forms
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
Cocksure - T.V.M.A.L.S.V.
Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion
Void King - Barren Dominion
Man Man - Dream Hunting in the In-Between
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Lustmord - Hobart
Klangkarussell & GIVVEN - Ghostkeeper
A track from their Part Time Punks Session Cassette floated to the top of my youtube channels this morning, and in listening to it, I realized glorious LA post punk band Second Still released a full-length record last year that I somehow totally missed! Time to remedy that - Violet Phase is available on the band's Bandcamp HERE, although as I write this I see all physical versions of the album are sold out. In the meantime, here's the track that started this morning's odyssey.
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I'm pretty damn happy to still have a job, so I'm helping out in any way I can. We've been rotating shorter hours, and as such, I ended up with yesterday off. Here's the watchlist:
Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy - OST
Dean Hurley - Anthology Resource Vol. II: Philosophy of Beyond
Killing Joke - Night Time
David Lynch - Crazy Clown Time
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Childish Gambino - because the internet
Second Still - Violet Phase
White Lung - Paradise
Dio - Lock Up the Wolves
Living Nudes is the bedroom brainchild of the man who runs Heavenisanincubator. Yesterday, I saw a tweet that they'd released a new track titled - appropriately enough - Growing Global Pandemic Got Me Down. It's awesome. Go HERE to check it out, and if you dig, it's set up for a "name your price" purchase. Can't beat that.
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The vocal harmonies that make up the center piece of this new Living Nudes track haunted me all day, and seemed to echo through my mind during the night, mixing with images from the second episode of HBO's Chernobyl, our perhaps foolishly chosen before-bed watch last night.
The resonance this show has with our own current moment is terrifying. World leaders telling people everything is fine when it certainly is not, sealing potentially millions of people's fates in a terrifying refusal to own up to a situation unlike any the planet has ever seen before. In watching this and now re-reading reports on the Chernobyl crisis, we're all lucky those officials in 1986 didn't destroy life on the entire planet.
Mindful Habitation:
Speaking of mass human destruction, you have to ask: will the slow-to-start response by certain world leaders during today's crisis finish what the Soviet's began? Only time will tell, but with the Orwellian nature of our world seemingly proved by captain hairdo's surge in approval ratings, well, maybe we fucking deserve it, eh? Not really, but an objective, non-human look at things definitely makes it easy to understand why this is happening. I mean, if you refuse to hold the lessons of the past in your head and your heart, how can your future be any different? Or is it the people making the decisions just don't care, because they have advantages most of us don't?
Yeah, I'm leaning toward door number two as well. But then, I'm also trying to stay positive. The peak is coming folks. Stay in your homes...
One of the funniest things I've seen in years. Thanks to Jonathan Grimm for sending it my way. If you need a pick-me-up, might I suggest after hitting Living Nudes' Bandcamp, you stop by his shop and browse all the damn awesome stuff he has for sale with his inimitable art adorning?
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Playlist:
Wire - Pink Flag
David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World
Foster the People - Torches
Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Pearl Jam - Gigaton
Childish Gambino - 3.15.20
Childish Gambino - because the internet
Living Nudes - Growing Global Pandemic Got Me Down
Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters
Steve Lynch - Let Us Prey
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Card:
From the Grimoire: "A new project or a sudden change in material fortune/status." Playing this one close to the chest so as not to tempt the Universe to smack me upside the back of the head.
Caught this on Michael Stock's Part Time Punks on KXLU this past Thursday (there's a link via KXLU that archives the playlist for all Michael's shows HERE). Love it. Fracture is from the Fracture/Tied single on Warp Records. You can also find and support Seefeel through other releases available on their Bandcamp.
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Seven episodes into HBO's The Outsider, and it has a hold of me good. Fantastic show that very much scratches the itch left over from True Detective Season One.
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As more and more public events are cancelled, it was inevitable the upcoming Deafheaven tour got postponed. Mr. Brown pointed me HERE, where the band is selling what was supposed to be their tour merch, as well as taking pre-orders for the double live album that was supposed to be recorded over two nights in Chicago, but will now be recorded live in-studio. As the craziness increases, you're going to see a lot of messages from independent artists about helping to support them and/or others like them. Take this seriously. I've always considered myself a 'patron' of the arts, especially as we've moved into such a decentralized paradigm for creating and distributing said arts. Now with this, bands who would have made the bulk of their income touring - because even a band like Deafheaven isn't being supported by their label enough for its individual members to actually exist in the real world - are going to be effectively cut off at the knees. You can't support everyone, but please, support those you can.
Here's one of the older Deafheaven songs I'm hoping ends up on the double live, which titled 10 Years Gone, I'm assuming is a career-to-this-point retrospective:
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Playlist:
Human Impact - Eponymous
Seefeel - Fracture/Tied (Single)
Various Artists - The Void OST
Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Deafheaven - Roads to Judah
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Card:
That's a bit disturbing in light of recent events. Or, I can interpret it as the hot streak I'm using all the media induced 'pandemic' paranoia to fuel re-writing something I will be releasing in a few months.
