JARV IS - House Music All Night Long

Apparently Jarvis Cocker is now JARV IS, and the new album Beyond the Pale is out May 1st on Rough Trade. Pre-Order HERE.

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NCBD was a huge one yesterday, simply because I picked up a handful of new titles I'd decided to add to my pull over at The Atomic Basement. The split that occurred between my Drinking w/ Comics co-host Mike and The Comic Bug co-owner Jun - both great guys - left me in a bit of a funk. The Bug is literally walking distance from my crib, and Jun is a friend of mine. So while I of course want to support Mike's new venture, I didn't want to do it at Jun's expense. Thus, I've added a handful of titles to my monthly pull and pretty much set an even balance at both stores. Here's what I grabbed at The Atomic Basement this week:

I'm reminded of Black Monday Murders, and hope that this undertaking isn't taking place instead of a continuation of that book. Regardless, insanely vast opening to what seems like it might be a small story in a massive world.

No idea where this is going, but it's as creepy as it is gorgeous.

I'm not sure how long these Joe Hill books are running, but so far, I'm really digging Daphne Byrne, so I figured I'd give Low Low Woods a chance as well.

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Two episodes into Alex Garland's new Hulu/FX series Devs and it's already established itself as a powerhouse; something that could totally change the Medium. AND - it's weekly, so it gives me some much-needed Event Viewing for the next few weeks, hopefully to get us right up to that next season of Joe Bob's Last Drive-In, although to my knowledge they haven't confirmed a date for that one's return.



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Devs put me in the mood for some more techy fiction, so I finally made it back around to Black Mirror and watched Black Museum. My favorite of the few episodes I've watched since Netflix brought this show back. Directed by Colm McCarthy, whose indie horror flick Outcast I wrote about here last year - and which I LOVED and is now on Prime so watch it! - Black Museum sets up something I would like to see return - Rolo Haynes' titular roadside attraction, the Black Museum. There are at least a couple dozen stories that could spin out of this, and Douglas Hodge's portrayal of Haynes was a sheer joy to watch, so hopefully this will recur at some point.




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Playlist:

Man Man - Beached (Single)
Fen - Dustwalker
The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
Ghosts of Glaciers - The Greatest Burden
The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Myrkur - M
Beth Gibbons/Henry Gorecki - Symphony No. 3
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls

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The positive break-up of structures and limitations.

New Music from Man Man!

From Man Man's forthcoming Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between, the band's first album since 2013's On Oni Pond. You can pre-order the new record from Sub Pop HERE.

As much as I love Man Man, they had completely fallen off my radar until, maybe two or three months ago, I went through a little jag with 2011's Life Fantastic. Then, a few days ago, Mr. Brown messaged me about the new record, and now I find myself quite anxious for May 1st and the first new record by the group in seven years.

What I did find while digging around in Apple Music, was that Man Man released an EP in 2019, two songs, both of which are fantastic, but one I adore. Here's that song, too:



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Having been in something of a funk the last week or so, I left work a skosh early yesterday with the desire to do nothing more than recharge by watching a couple flicks. I went with Benson and Moorehead's Resolution and The Endless, the second of which I'd watched before, October 2018, and not really liked. The links for my micro reviews on Letterbxd are linked to each title, suffice it to say, I loved Resolution, and it is now my opinion in order to fully appreciate the themes and situations of The Endless, you have to watch them one after the other. Not necessarily in one sitting, but it helps. Both are exceptional films - I'm really kind of staggered by the elegance of The Endless and its metaphors, and now I can't wait for the two creators' next film, Synchronic, which seems as though it should have already been released, and which I'm pretty sure will deal with Flower, the hallucinogenic plant people smoke in both films.

Normally, I'd post trailers, but I think any pre-knowledge will ultimately take away from both films, so I figured I'd use the awesome poster art and be done with it. Resolution is currently streaming on Prime, and The Endless is on Netflix.


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Playlist:

Man Man - Cloud Nein (pre-release single)
Man Man - Beached (Single)
Nick Lowe - Jesus of Cool
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Thundercat - Dragonball Durag (pre-release single)
Parliament - Mothership Connection

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Lots of red, with authoritarian overtones. Mars. Pretty sure this is a sign to pull myself up out of my funk and get back to work.

Chelsea Wolfe - Highway

Always a good day when there's a new Chelsea Wolfe video. One of my favorite artists insofar as how she puts imagery to her music; there's always a visual representation of the hollow loneliness that permeates her songs. Not sad loneliness, but the kind you feel when you're out in the desert, dwarfed by the environment around you, and isolated from other humans.

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Kindle had a Dark Horse comics sale yesterday (it may still be in effect), and for $6.99 I picked up the Alien/Predator/Prometheus Fire and Stone collection. I've heard great stuff about this series, so I'm psyched to jump in, as while I enjoyed by recent viewing of Alien: Covenant for what it is, I would have definitely preferred if they didn't kill all the Engineers off between movies. I've said it many times now, as much as I love Aliens, the films are frustrating for sure, and nothing is more frustrating then their propensity in killing the most interesting characters OFF SCREEN.

Also in that sale, I scored the first Masters of the Universe Mini Comics collection for $5.00. This is pure nostalgia, pleasure reading. These comics are literally primordial Shawn, as I had MotU figures from the time of their initial release, and the accompanying mini comics were among the first comics I ever read, and thus are at least partially responsible for my continued love of the medium.

Also, my Uncanny X-Men re-read continues at a steady pace; I'm now up to Inferno, but I'm going to back track first and re-read the 1984 Magik mini-series first, as events in that series set-up the story that eventually culimates during Inferno. Also, and I'm putting this in print finally, my all-time favorite X-villains are by far Mr. Sinister, S'ym, and N'astirh.

Unbeatable when drawn by my X-Men dream-team of Silvestri and Green.

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Playlist:

Orville Peck - Pony
The Jesus Lizard - Lash EP
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Luciferian Towers
... And You Will Know Us By the Trail of the Dead - X: The Godless Void and Other Stories
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
Belong - October Language
Testament - The Gathering
Allagaeon - Apoptopsis
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha EP
The Soft Moon - Deeper
U2 - War

Superblood Wolfmoon and The Invisible Man!

There are two singles out right now from Pearl Jam's forthcoming album Gigaton, which you can pre-order HERE. Both songs are fantastic, but I feel like "Dance of the Clairvoyants" is the one everyone's talking about because of the Talking Heads-vibe that song has. I wanted to post "Superblood Wolfmoon" because it's also fantastic!

Here's where I offer my take on Pearl Jam. I've always respected them. I've always thought they make the music they want to make, and that's amazing in the era they started in and transitioned through. However, previously, my love of their music went like this: All of their debut, Ten. Both songs on the Singles soundtrack. About half of the follow-up Vs. About a third of Vitalogy, and then I tuned out. After Ten their ballads - the stuff that, through no fault of their own, ruled the FM airwaves while I was in high school - all just sounded like audio burlap to me. Drab, scratchy, and uncomfortable. Yet I applauded them for years when friends who were into them would play me their records. I just never really heard any of that stuff, some weird bug in my ear always turned the noise of my brain up and drowned out what was coming in through my ear. I've always wanted something to come along and push me into taking a walk through that now back catalogue, and these two songs may have done just that.

Thanks to Mr. Brown for always forwarding me the newest stuff when he hears it, and for Keller for curating youtube sessions that made me realize just what an unbelievably good person Eddie Vedder is; if I dive back into Pearl Jam's music now, it's largely because of knowing that.

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K and I ventured out to the local theatre last night and saw Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man. Loved it! Awesome use and sustaining of tension; great atmosphere of fear and helplessness, made especially palpable by Elizabeth Moss' teeth-grinding performance. Really hits the notes on that sweet spot that exists between horror and psychological thrillers - think Pacific Heights and Jacob's Ladder as an example. Oh, and Whannell was not lying; to those who said the trailer gives away the entire movie, that is most definitely not the case.



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Playlist:

Spotlights - Love and Decay
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
The Jesus Lizard - Head
Pearl Jame - Gigaton (pre-release singles)
Pearl Jam - Vs

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I've been out of touch with my Craft for the last three days. Time to get back on that horse and ride.

Kacey & Willie

This one's been out there for some time, so I'm late to the game. During a back-and-forth listening session with a good friend on Wednesday, I discovered the Kacey Musgraves/Willie Nelson duet "Are You Sure."

Wow.

I know next to nothing about Ms. Musgraves, but when I saw Willie Nelson with her, I became instantly curious; while far from my bread and butter, Willie definitely fit a certain state of mind with me. I saw him live back in 2015 and he blew me away. As for this song, it's incredible. As Mr. Brown pointed out recently, she has a definite Patsy Cline/Loretta Lynn quality.

The video too, is shot in a throwback way that made me half expect to see a muppet sitting next to her when the camera began to pan to the left. It looks like 80s "live" television. Totally appropriate for the inner of the bar and feel of the song, which also harken back to a different era.

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A new episode of The Horror Vision went up this past Monday. This is our spoiler-free review/reaction piece to The Lodge (loved it - hear why), as well as a discussion that includes AHS Hotel, Netflix's Castlevania and October Faction, Joe Begos' Bliss, and 2011's Fright Night remake, as well as a handful of other titles we've viewed recently. Oh yeah, and this episode's Classic Corner is none other than Tibor Takacs' 1987 The Gate! We love this movie so much, we even sneak in some thoughts on the sequel.



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After finishing Chuck Wendig's frightening and timely Wanderers last week, a conversation with Ray from The Horror Vision prompted me to dig out a large part of Chris Claremont's run on Uncanny X-Men and begin plowing though it. I started just before the Mutant Massacre - which was about when I started reading X-Men back in the day - and plan on going up through Inferno. I might go past that, not sure yet. But I am SO looking forward to Inferno. It's been too long.

Also, the Sequart Documentary Chris Claremont's X-Men is now on Prime for free, so if you're a fan and haven't seen it, totally worth a watch.

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Playlist:

The Vines - Total Depravity
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
16 Horsepower - Low Estate
Zombi - Shape Shift
Worm is Green - Automagic
Greg Puciato - Fire for Water (single)
Greg Dulli - Random Desire
Mazzy Star - So Tonite That I Might See
Grimes - Art Angels
Led Zeppelin - I
Led Zeppelin - IV
The Jesus Lizard - Lash
The Jesus Lizard - Head
The Jesus Lizard - Pure EP
Chris Connelly - Sleeping Partner
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Anthrax - Attack of the Killer B's
Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
Various - The History of Northwest Rock Vol. 2 (The Garage Years)
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Ghosteen
Grimes - Visions

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Hacking off pieces in order to gain the time/vantage to reflect. I pulled a 'mental health day' yesterday, not from my day job, but from writing. The current global situation has got me down, and I've realized despite all my declarations that I will not vote for either of the two parties in hogging the US political system, I am indeed going to be casting a vote for one asshole in November simply to keep the bigger (biggest?) asshole out of office. I also realize that this won't work and we most likely have four more years of... this. Unless of course, Captain Trips wins the day and purges the planet of a large enough amount of the human population as to inspire a total societal change in this country.

I won't hold my breath. Fuck jetpacks, where's our Common Sense?

The Lodge!

The new episode of The Horror Vision is up! As I mentioned yesterday, we start out with a Spoiler-Free review of The Lodge!



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Speaking of Horror, here's a couple of upcoming horror trailers that caught my attention last week. The first, Saint Maud, looks promising, but also kind of looks like A24 fishing for another Hereditary. Either way, I'll give it a chance, because we all know trailers can make movies look more like other movies even if the film doesn't (nothing against Hereditary, I'm merely suspicious of derivative material):




Scare Package looks like it will, like a lot of anthologies, be hit or miss. Based on this trailer, I'll definitely give it a shot:



Also, look at the poster art for this one. Love it!

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Playlist:

Hall and Oats - Greatest Hits
Odonis Odonis - No Pop
Greg Dulli - Random Desire
Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Talking Heads - Fear of Music

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Might represent good news on the salary front. Which would be helpful in longer-termish plans I am making in my head.

Orville Peck - Queen of the Rodeo

I love the way, between this and the AHS 10 Cast announcement video published last week, Peck has swung back around and recaptured my imagination of late. Not that I ever leave the record very far behind - it's a staple and feels like it will be for the rest of my life - but it feels strangely timely again.

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Saturday night K and I, along with 3/4 of the rest of The Horror Vision crew went to the theatre and supported the big-box roll out for Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala's The Lodge. Fantastic film! I've jokingly been referring to it as the, "Feel good hit of the summer," simply to help me process just how damn dark it is, but overall, I really liked this one. Afterward, we recorded an episode of the podcast, so that'll be up in a couple of days or so.




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Playlist:

The Mars Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath
Odonis Odonis - No Pop
The Smiths - Meat is Murder
Myrkur - M
Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See
Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue
The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Boy Harsher - Careful
Anthrax - Among the Living

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A relaxing weekend, if a chilly one (I know, I know. I can hear my family and friends in the Frigid Midwest. Fuck me, California boy). Stability achieved after a stressful week on-call for Jury Duty. I got a lot of work done on Friday and Saturday, saw a great movie, and now it's time to use that clear head and march right back to work. Turning in a packet of docs to a collaborator today, hopefully we'll see some movement with that (eventually; long submission process), and it's back to my outlines for Shadow Play books Two and Three, which are more finished than not.