Phil Says Listen Now

From the 1976 album Listen Now, by Phil Manzanera and 801. I'd never heard this before last week; a good friend pointed out that, while I was familiar with plenty of Brian Eno's post-Roxy Music work, I'd done myself a disservice by not dabbling in Manzanera's. He was right; this is a fantastic record, start to finish. Lots of those 70s tones that would get coopted by soft rock like Ace a few years later, but here, with a healthy dose of Art Rock overtones and sometimes perplexing structure. 

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Watch:

In attempting to compile my top ten Horror of 2025 list, I've come down to a series stand-off.

Weapons vs. Bring Her Back. 

To this end, I rewatched Bring Her Back last night. 

I'd not seen this poster before. It made me laugh. Uncomfortably...

In doing so, it's hard to imagine any film could compete with this. Still, Weapons will get its day in court soon enough, and I will make my decision.

With Bring Her Back, the Philippou Brothers have crafted an expertly executed film that not only pushes into extreme territory without crossing any of my lines but also features characters with such emotional complexity, gravity, and resonance. I love Andy and Piper, and I love their relationship. I feel such pathos for them from the very beginning of the film. Seriously, I was moved to tears during the film's opening and again multiple times throughout. I was also sickened, spurred to cover my face with my hands, and feel such enormous trepidation for them. And this is the third time I've seen this film this year!

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Read:

I'll be talking about this one on an upcoming episode of Drinking with Comics, but this past Saturday I blew through Greg Rucka and Mike Perkins' Lois Lane: Enemy of the People. 

If you know me, you know that I abhor Superman, and that would normally extend to his supporting cast, simply for serving Supe's overall story. 

That is not this.

First, take note of the writer again: Greg Rucka. This is a 12-issue mini-series about Lois Lane investigating Ice and Deportation corruption, the death of a Russian peer, and trying to stay one step ahead of the hired killer big industry has hot on her heels. Superman drops by occasionally to check in on her well-being, but she always lovingly sends him packing. "I can handle it," is her constant refrain. Added by Renee Montoya, Lois digs in and serves up some serious Rucka political vibes in a story that would make a great double feature with the first Volume or two of Marvel's original Alias series that introduced Jessica Jones. 

 Super blown away by this one. This is one of the reasons I do 'podcasts' - I often need help stepping outside my own prejudices, especially when it comes to DC comics. Thanks, Shin!

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Playlist:

Mondo Deccay - Nun Gun

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction

Slow Crush - Thirst

Plague Vendor - By Night

Wrené - No skin against the wind (single)

Asaf Avidad - Live at the Acropolis

Asaf Avidad - Unfurl

Phil Manzanera - Listen Now

Phil Collins - Face Value

D'Nell - 1st Magic

Miles Davis - Ascenseur pour l'échafaud

Calexico - Second Shift

United Future Organization - 3rd Perspective

Cynic - Focus

Porter Robinson - Worlds

Dream Syndicate - The Days of Wine and Roses

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ten of Pentacles

• Four of Cups

• Knight of Pentacles

All three cards deal with material wealth and luxury, but the Knight of Pentacles (Disks) specifically points to saving. I'll just take this to mean I'm back on the right path. 

New Music From The Afghan Whigs!!!

 

The Afghan Whigs covering Polica? I haven't thought about Polica since... well, since HERE. So f'king cool! The Whigs also released a Still Corners cover. I've always loved the way, every once in a while, out of the blue, these guys will release a couple of covers. Very cool. Hoping this means there's new music on the way. 

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Watch:

Last night I took in a viewing of Mike P. Nelson's (why can't I think or say that name without thinking of Craig T. Nelson?) new remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night. 

 

I'll tell you right off the bat, I'm not much of a fan of the original. It's fine, just so sleazy it's not really my thing. That said, this film has a sequence that's getting some press where Santa kills a whole shit load of nazis.

Pretty fucking satisfying, in 2025, where nazis apparently think they're an identity choice or a protected group, to be getting so many stories lately where nazis get killed. Because, you know, the only good nazis are dead nazis. We all know that, right?

Anyway, as for the rest of the movie... It was AWESOME! I really dug this one. Go in blind, and if you can, see it in theatre. This is not a straight remake of the original film; writer/director Mike P. Nelson really does something different and, in my opinion, awesome, even while still incoporating the many of the main plot points of the '84.

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Playlist:

Brand New - Daisy

Barry Adamson - Cut to Black

Sumerlands - Dreamkiller

Phil Manzanera - Listen Now

Dreamkid - Daggers

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

Arcade Fire - Everything Now

Phil Collins - Face Value

Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons

Faetooth - Labrynthine

Mondo Decay - Nun Gun

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ten of Pentacles

• XI: Justice

• II: The High Priestess

Lasting stability threatened (or perhaps earned) by intuition. Wow. Literally applies to my thoughts right before writing this. Don't overthink a good thing and thus, sabotage it.

New Music From Nothing

New music from Nothing! Lead single from their upcoming album A Short History of Decay, out February 27 on Run For Cover Records. Pre-order HERE.

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NCBD:

A nice, tight list of great books today. Let's get 

I guess I'll be leading every Transformers entry in these pages with, "Look at that cover!" because hot damn if Dan Moya isn't turning out some of the most elegantly pleasing covers in all of comics at the moment. I was a little concerned about switching out the analog space-dust style of Jorge Corona and DWJ for this more polished look for the book. However, it's been incredible so far.

Jason Aaron is out, and Gene Luen Yang takes over writing as of this issue, backed by Freddie E. Williams II and Andrew Dalhouse on art. I will miss Juan Ferreyra's art; Ferreyra's look was new to me and gave the book a bold new look that I think we were all ready for with 2023's continuity-adhering relaunch. Now, it looks like the new team has once again reinvented the book from the ground up, and I find myself once again happy that I didn't jump off when the issue counter got reset. 

Minor Arcana continues to thrill me with its seaside vibes and mysterious characters. 

Always a great thing to see Cobra Commander rising from the ashes of his missteps. Also, to have Copperhead feature so prominently on a cover makes my heart sing - one of me favorites, he is!

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Watch:

I finally had the chance to sit down and watch David Cronenberg's latest film, 2024's The Shrouds. 

After a few initial misgivings, I ended up really liking this. It reminded me a lot of Cronenberg's novel, Consumed, which I am a fairly big fan of. There are a few nuances to Vincent Cassel's acting choices (which might have more to do with an otherwise solid script), but overall, The Shrouds starts in a relatively small place and expands into a very Cronenberg-esque conspiracy. I've been thinking about his predilection and approach to conspiracy lately; most of his films deal with secret cabals and their agendas. Starting with Consumed - unless I'm missing something - those conspiracies become global, moving away from small groups of rag-tag conspirators to incorporate global countries. North Korea is a major force in Consumed, and both Russia and China may or may not figure heavily into The Shrouds. Fifty years of making films that have grown in budget, scope and acclaim have helped David Cronenberg become a Director with global urgency, and that is on full display here. 

I watched this on the Criterion Channel app, but it's likely available elsewhere as well (although Criterion is becoming a must-have channel in our house, so I'd just recommend signing up for the trial and checking them out).

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Blackbraid - Blackbraid III

Willie Nelson - Oh What a Beautiful World: The Songs of Rodney Crowell

Deadguy - Near Death Travel Services

Fever Ray - Eponymous

Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land

Stone Angel - Eponymous

Carter Burwell - Blood Simple OST

Tim Hecker - Infinity Pool OST

Nothing - a short history of decay (pre-release singles)

Mondo Decay - Nun Gun

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Page of Swords

• XIV: Temperance

• Eight of Cups

Agility again. Agility tempered with emotional control. Or, perhaps, Agility achieved through emotional distance? 

Steppin' into the Twilight Zone...

Man, I remember when I used to go out of my way to try and find videos without ads to post here. Now they all have ads. Funny thing about that - I've never monetized any of my channels on YT, but the videos with the most hits still get ads. Why? Because, you can't monetize until you have considerably more followers than I have, but if a video gets the hits, YT will monetize it and reap the rewards.

Another one of a thousand instances where I could have just posted Jarvis Cocker's "Cunts Are Still Running the World." Talk about a theme song for the human race, eh?

Anyway, I recently figured out how to add songs to a playlist on Apple Music so they don't take up the home screen, so I'm recreating all the playlists I made on Spotify - which I only ever subscribed to for October and, after the news a few months back, will never sub to again. I started with my gratuitously named, "Proto Music: The Best of 80s Radio And The Archetypal Foundation Of My Head" playlist, which contains all the songs from 80s classic rock radio that made me who I am today. This song is on that playlist. This song is in my head when I write, even if it has been a few years since I last listened to it. This song is a fucking masterpiece without a genre or any comparable peers. 

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Watch:

With news of Netflix buying HBO, I have to say, I feel like bad things are coming. Maybe I'm still sore at HBO because I had to cancel my subscription last month after having it since 2019. It was probably time anyway, but when I ended up locked out because I share it with my sister and she uses it more than I do, I got pretty pissed when I received an email that basically said, "This isn't your account." I mean, my name is on it! Anyway, I started thinking about whether it would just be cheaper to buy physical copies of what I can't live without and, yep. It is. In HBO's case, I Marie Kondo'd their lineup and realized it's just Doom Patrol and Primal, and I grabbed Doom Patrol complete for about what I was paying for two or three months for a sub I almost never used (no wonder they thought my sister was the owner).

Netflix will no doubt prove more difficult, as they're pretty anti-physical media. I'd suggest that if there's anything you really love on HBO, grab it now, as the same ethos is likely to carry over once the merger is complete. 

Anyway, I see a soon-to-be future where I have Shudder and Criterion, nothing else. Speaking of which, I watched Kiyoshi Kurosawa's latest film Cloud this past Friday night, and was pretty blown away. I posted the trailer a while ago, and honestly, you're better off just going in blind, so here's a gnarly poster I found:

I picked up heavy David Cronenberg vibes from this film. There's a subtle thread of foreboding that hangs over an opening hour that will feel drudging to some. Personally, I was enraptured by the minutiae of the main character's life. I took my own advice and went in blind - I never did watch that trailer I previously posted - and really had no idea what this film was about. There's a very scheduled, day-to-day pace that eventually evolves and then begins to ooze with suspense as that invisible dread slowly manifests in a very odd fashion. There are so many head-scratching elements to this film. Yet, not only do all of them work within the context of the story and characters Kurosawa sets up, but, as a whole, Cloud somehow encapsulates an abstract representation of life in 2025. 

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Read:

Closer to the beginning of the year, I finally began making my way through Weird Walk's beautiful hardcover book, Weird Walk: Wanderings and Wondering Through the British Ritual Year. 

The book is divided into four parts by season: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, and I'd fallen into the strategy of picking it up for a chapter a morning during each of the corresponding seasons. I fell off in Autumn, but after a concentrated sprint over the last week, I finally caught up. I wanted to make specific note of one of the entries for Autumn: Ottery St. Mary.

Ottery St. Mary is a town in Devon where every November 5th, the inhabitants hold a ritual where flaming tar barrels are passed from hand to hand through the streets. The origins are apparently unclear, but the thing about this particular entry in the book that struck me is the idea that this all relates back to ancestral memory of fire as an element that helped develop our consciousness into what it is today. 

That really strikes a chord. Maybe it's just my propensity for falling into the British idea of "The Haunted Season" with increasing intensity these past two years, but I'm really connecting with this. 

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Playlist:

Miles Davis - Ascenseur pour l'échafaud

Miles Davis - Sorcerer

Ulver - Liminal Animals

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturian Poetry

Final Light - Eponymous

Perturbator - Age of Aquarius

Mondo Decay - Nun Gun

Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons

Fever Ray - Eponymous

Various - Proto Music: Best of 80s Radio & The Archetypal Foundation Of My Head

Zonal - Eponymous (single)

Zonal - Wrecked

Techno Animal - Re-Entry

GZA - Liquid Swords

Hotei - Shin Jinginaki Tatakai Soshite Sono Eiga Ongaku OST

D'Nell - 1st Magic

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

Nordicwinter - Whispers of the Frozen Abyss (single)

lords. - Bleeding Out (single)

Faetooth - Labyrinthine

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Page of Swords

• Five of Cups

• Four of Wands

Lots of imposing vertical lines in this one. On every card. Feels like there's a bit of a progression there, even in the perspective on the cards as they flow from left to right... I'm picking up something, but not sure what. I've never read the cards like this before. Definite movement. Let's look at the cards themselves.

Page or Princess of Swords' inclination toward mental agility juxtaposed with the grief often associated with the five of cups. That's deep emotion that can threaten the stability of the four of wands. 

The movement may be a system - a rhythm - of countering the grief. Above, I outlined the cards in the cadence of the traditional three-card pull: center-left-right. Following the left-to-right rhythm, we'd have Grief overcome by mental agility (discipline?) that leads to stability. I'm not entirely sure what the source of the grief is - pondering that gives me a bit of trepediation - but I guess I know how to approach it if and when it rears its head. 

The Whole Bloody Affair

 

Stone Cold Classic.

I first heard GZA's Liquid Swords sometime in the late 90s. A dude I used to skate with back then bumped this one often, and it made an impression pretty much right away. This was back well before streaming, and I never had a full cassette dub of the entire album, but the title track, "Shadowboxin'" and "B.I.B.L.E." all followed me around on various mix tapes and burned CD comps for years. 

 

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Cast:

It is always a great time when I'm able to join in on the monthly Dread Broadcast. So many inspiring Horror fans coming together to discuss their passion, recommend new or overlooked stuff, and just generally geek out about the genre!

This episode, our featured guest was Kyle Valle, Director and co-writer of ZombieCON Vol. 1. Because I'd been out of town, I didn't get a chance to watch the screener he sent to the group, but he and co-writer Erin Áine sent me a screener earlier this week, so I'll be posting about that soon. 

After Kyle's segment, we had a good mix of return panelists and newcomers, all of whom helped fill up a notebook page of suggestions for upcoming books, movies and comics to check out. 

I love being a part of this so much, and hope everyone gets a chance to check the Dread Broadcast out. 

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Watch:

Yesterday I invoked PTO from work and took my Dad to see Quentin Tarantino's fourth film in its new, ultimate form:

I hadn't seen either Kill Bill volume since the theatre, and while I remembered some things very vividly (Boss Tanaka's death; the burial; Elle's other eye), there was a lot I didn't remember. My initial takeaway from these flicks back in the day was excitement before their release and satiation upon release, but they never really resonated with me beyond that. 

It's funny what 20 years will do.

Two decades down the spiral of cinema archeology, understanding filmmaking and fight choreography, not to mention a much better understanding of the influences and references that go into these films, and I have to say that, while Reservoir Dogs will likely always be my favorite QT film, I now see Kill Bill as his best. Especially when viewed as originally intended - a four-hour and thirty-five-minute film (that graciously includes a 15-minute intermission perfect for a trip to the john and a power-up at the snack bar). The entire Tokyo sequence is beyond belief - I mean, the sheer depth of field that Robert Richardson's camera has to capture with the choreography is staggering. Also, the original O-Ren Ishii origin animation sequence has been extended by 7.5 minutes, giving us the closest we've had yet to a Tarantino-directed anime episode.

Kil Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is in theatres for at least the next week, and I'm already plotting whether or not I can manage sneaking in another viewing. Either way, Lionsgate has a Blu-ray in the works, and once that drops, I will finally add this one to the collection.

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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons

The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST

Sumerlands - Dreamkiller

Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself

The Police - Synchronicity

Gaerea - Loss (pre-release singles)

Fever Ray - Eponymous

GZA - Liquid Swords

Mondo Decay - Nun Gun

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XI: Justice

• Page of Swords

• XVI: The Tower

Weighed down by Earthly concerns, fight back and don't fall into old patterns. 

Slow Crush - Covet

From their album Thirst, released earlier this year and burning up my ears for the last few months. I was new to Slow Crush this year, so it felt fantastic to fall in love with their previous album, Aurora and then have this drop shortly thereafter. 

There's a moment near the end of this track that makes my heart soar! You can pick this up over on the Slow Crush Bandcamp HERE.

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NCBD:

A nice, tight NCBD pull this week.

Another hiatus looms after this issue and I'll be using part of that time to re-read the entire SIKTC series to date. 

One night last week, instead of editing, writing or watching, I put on some music, opened a beer and lay down on the floor of my office with a stack of comics. It was glorious - I haven't done that in some time. One of the accomplishments of that evening was to finish my re-read of the first Orphan series and then plow through the two issues to date of Bath of Blood, so I am primed and I am psyched! James Stokoe has a legend on his hands here, and I can't wait to get my hands on this third and penultimate issue. 

I also recently completed reading the Deluxe Criminal Vol. 1, so I'm happy as all hell to have this special "Giant-Sized" issue landing this week. 

As Mike Shin and I discussed on a recent episode of Drinking w/ Comics, Dreadnok War has breathed new life into the Energon Universe's GIJOE title, and the end of last issue felt like a herald of some pretty dark shit. So yeah, fire up your chainsaw hand and let's go!

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Playlist:

Carter Burwell - Blood Simple OST

Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - La Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomimi

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Ritual Howls - Ruin

Drain - ... Is Your Friend

Deadguy - Near Death Travel Services

D'Nell - 1st Magic

Krofon - Los Ochentas (single)

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

The Saxophones - No Time for Poetry

Slow Crush - Thirst

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XXIL: The World

• XI: Justice

• Seven of Wands

It can be difficult to realize when something has ended successfully, because success can create the urge to continue well past necessity. Recognize when something is over, hail it as a success (or failure) and move on. 

This actually may apply to something that is about to happen. Weird. 

Gylt - I Will Commit A Holy Crime: Tandem

From their 2024 album, I Will Commit A Holy Crime: Tandem, which you can order from their Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

Holy smokes! How did I miss the trailer for Julia Ducournau's third movie, Alpha, when it dropped last month? Here it is, and I'm happy to say this follows Neon's trend of assembling trailers that show me enough to make me want to see the movie (I would see anything Ms. Ducournau without knowing anything other than her name is attached), but not in any way that tells me anything substantial about the film. Yay Neon!

This looks remarkable. Ducournau's voice is so strong it permeates every shot herein.

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Read:

With the year coming to a close and my reading all over the place, I didn't want to start another novel, per se, but this is the time of the year I read a lot, so I cracked out another of the Weird Tales I purchased back in May. 

This is the Thomas Ligotti issue, back from around the time Ligotti first exploded on the Weird/Horror literary scene. Opening story, "Netherscurial" is a great example of why Ligotti was heraled early on as a kind of wünderkind - so many familiar, Lovecraftian tropes, all turned on their ear and used to build something new and truly horrifying. 

"The problem is that such supernatural inventions are indeed quite difficult to imagine. So often they fail to materialize in the mind, to take on a mental texture, and thus remain unfelt as anything but an abstract monster of metaphysics? an elegant or awkward schematic that cannot rise from the paper to touch us. Of course, we do need to keep a certain distance from such specters as Nethescurial, but this is usually provided by the medium of words as such, which ensnare all kinds of fantastic creatures before they can tear us body and soul. (And yet the words of this particular manuscript seem rather weak in this regard, possibly because they are only the drab green scratchings of a human hand and not the heavy mesh of black type.) 

But we do want to get close enough to feel the foul breath of these beasts, or to see them as prehistoric leviathans circling about the tiny island on which we have taken refuge. Even if we are incapable of a sincere belief in ancient cults and their unheard of idols, even if these pseudonymous adventurers and archaeologists appear to be mere shadows on a wall, and even if strange houses on remote islands are of shaky construction, there may still be a power in these things that threatens us like a bad dream. And this power emanates not so much from within the tale as it does from somewhere behind it, someplace of infinite darkness and ubiquitous evil in which we may walk unaware."

The story is also peppered with truly epic and disturbing illustrations by Harry O. Morris.

You can read the full story on Ligotti's website HERE.

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Playlist:

Oliver Nelson - Stolen Moments (single)

Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons

Deftones - private music

Dreamkid - Daggers

Gylt - Desk Jockey (single)

Weird Studies - Episode 50: Demogorgon; On Stranger Things

Ministry - HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES

Steve Miller Band - Greatest Hits

Prince - Purple Rain

Billy Joel - Greatest Hits

Replacements - Tim

David Bowie - Low

Tim Curry - I Do the Rock (single)

Bakermat - The Ringmaster

Jungle - Volcano

Foo Fights Greatest Hits

Foo Fighters - Rumors

Hatebeak - Number of the Beak

Soul Coughing - "Ruby Vroom' Remixes

Talking Heads - Remain in Light

Soundgarden - Superunknown

Blue Meanies - Full Throttle

Southern Mysteries Podcast - Episode 179: The Mystery of Diamond Bessie

Southern Mysteries Podcast - Episode 178: Little Boy Lost

Southern Mysteries Podcast - Episode 176: The Mystery of the Surrency Poltergeist

Southern Mysteries Podcast - Episode 173: The Forgotten Eleven of New Orleans

Weird Studies - Episode 143: On UFOs

AVTT/PTTN - The Avett Brothers & Mike Patton

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