Godflesh @ Cold Waves 2023!!!

 

This past Sunday, Mr. Brown, Missi Raven and I attended the 2023 Chicago Metro edition of Cold Waves. As with last year - the first one of these I'd managed to make it out to after almost a decade of wanting to - the event was fantastic. We arrived late, so missed several bands, which sucks, but I've been a bit worn down, so it is what it is. We did manage to see Sierra, who was fantastic, Paul Barker's Lead Into Gold, also fantastic and closer Godflesh.

Godflesh closed with"Spite," the opening track from their 31-year-old masterpiece Pure, arguably my favorite Godflesh album (depending on the day, I suppose, but it's up there). 

Here's a recent setlist from Montreal; Chicago's set was identical, except for the two encore tracks, which they didn't have time to play. No complaints - a fantastic sampling of their illustriously pummeling career.

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Watch:

Holy smokes. I did not know this was on the way:  

I've cooled on pretty much everything Mr. Cave has put out since Push the Sky Away. However, I still think he's a genius. And that genius began in a completely raw, primordial form with The Birthday Party, easily one of my all-time favorite bands. Seeing there's a documentary on the immediate horizon makes me insanely happy, even though it plays at my local arthouse theatre in Nashville, The Belacourt, from October 4th through the 8th, and I return from my trip on the 9th. 

Agghh!!!

More information - including all upcoming screenings - is on the movie's website HERE.

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Playlist:

Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Boards of Canada - A Beautiful Place Out in the Country EP

Canyon - Empty Rooms

Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

The Damned - Evil Spirits

Damone - From The Attic

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Card:

I'm on the road, so all my Pulls will be from my mini Thoth deck for the next two weeks. Not a bad thing, but wanted to put up a reminder that Grimm's new Tarot Deck, The Hand of Doom Tarot, is both gorgeous and live on Kickstarter until Tuesday, October 3rd. Here's the LINK.

• Eight of Disks - Prudence

• Ten of Cups - Satiety

• Three of Cups - Abundance

Seriously sleep deprived out here for my first full day in LaLaLand, I'll take this as a reminder to know when enough is enough. Prudence + Satiety = Plenty; have the sense to know when you're done and retire with that. I'd say that's letting me know that I should not work past my 8 hours today but rather return promptly to my hotel and catch a nap, as I'll be attending a 10:00 PM screening of Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's new film Kill tonight at Beyondfest!!!

Godflesh - Army of Non

 

The mighty Godflesh has returned at last! I have a friend visiting from LalLaLand and as such, completely forgot that the new album Purge was released this week. Friday night as we left one of the three breweries we take all our visitors to, this popped up in my Apple feed and, after waiting for the conversation at hand to run its course while sitting in the parking lot, I warned everyone they were about to experience the new record at a rather loud volume while driving home. Wonderful; that's the only word here. We made it through about half, and with further conversating and what not once home, I refrained from playing the rest until I could do a nice, immersive listen on headphones, so that will be later today, and the vinyl I pre-ordered months ago doesn't ship until early July, so until all that happens, "Army of Non" is my current favorite track on the record.

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Holy F*&K! Ted Geoghegan's new film Brooklyn 45 is fantastic! This one defied all my expectations

            

I don't want to say too much about this one; it's not as though there's a twist or anything, however, Brooklyn 45 really impressed me with the ambitious, and frankly unexpected dramatics that make up the meat of the film. Sure, there's a lot of Horror Fun to be had, but this one is more akin to Guillermo del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth than it is Evil Dead (although there are moments...). This one dropped on Shudder last week and is WELL worth Your time, especially if you liked Geoghegan's 2015 film We Are Still Here as much as I did. Companion pieces in a way.
           

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Playlist:

Weird Studies - On Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" and "Hellbound Heart"

Colton Wall - Imaginary Appalachia

David Bowie - The Next Day

Ganser - Odd Talk

Iggy Pop - The Idiot

Blackbraid - Blackbraid I

Stormkeep - Tales of Othertime

Calderum - Mystical Fortress of Iberian Lands

CCR - Eponymous

Godflesh - Purge

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST

Pastor T.L. Barrett & the Youth for Christ Choir - Like a Ship (Without a Sail)

The Flamingos - The Best of the Flamingos

Jenny Lewis - Joy'All

 

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

• Four of Pentacles - completion of a job: I have set a goal for the first draft of the novel I'm currently writing, and it is next Tuesday.

• Ace of Swords - Breakthrough: Not sure if this is confirming success or a nod that setting this goal was the 'breakthrough.'

• Five of Wands - Marshall the forces of Will, 'cuz it's going to be a struggle. A worthy struggle, though.
 

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New Godflesh Single!

 

The first single from Godflesh's forthcoming album Purge. LOOOOOVE that sample from Gang Star's "Brainstorm"! I pre-ordered this about a month ago when I first saw the announcement, you can follow suit if you go HERE.

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Good news! Holy Spider is coming to Netflix (of all places) tomorrow, April 7th! 

 

I've wanted to see this since last year's Beyondfest, and after missing it there, my friend and colleague-in-casting Professor John Trafton has spoken about it at length, so I'm pretty excited to finally catch this one. 

 

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Read:

Speaking of John Trafton, his new book is up for pre-order from Wayne State University Press:

If you've read any of the essays John has up on his website JohnTrafton.com, you'll understand why I'm pretty excited to read this. Although I left LaLaLand behind, the mystique of that early Twentieth Century City of the Stars remains. Movie-made Los Angeles will no doubt explore and expound on that era in ways I've yet to ascertain.           

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Playlist:

Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Shrinebuilder - Eponymous

Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity

Massive Attack - 100th Window

Spotlights - Seance EP

Godflesh - Hymns 

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

INXS - Kick        

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Transformation from collaboration leads to an increase Earthly assets.

 

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Iress - Ricochet

 

New music from Iress! I just broke out 2019's Prey a week or so ago, so they've been on my mind and were actually one of the bands I checked to see if they had a show while I'll be in LaLaLand for the next two weeks. No dice, but at least we have this song. These guys continue to level up. You can purchase Ricochet on Iress's Bandcamp HERE.

 

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Watch:

I watched Andrew Davis's The Final Terror earlier tonight (I'm writing this at 12:53 Saturday, 3/04/23). 

 

A Full Five Fucking Stars! The movie ended two hours ago and I still just cannot stop thinking about it. The absolute pinnacle of the Backwoods Slasher subgenre, in my opinion (and I never thought anything would dethrone Just Before Dawn).

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Pre-Order Music:

New Godflesh this June!

PURGE! No new tracks posted yet, but I saw the announcement and pre-ordered the Silver vinyl from Plastic Head Megastore, evidently the only place you can grab this at the current moment. Here's the LINK, and a random, awesome photo of JKB I found searching for that album cover above, courtesy of Brave Worlds:

I Love this damn band and I have none of their stuff - no JKB stuff at all on vinyl. Some bands are just CD bands for me. Some of my favorites, too. But this, well, even with the UK shipping charge - which was much more reasonable than I've ever encountered before - I just couldn't pass this up.

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Playlist:

The Jeff Healy Band - Full Circle: The Live Anthology (Live Montreal Jazz Fest 1989)

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Viscerals

Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs

Church of the Cosmic Skull - There Is No Time

Metallica - Hardwired

Karl Casey - White Bat XVIII EP

Odonis Odonis - Post Plague

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Iress - Ricochet (single)
 

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

New ideas will lead to the completion of a process, but only if they are weighed carefully for merit and applied in the correct fashion. 100% this references a breakthrough I've had over the last two days' writing sessions on Shadow Play Book 2. Major changes but not in a way that requires a major overhaul. Lots of historical research, though, which is what the cards are confirming as the appropriate avenue. Time consuming but worth it.

Tasting the Flesh of God

 

Thanks to Mr. Brown for turning me into the fact that Hellfest 2022 is streaming all the bands' sets. Of course, I'm most interested in Godflesh, a band I still hold out the hope we'll be getting another new album from sooner rather than later. Justin K. Broadrick is a very prolific, very busy man, but how do you turn your back on your baby when your baby is Godflesh?

 

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NCBD:

Still out of town, but I'll probably pick these up anyway and just let my shop know not to pull.

Is this the end of the first arc for What's The Furthest Place From Here? or the start of a new one? 

Jesus, it's only been two weeks since the previous X-Men Red. Based on the events of that book, I'm REALLY looking forward to this one. 

Love this book, and the fact that I have no compass for how long this series is ultimately shaping up to be. Feels very open-ended, and like there could be a much bigger story here for Sonny and Xavier than I first suspected. Rick Remender - I love you!

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I can remember seeing the opening to Lewis Teague's Alligator so long ago; the scene of the father flushing his little girl's pet baby alligator down the toilet has stayed with me for most of my life. Thanks to Shudder, I've finally seen the entire movie.

I LOVED this flick! First, I had no idea Robert Fucking Forster was the lead! Also, hell, what a great Alligator!

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Playlist:

Perturbator, Johannes Persson and Final Light - Final Light

Burning Witch - Crippled Lucifer

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

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Card:

Confusing influences speak to the idea that we may have a lot of questions at our inspection tomorrow. There's a lot of 'Authority' at play, and juxtaposed with Will and the expediency I always associate with the Knight of Swords, the mental stamina that card tends to radiate, I think we may need to make some decisions that will be completely ours, i.e. not the kind of thing we can refer to our Realtor, the inspector, or the unbelievably valuable advice my parents have given to us in all this.

Bandcamp Sunday: JK Flesh

There's a great interview with Broadrick on daily Bandcamp HERE.

Godflesh

One of the creepiest songs Godflesh did, and that's saying something.

I've fallen in love with Love and Hate in Dub all over again. This one is never far from my speakers, but many times, my listens are not album-length, as they're confined to the car, or at work where a longer album can be interrupted fairly easy. Lately however, I've been sequestered in the back-half of this one, and the final song, this "remix" of 'Gift from Heaven', off 1996's equally brilliant album Songs of Love and Hate. There's always been something so dark and mysterious about Godflesh, and although I love pretty much everything JKB has done in his career - especially under the Godflesh moniker - possibly the stuff that stays with me the most is the creepy, atmospheric, 'a boiler room in hell' stuff.

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One episode into the new Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix and goddamn, I don't care how camp or teenage this show goes at time, the sets, costumes, and overall tone is fantastic, and again, the blasphemy is joy-inducing.



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Playlist:

Godflesh - Love and Hate in Dub
Mol - Jord
Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue
Zonal - Wrecked
David Lynch and Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music
Kevin Morby - Oh My God

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Card:

A new journey? That's always the initial interpretation that springs to mind with this one, however I'm inclined at the moment, while reflecting on a fairly successful week of writing sessions, to err on the side of a completely different outlook. One of "new," i.e. a new direction that's becoming apparent within the major arc of the second and third books. It's not radically different than what I originally had planned, but it's more nuanced for sure. In fact, the entire epic is really coming to life in a far more robust way than I'd anticipated. Well, that's not entirely true; I've always known this would be huge, but I guess you can't see it until you're in it, so to speak. And brother, I am IN it now.

2019: May 15th Godflesh - Regal

To continue the 'unsung' string I began the other day by posting FNM's Ugly in the Morning, I thought I'd start today with a track from Godflesh's 2001 final album (at the time) Hymns. I love this entire album; some purists disregard later Godflesh for the way Justin K. Broadrick begins to segue into the more ambient, pastoral sound of Jesu. For me, my love of Godflesh isn't about one album or another, but the overall arc. Which, by the way, continues to this day in fine form. Anyway, a great track from an outstanding album.

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NCBD is a light one. Good deal; saves me some money and drops the latest issue of one of my favorite books in my hands. Win win.

Man, look at that cover! Gorgeous!

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Playlist from Tuesday, 5/14:

Godflesh - Hymns
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Vol. 1
Blut Aus Nord - Odinist: The Destruction of Reason By Illumination
Blut Aus Nord - MoRT
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Sect(s)
Blut Aus Nord - 777 The Desanctification
Fenn - Dustwalker
Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God
Jed Kurzel - The Babadook OST

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Card of the day:

Okay, full disclosure: if you go back a few months, I pulled this card. I'd left it in the deck on purpose, thinking I may find a way to interpret it into my overall, personal theory of reading this deck as a singular quanta of information, instead of as a collection of individual cards. Does that make sense? Maybe not. This is kind of free-form, impromptu logic, but isn't that what Tarot and Divination supposed to be at least partially about? What good is it to memorize 'readings' and definitions for objects that are supposed to represent aspects of our collective and individual unconscious? Anyway, after the first time I pulled this card and logged it here, I didn't draw it again until recently. But now, I've pulled it three times in the last two weeks, and although I'd kind of reversed on logging it here until now, with this new draw, I feel I have to look deeper (I say that sometimes and then don't have time to do it). To begin with, I pulled two more cards after, to try and clarify:

Okay, so it's going to take all - or at least a lot - of my Will to discover something that has been occulted to me. After some digging, it looks as though I will be beginning HERE and, perhaps more interestingly, HERE.

2018: September 17th

New Soft Moon remix by Imperial Black very much fits my mood today. I woke up with a taste for Industrial music, catalyzed by watching Julian Richards's Darklands. A document of its time, Darklands is sort of a 90s update on The Wicker Man, and is populated with some fantastic industrial imagery, reminiscent of the kind of thing Justin K. Broadrick uses for Godflesh records.

Screen cap from Darklands

Good flick, although much of the aesthetic of the 90s still seems overall cringe-worthy to me. But this definitely transcended those feelings. Darklands is available to stream on Shudder.

Finished John Palisano's excellent Night of 1,000 Beasts and before I jump into my next novel - Neil Gaimen's The Graveyard Book - I'm re-reading some Laird Barron as a pallet cleanser. Procession of the Black Sloth is one of those stories by Mr. Barron that I have read probably three or four times now, and I never grow tired of it. The tone borders on what I call Two A.M., flush with dim night-lighting and drunken reveries. It's a calm descent into terror and that's what I love about it and Barron's work in general.

Procession of the Black Sloth is available in Laird Barron's first collection, The Imago Sequence, which I cannot recommend highly enough.

Playlist from the last two days:

White Lung - Eponymous
Disasterpeace - It Follow OST
Canyons - Barrie single
Canyons - Michigan single
Canyons - Tal Uno single
Yob - Our Raw Heart
Legs Occult - Dark Rituals

Card of the day:

This I'm taking as a confirmation that I should follow my instinct and outline a new story bubbling around in my head. Oh yeah, that said, after putting it 'in the drawer' for a month, I came back to Please Believe Me and finished it the other night. Will be submitting it to a major Sci Fi magazine today or tomorrow, so keep those fingers crossed for me.

2018: May 29th

Playlist from Monday, 5/28:

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A# ∞
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui U.X.O.
Sir Georg Solti - Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen (Das Rheingold)
Bloodbath - Breeding Death
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Burzum - Filosfem

No card today.

2018: March 4th 8:01 PM

No idea what was in my head when I woke up this morning, if anything. This is rounding out the night though:

Long work weekend. Came home a little while ago - it was a nice drive in Los Angeles. Let me say that again, just to savor the feeling of typing eight words that almost never appear together:

It. Was. A. Nice. Drive. In. Los. Angeles.

Low traffic and I was able to mellow into several iterations of my favorite Godflesh song:

Drove slow, absorbing the night. Yeah, I copped a little buzz from my one hitter before hitting the street, it helped ease me into what I'd hoped, a nice, fluid drive; a near hypnagogic state. I can't go there too often these days. It conflicts with the writing. Nice to revisit it from time to time, need to try to do so once a week or so.

Playlist from yesterday:

Shrinebuilder - Eponymous

The Soft Moon - Criminal

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

David Bowie - Heroes

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Dave Brubeck - Time Out

Ghost - Infestissumam

Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color

Sade - iTunes Essentials

No card today.

Godflesh - Carrion

'Tis the season...

For GODFLESH

Stream New Godflesh EP Decline and Fall

Released via Avalanche, inc. earlier today. Buy it on the Godflesh's Bandcamp here.

Godflesh @ Henry Fonda Theatre 4/22/14

When word first surfaced circa 2010 that Godflesh was reuniting to play a European festival show I became excited. If it'd been in my budget/schedule to fly to that show I would have, but with all the other tantalizing European line-ups (esp. All Tomorrow's Parties and Minehead which - at least in years past - seem to consistently book many too-good-to-be-true corners of my record collection past/present and future) it's just not in my cards at the moment.

Tarot or credit.

But with Godflesh, Justin K. Broadrick is so prolific that I just knew there would be more shows and maybe a record to boot.

Or, given time, many more records.

So when I had the chance to buy tickets to see Godflesh on their first North American tour in a looong time I did not balk. Originally I had it planned where I was going to see them in Chicago at my beloved Metro and then again in LA several days later. Then there were problems with the bands' visas and the tour was postponed. I ended up not seeing them in Chicago, but the LA show this past Tuesday at the always fantastic Henry Fonda Theatre was something of a dream come true. When they came out and opened with the pummeling Like Rats I knew this was going to go down as one of my most cherished concert experiences.

Special thanks to MBMdrums666 who took some fantastic video of the show and put it up online and also to the awesome 80's metal chick who tore shit up with her dancing and kept our little corner of the Fonda free of others.

1 Minute Teaser from New Jesu Song

September 24th on Avalanche Records. New Justin Broadrick in any form is always an event!

Courtesy of Metalsucks.

New Jesu in September, New Pale Sketcher NOW!!!

Well, I received some bad news today in the form of an old friend passing away. Not someone I knew terribly well - he was an older guy who was a regular at the bar I tended in Chicago from 2001 to 2006. Every year when I go home to Chicago he's one of the few that I see. I didn't agree with a lot of what he said, but I loved the guy. A lot.

Well, I walked in the house dreary from the news and when I fired up the old Com-pu-ter Brooklyn Vegan helped take the edge off by posting some fucking awesome news:

New Jesu record out on September 24th. And the title hit home: Every Day I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came. Leave it to Mr. Justin K. Broadrick - the guy's a legend for all the right reasons. Along with this BV dropped news of a new Pale Sketcher over on that particular Broadrick project's bandcamp. Here's one of them, go to the Vegan page for more of the particulars and hit the bandcamp full throttle for more Broadrick tunes.

Blut Aus Nord The Work Which Transforms God 10th Anniversary Vinyl

Yep. Grab yours here at Debemur-Morti I ordered mine today. There's either the 2x12" LP version or the double, gatefold CD (which is limited to 777 copies- NICE).

Now, I'm pretty sure these are packaged w/out Thematic Emanations of Archetypal Multiplicity, HOWEVER, there is a cover of Godflesh's Mighty Trust Krusher. I've posted the original below - Emanations and The Work... were my first experiences with the wonder that is Blut Aus Nord, and one of the first things I noticed as I fell into their black orbit was the obvious influence Godflesh and Justin K. Broadrick in general had on Vindsval. Well, no where can that be heard more than on Streetcleaner's The Mighty Trust Krusher. I can't wait to hear what Nord's version of this classic sounds like.

Special edition releases July 5th.

Godflesh live @ Schorndorf March 31, 1990 FULL SHOW

And here's the full show.

Godflesh - Head Dirt live @ Schorndorf March 31 1990

How the FUCK does this only have 171 hits??????????????

Godflesh - Flowers Remix

I recently scored tix to see the mighty Godflesh in both Chicago and LA all in the same week!!! Special thanks to both my wonderful wife and Mr. Brown for throwing down on tix while I was slavin' away in the cryo lab.

I'm celebrating with a lot of Godflesh in the stereo.