Sunken Dead at the Center

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.

Here's the group's Bandcamp. Check them out.

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Watch:

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. 

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Playlist:

Agnes Obel - Aventine

16 Horsepower - Hoarse

King Woman - Celestial Blues (pre-release singles)

White Zombie - La Sexorcisto

Sunken - Livslede

Diatribe - Odite Sermonis EP

Young Widows - Old Wounds

Isolation: Day 136

It was a real disappointment to learn that Shane Carruth - whose films Primer and Upstream Color are among the best films made in the last twenty years - is not a very cool person. I won't go into everything, but aside from numerous accounts of his assholery to everyday people, it appears that he may have made public certain aspects of his estranged relationship with director Amy Seimetz in a weird attempt to sabotage the release of her new film, She Dies Tomorrow. I'm not sure this is exactly what's going on, but regardless, I wanted to see this film before all this happened, now I'll be making it my Friday night watch next week when it drops on the 8th, just to help bump the film's numbers. Looks awesome, and seeing Jane Adams and Tunde Adebimpe from TVOTR is just too good to be true.

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K and I caught up to the current episode of HBO's I'll Be Gone in the Dark last night. This show is a powerhouse of emotion and terror, and although I usually don't have the stomach or nerve for true crime - I prefer my horror to have at least a dash of supernatural so it doesn't color the world around me any darker than I already perceive it - this is one I would recommend to everyone. I've loved most of what Michelle McNamara's husband Patton Oswalt has done since someone turned me onto Feelin' Kinda Patton in the mid-00s. To see this side of his life, and the lengths Michelle McNamara went to hunting a decades-old killer, it's inspiring.



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Playlist:

Primus - Frizzle Fry
Count Raven - Storm Warning
Angel Witch - '82 Revisited
Testament - Titans of Creation
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

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Card:

Another pull from my beautiful new Raven Deck:

So I'll be paying more attention to my intuition.

2019: January 27th

How's that for a relaxing Sunday evening, eh? I've been hung up on a Dillinger binge again. This album... this freakin' album, I've been listening to it for almost twenty years, but I still don't think I fully grasp it. So gorgeous, and mind-bending, and dangerous. Speaking of Mindbending...

Two nights ago, I re-watched Shane Carruth's Upstream Color. Jesus, what a film. I remember the first time I put it on  I instantly became spellbound. There's a fluidity to the storytelling that makes me think of it as a cinematic poem. I won't pretend I 'get' a lot of it, but after watching it, I dug around online for a while and arrived at some pretty interesting 'answers.' We need another film from this man. The Modern Ocean has been listed on his IMDB for a while; let's hope we get that sooner rather than later.



Playlist from 1/26:

Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the White Horse
Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Only Lovers Left Alive OST
Pinebender - Working Nine to Wolf
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Boy Harsher - Country Girl EP
Boy Harsher - Yr Body is Nothing

No card today.

Trailer: Dead Center starring Shane Carruth

I am completely unfamiliar with Billy Senese and his 2014 debut Closer to God, but that's about to change. Just found this trailer via Birth.Movies.Death. - caught my eye when I saw Shane Carruth's name attached, as both Primer and especially Upstream Color are among the most thought-provoking films I've seen in years. One look at this trailer and I am sold!

Somehow I think both this and Mandy will be playing Beyond Fest this year. I really don't want to wait that long, but what an awesome environment that will be to see these in.

Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral

You know how David Cronenberg's films make you feel really uncomfortable with the concept of your body? The weird mesh of tech and flesh, blood and steel, wire and bone that he manipulates can sometimes be downright horrifying, sometimes freakishly hot and sometimes just WTF. Well, his son Brandon may have outdone him in his first film, Antiviral. I'm embellishing, but not by much. Currently tied with Shane Carruth's Upstream Color as my movie of the year. Antiviral is streaming on Netflix - go check it out (check out the snowcat and the radio while you're at it. Big surprise comin' to you...). But be prepared. It is a bit of a rough watch. Very much worth it though.

Upstream Color Trailer #1

Chills.