Out February 5th on Sacred Bones, with a variant that I pre-ordered from Waxwork, which I am now ridiculously excited for after hearing this track!
NCBD:
You can set your freakin' watch by how on-time this book is every month.
Lonely Receiver's penultimate issue. I'm really enjoying this one, and things really crystalized last issue, so this is sure to be pretty F*ked up!
I'm unclear whether this "Zero" issue of the Locke and Key/Sandman crossover due out early next year is a full issue, or simply what amounts to an ashcan-sized promo. I'm also unsure why this is coming up as being out this week but has October 2020 across the front cover.
Playlist:
Ainoma - Necropolis
Airiel - Molten Young Lovers
Barrie - Canyons (single)
Barrie - Happy To Be Hear
The Blueflowers - Circus on Fire
The Blueflowers - Relapse EP
Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny
Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog
Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA
Card:
Let go of your preconceived notions and prepare to shake things up a bit. Feels like I could really use this.
A month or two back, one of my guys at work turned me onto Molchat Doma, a Belarusian post-punk band from Minsk, formed in 2017, whose newest album Monument, was released this year on Sacred Bones Records. Probably because of introducing them into my youtube algorithm, yesterday afternoon I stumbled across a thumbnail for a post titled "1 Hour of Melancholic SovietWave" (HERE). Sovietwave? I immediately clicked on this, and the track I've posted above was the lead-in track, which in turn sent me looking for more by this band, Воскресная площадка, which so far I have been unable to find a translation for. In listening, so far, I'm fascinated, so I intend to explore this a bit more over the coming days (and nights; this music is perfect for after the sun sets).
Watch:
Friday night I finally got around to watching Edward Norton's Adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's novel Motherless Brooklyn. Wow. Fantastic film.
It's been at least ten years since I read Mr. Lethem's novel, and being that I finished my re-read of William Sloane's To Walk the Night yesterday, I moved directly into round two with Brooklyn. In cases like this, where I've read the book but not in a while, I'm never sure if I should watch the film first or re-read the book first, so once again, I'm just going to play it by ear. Either way, both are fantastic.
Of special note, the music for Mr. Norton's adaptation was done by Composer Daniel Pemberton, with contributions from Wynton Marsalis and Thom York, to name a few (although, as always, I feel like Mr. Yorke's voice is somewhat of an unwelcome sonic element in film scoring and composition, as it is so distinct and unmusical, it usually takes me out of the story immediately).
Playlist:
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Oliver Nelson - The Blues and the Abstract Truth
Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come
Ella Fiztgerald - The Best of Ella Fitzgerald Vol. II
Because I can't seem to get enough Type O this year. Well, that's every year in Autumn, but I suppose I'm smoking more pot this year, and it's making me appreciate them in a way I don't normally get to relive these days. Big difference between having a few beers and listening to music, and smoking out with one. Especially one you've loved for this long.
31 Days of Halloween:
1) Tales of Halloween: Sweet Tooth/The Wolf Man (1941)
2) From Beyond/Monsterland: Port Fourchon, Louisiana/Tales of Halloween: The Night Billy Raised Hell/Tales of Halloween: Trick
3) Mulholland Drive/Creepshow (1982): The Crate
4) Waxwork
5) Synchronic/Bad Hair
6) Dolls
7) Lovecraft Country Ep. 8/Tales of Halloween: The Weak and the Wicken/Tales of Halloween: The Grim Grinning Ghost
8) 976-Evil
9) Repo! The Genetic Opera
10) Firestarter/George A. Romero's Bruiser
11) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 1 & 2/Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
12) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 3, 4, and 5/House of 1000 Corpses
13) Masque of the Red Death/Creepshow (2019) Episode 7/Creepshow (1982)
14) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 6 and 7
15) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 8 and 9
Yeah, so I'm hearing a lot of talk that people feel Bly Manor isn't as good Hill House. To each their own, I suppose. Both series are two distinctly different things, and I don't see how, for myself, I could compare them. I loved both, and I watched them two years apart, so I do not feel qualified at the moment to compare them. I will say, the finale of Bly Manor really dug into the heart strings. A class act all the way around the board on this one.
Well, maybe not exactly new Mastodon, as the forthcoming Medium Rarities, out September 11th, is, as the title suggests, a rarities collection, and not a full-blown new album. Either way, I'm excited. It's been three years since Emperor of Sand, and I am fully ready for new music from these guys.
**
Last night, it was with great fervor that I rented Amy Seimetz's new film She Dies Tomorrow. Wow. This is one I'll be mulling over for months to come. It's not that there's necessarily something deeper than what's on the screen, but the film is an interesting idea - and extrapolation of linguistic, sociological, and psychological idea already out there - executed by Semitz's unique and confident voice. It's a voice that is wholly her own, although you'll be able to make some comparisons when it comes to tempo and restraint. It's the confidence I'm smitten with here; this is not going to be a popular film, but the writer/director doesn't care. And she shouldn't. That's the point.
**
Playlist:
Poe - Hello
Exhalants - Bang (pre-release single)
Moaning - Uneasy Laughter
Contours - 20th Century Masters
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Mastodon - Fallen Torches (pre-release single)
Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.
**
Card:
I did a spread today, to see if A) the recently omnipotent Hierophant would rear his head and, B) if so, might I find a little clarity. No V, but I think I may have found some clarification.
I've recently finished The Secret Life of Murder, which I'm alternately thinking of as A Beast of its Own Momentum, although that title will most likely go to something else. Once finished, though, I decided instead of simply publishing the novel through my The Horror Vision Press, I would try to shop it. That meant buying a Writer's Market - thank god for Kindle, so no phone book sized tome laying around, waiting to be discarded in a few months. It also meant figuring out a way to make the book slightly different. The version I'm shopping has a different title - a far simpler title, and not necessarily one that I approve of. The idea here is to try and use this to my advantage, to usher in a larger audience and paycheck. Selling out? Who cares - that's an argument for a younger man. As the world unwinds, I find that all I really want to do is be able to buy a piece of land somewhere in Washington state - somewhere away from major cities - and have my little enclave. This is the first step on that experiment.My plan also means sending query letters, something I used to find
distasteful, but which I now recognize that I am 100% terrified of. I
find this near-paralyzing fear confounding, but its there alright. So
for the better part of a week I sat twiddling my thumbs, making excuses
of why I wasn't ready to do that yet. Until the first of the three draws
of V The Hierophant recently, which basically says this is the dogma
you left behind, but for the moment, face it head-on. This new spread
then, tells me I have to put in the work doing this, and it will pay off
and change my world.
The beginning of this song is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've heard on piano. I fell down a bit of a Don Shirley rabbit hole yesterday, and in doing so, came across again some articles that posit 2018's Green Book was a racist film. THIS is the problem with the left; everything is a problem. Every man's a rapist. Every white person is racist. Four years of captain goatfucker in office and everyone loses their fucking minds. The way forward is not to one extreme or the other. It's COMMON SENSE. Until the day this prevails (not holding my breath), I'll use music like this to remind me how beautiful the world is by listening to music like this. Thank you, Don Shirley.
**
The Final episode of HBO's I'll Be Gone in the Dark aired last night. Slightly anticlimactic, but of course that's the bane of most True Crime.
Next up, we're finishing the last half of the final season of Breaking Bad. halfway through, I realize there's a reason I've put off revisiting this show. The emotion destruction that accompanies Season 5 Part 2 is unlike anything else I've seen in serialized television. I love this show for the craft, the concise nature of the storytelling, but it really beats me up.
After that? I think we're going to do one both K and Mr. Brown have recommended to me - Halt and Catch Fire.
I've been looking forward to this for some time, so even though there's a boatload of shows to dig into, this one is next.
**
Playlist:
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
Led Zeppelin - Coda
La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again
Roly Porter - Kistvaen
The Jesus Lizard - Head
Jeffery Alan Jones - Most Beautiful Island OST
François-Eudes Chanfrault - Computer Assisted Sunset
Ghost - Opus Eponymous
Ghosts of Glaciers - The Greatest Burden
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Underworld - Beaucoup Fish
Don Shirley - Don Shirley's Best
Don Shirley - Total Expressions
**
Card:
Time to pay closer attention to the rules for a bit, especially those I place upon myself. Things may have gotten a bit loosey Goosey of late, with Quarantine-Fatigue, or possibly from the contemplation of actually making it through the tunnel and out into the light again.
New Grimes track! I reluctantly listened to this - while I'm chomping at the bit for the album and can't help but listen to every new track she drops, I'd really like to preserve the album experience. That said, I'm glad I hit play this one time (abstaining after until release day) because this is a fantastic track.
**
Finished Gideon the Ninth. Fantastic - four solid stars on Goodreads. Next up, Autumn Christian's Girl Like A Bomb, which I'm only a few pages into so far but am totally fascinated by. Sex has never been something I've shied away from in fiction, probably because so many of my favorite formative authors utilize it so well. It is a part of life, after all, and Irvine Welsh, Bret Easton Ellis, and Chuck Palahniuk - to name a few - all write it very well. However, if you look at the common denominator there - all men - you'll probably see what I see, namely the fact that it's pretty one-sided. Christian's book starts off with sex and carries on much the same for the first chapter. It's about a girl's mission to lose her virginity and the strange power she experiences in doing so. Not sure if this power is a metaphor or something extraordinary yet, but then, that's the gotta see of the book, so far, and it's nice to see sex from the female perspective.
Because Girl Like A Bomb is a shorter book, and because I needed some inspiration and Warren Ellis is always raw inspiration, I also bought and downloaded Dead Pig Collector, the novella I picked up a signed copy of earlier in the year but can't bring myself to actually handle in order to read. It was only $.99 on Kindle, so a second, digital copy is hardly extravagant. And of course, within two pages, I'm fascinated and anxious and inspired, all at once.
There are a couple Ellis novels or novellas I've been meaning to read for a few years now, and one I plan to re-read fairly soon, but I figure I'll space them out a bit. The man has a lot of comics I still need to get to as well. The very definition of prolific.
**
My only day off this week due to the on-call schedule, K and I blitzed through a good half-dozen episodes of Veronica Mars season 3 yesterday. Man! I remembered three as being the weakest season, but honestly, just past the half-way mark and I'm thinking it is actually the strongest. The Campus rape storyline is dark AF and I have to wonder if it helped make the show disappear during that original run, but it's the most engrossing storyline to date, and doesn't suffer from being strewn across an entire season, mixed in with the "Scooby-Doo", case of the week stories that pepper throughout. Unlike the Lilly Kane or Exploding Bus storylines, the Campus rape storyline is an omnipotent presence that nips at our casts' heels the entire length of its life, and as such, really creates an ongoing sense of anxiety that works well in a detective, beach-noir show.
We're super close to finishing season three, doing the movie and then finally getting to the new season, so my curiosity is almost at the point of being sated. I purposely know nothing about Hulu's season 4, and cannot wait to dive into it and see where all these familiar characters are in their lives, fifteen or so years later. And after that... the truth is out there. Mr. Brown and my X-Files playlist project begins...
**
Playlist:
Meg Myers - Sorry
Jenny Hval - The Practice of Love
New Radicals - Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too
Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of the Bewilderbeast
Federale - No Justice
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
The Forest Children - Kingdom Animalia
The Forest Children - Darkness Brings the Cold
Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping Alone
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Radiohead - OK Computer
Dungen - Ta det lugnt
Muggs - Dust
Thievery Corporation - The Mirror Conspiracy
Twilight Singers - Twilight
Various Artists - Under Frustration Vol. 2
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Them Are Us Too - Remain
White Hex - Gold Nights
Sleaford Mods - English Tapas
**
Card:
I had to pull a clarifying card after coming up with the Eight of Swords - so some contrary experience will challenge a pre-established idea or ideal I carry with me? Good. It's always nice to get a fresh perspective.
From the forthcoming album Nightmare Stories - great title - available from Southern Lord on June 7th. You can pre-order the digital album HERE, not sure about physical copies yet, I couldn't find a link on the bandcamp or Southern Lord's site.
And that reminds me: Sunn O)))'s Steve Albini-produced Life Metal dropped on Record Store Day, but is apparently unavailable anywhere else at the moment. I totally forgot about this one - it would have definitely motivated me to find a record store while I was in Seattle. Anyone have any deets about further release schedules? I've checked both the band and Southern Lord's bandcamps, the Southern Lord Twitter, and a few other places and found nothing.
**
Flew into LAX yesterday and today, it's back to reality.
**
Playlist from 4/15:
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow
Zombi - Shape Shift
Stereolab - Margerine Eclipse
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
Calexico - The Black Light
I discovered The Blueflowers yesterday on KXLU. Wow. Love this band. They have several albums available through their bandcamp HERE, and most if not all of those are on Apple Music. I'm digging into 2018's Circus on Fire this morning, and it's taking me places both familiar and strange.
I forgot to mention that last Friday I watched Pod, a film from 2015 directed by Mickey Keating. I'd seen the thumbnail for this one for years. I've also started to see discussion among a fairly rabid Keating fanbase I never realized existed, and after just this one flick I can see why some would rabidly endorse his movies. Pod is fantastic; Larry Fessenden's in it, and that's almost always a great sign; based on the simple, no-nonsense execution of a straight forward horror/sci fi concept, I'm guessing Mickey Keating's work will fit in nicely alongside Ti West and Joe Begos. In fact, Pod and Begos' The Mind's Eye would make an Excellent double feature.
Playlist from 1/14:
Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis
Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the White Horse (pre-release single)
Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada
David Zinman, Dawn Upshaw & London Sinfonietta - Gorecki: Symphony No. 3
Card of the day:
Second day in a row for this one. And that's probably because my interpretation yesterday was correct; I came SO close to finishing the book. So this card reappears today, because Today is the day.
