Brian House has put together something of an album, the contents of which really pass over anything resembling the possibility of a critical appraisal (more on this in a sec). The concept of Infrasound –– the auditory information that exists below the threshold of human perception – is a topic closely wed to larger concerns of situatedenss, environmental awareness, and the like. So when Brian House, a professor of such things, set out to construct microphones capable of capturing such phenomena, the die was essentially cast. In other words, House, fully cognizant of this fact, had no real control over what it is said microphones would relay. In order to render these findings perceptible, House used an old chestnut of tape recording: speed things up, which will de facto pitch things up to a frequency range that our little lugs can hold onto.

Human emotion is often difficult to convey through words, so art becomes the perfect channel for those needing to express themselves on a deeper, more intuitive level than glossology alone. War has unfortunately been driving humans to the brink of their emotions since prehistory, but thankfully art has been there even longer to serve as an outlet for those needing to get their fears and frustrations out into the world. French artist Lambwool created Ashes as a necessary response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its profound (and warranted) effect on his mental state, the emotions stirring from current times, as well as the post-war trauma burned deeply into European psyches. This work of dark ambient conveys the cold, brutal essence of this war, but by not getting too mired in the darkness, it presents a hopeful air that can help us all get through dark, terrifying times.

From the early 2020s, Shakespeare's Shitstorm sees Lloyd Kaufman and the Troma team doing their own distinctively crude, wacky, and deranged take on the Bard's play The Tempest. It finds mad doctor Prospero (Kaufman) shipwrecking, via a storm of defecating whales, a boatload of pharmaceutical executives to Tromaville, New Jersey, to carry out his revenge. If you know Troma, this is pretty much business as usual, with self-referential/perverse humour, large-breasted ladies, generally wacky manic-ness, silly musical numbers, and splatter-bound gore. Here from Troma Films is a three-disc release of the film, taking in a UHD, and two Blu-rays, with a good selection of extras

Evil Laugh is a mid-80s slasher with some light touches of humour and ahead-of-its-time postmodern elements. It features a cackling killer, some fairly bloody kills, the most inventive being microwave-based. Sure, it’s not a top-level example of the genre/ plays to the cliches- but it’s engaging enough, and will appeal to fans of the stalk ‘n’ slash form. Here from 88 Films- as part of their Slasher Classic series- is a Blu-ray release of the film, taking in an HD scan, commentary track from the slasher-loving podcast The Hysteria Continues, and a full-length archive documentary.

The Gospel According To Hana Haruna is a three-track release, which blurs the lines between spiteful ‘n’ searing wall of noise and more drifting/choral ambience. It’s a release that once again sees this Portland project pushing at the edges of the wall noise genre, for something rather distinctive.

Cranial Collapse is a decidedly swirling, yet crude/ nasty take on the walled noise form. The dead-on, twenty-minute track adds in a sparse/ buried spoken word element to create an extra layer of unease to the proceedings.