Nurse With Wound — Thunder Perfect Mind

Originally released in the early 90’s, Thunder Perfect Mind was very much a yin/ yang album from long-running sonic surrealist Nurse With Wound. It features just two tracks- one focused on in detailed industrial sounds, and the other on dark ambience with later forays into rhythmic fare. Here on Austria’s Infinite Fog Productions is a two-CD reissue of the album- the first disc takes in the original album, and on the second disc is a 2016 compilation album- Various Industrial Adhesives And Lubricants

No Orchids for Miss Blandish — No Orchids for Miss Blandish( Blu Ray)

No Orchids for Miss Blandish is a 1948 British gangster/ noir movie directed by St. John Leigh Clowes (Grand Prix, Frozen Fate and Things Happen at Night) and based on the 1939 novel of the same name by writer James Hadley Chase. The film stars Jack La Rue (Special Agent, Road to Utopia and Bush Pilot), Hugh McDermott (Devil Girl from Mars, Lilli Marlene and ‘Pimpernel’ Smith), Linden Travers (The Lady Vanishes, Christopher Columbus and The Terror), Walter Crisham (Moulin Rouge 1952, Joe MacBeth and The Beachcomber) and there is even room for a cameo from a young Sid James (Carry on up the Khyber, Carry on Cleo and Carry on at Your Convenience) as a bar tender.

Sana / Sana: Let Me Hear — Sana / Sana: Let Me Hear ( Blu Ray boxset)

J-pop and J-horror combine in Takashi Shimizu’s return to his horror roots. Having shot to the top table of the genre by masterminding the menace-heavy Ju-On franchise in Japan and the United States, this time, the director spins out the horror from an old cassette tape, which haunts anyone who hears it with a mysterious melody before they vanish.

The Residents — Animal Lover- Evolution Edition

First released in 2005, Animal Lover was the twenty-fifth album from those avant-pop/ prime sonic experimenters, The Residents. It featured fifteen tracks, been a concept album focusing on the relationship between human beings, industry, and nature. With a sound that mixed uneasy nursery rhymes melodies, off-Broadway musical sinisterness, tolling gamelan percussion with elements of searing to wonkily moody guitars, and off-kilter electronica. From Cherry Red/MVD Audio, here is the next in the 'Preserved Series'- which sees the definitive release of classic Residents albums- that features unreleased/rare bonus tracks and a new remastering.

Mancunian low-budget Movie Mogul

Cliff Twemlow On Severin

One of last year’s real big surprises in the world of Blu-ray box sets was Bloody Legend: The Complete Twemlow Collection, as it was a wholly entertaining, fascinating, and at times heart-warming set. The Severin released boxset brought together the work of one of the UK’s unlikeliest movie moguls- Cliff Twemlow, a Mancunian bouncer/ body builder, who went on to write/star in/produce a series of low-budget/ largely SOV films in the early 80s to early 90s- these moved between action, thriller, sci-fi, and horror. His most notable/notorious film was 1983’s G.B.H., which landed on the video nasty list, though he was connected to other ten feature films, many of which got their first real full/proper release on the boxset. Opening up the set was the excellent 2023 documentary Mancunian Man: The Legendary Life of Cliff Twemlow, which really pulls you into the set. I caught up with Severn’s David Gregory and Jake West, director of Mancunian Man, to discuss the boxset and all things cliff.

Repetitious History - A Quick Trip Into The World Of The Fall

The Fall

MES( Mark E Smith- The Falls main creator) possessed the ability to cram phrases into impossible spaces - “I’m hunting and I’m trying to find” delivered as “hut’na tryna find”; the eight-syllable “mere pseud mag editor’s father” hastily squeezed into a manipulation of time and space, heralded by the prior line “twice each at least”, the latter naturally repeated thrice.