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Psychedelic Selection is a recent CD or 2 LP release from British space rock pioneers Hawkwind. Instead of an all-new album- it’s somewhat of a bits ‘n’ bobs release- bringing together a couple of brand-new tracks, new recordings of old tracks, and lesser-known tracks from their past.
Brethren Of The Pentagram is a four-CD box set bringing together the first three studio / live albums from grindcore/death metal/ death grind supergroup Lock Up. Over its existence, the band has featured members of Napalm Death, Dimmu Borgir, Hypocrisy, and At The Gates.
From the early 1990s, Mandroid is a Full Moon Entertainment production about a seemingly invincible humanoid robot that several parties are trying to get hold of. The Eastern European-set film mixes sci-fi with a low-key thriller and action elements, and it's an entertaining enough ride. Here’s a Blu-ray release of the film.
Lost Emulsion is a 2016 documentary film directed by Glenn Adreiev (Vampire’s Embrace, The Deed to Hell and Found Emulsion). The film features interviews with other industry figures such as writer/ producer/ actor Pat Bishow (Soultangler, It’s a Haunted Happenin’! and We Might Be Superheroes), actor Mike Gadinas (We Might Be Superheroes, The Deed to Hell and The Make Believers), actress/writer/producer Christa Lang (What’s Up Doc?, The Champagne Murders and Alphaville), actor/producer/ director Felix Moeller (Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suess, Forbidden Films and Sympathisanten: Unser Deutscher Herbst) , Roy Frumkes (Document of the Dead, Street Trash and The Substitute) and actor/ producer David Del Valle (Evil Bong 420, Puppet Master: Axis Termination and Dark Shadows 30th Anniversary Tribute)
The Fetus (2025) is a dark comedy horror written and directed by Joe Lam in his feature debut. It stars Lauren LaVera (Terrifier 2, 3) as Alessa and Bill Moseley (The Devil's Rejects) as her estranged father, Maddox, with Julian Curtis (Are You Afraid of the Dark?) as her boyfriend, Chris. When Alessa discovers she is pregnant with something that shouldn't exist, she has no choice but to turn to her father for help - a grotesque tale of demonic pregnancy blends body horror with pitch-black humour.
Twenty years and a million miles from their 2006 debut, Genghis Tron returns to Relapse with their fourth full-length, Signal Fire. Although the band has changed direction quite a bit from their earlier works, this latest continues the style debuted on 2021's Dream Weapon, and once again featuring Nick Yacyshyn on drums. Genghis Tron's shift to post-apocalyptic synthwave/industrial infused with streaks of chaotic metal provides an engaging template for Signal Fire's dystopian view of an amoral, warfare-filled future.
Macabre is an early 80’s mix of dark psychological thriller and ghoulish horror. It’s the first official credit from Lamberto Bava (Demons, Body Puzzle, Blade In The Dark). It concerns a middle-aged woman moving into a boarding house after getting out of a psych ward to recover from the drowning of her son, and the death of her love via decapitation during a car accident. For the most part, the film is a very slow-paced affair, focusing on atmosphere, drama, and building suspense, though in the last quarter, it kicks in with a highly troubling reveal, OTT performances, and psycho-fuelled action. Here from Powerhouse as either a UHD or Blu-ray, taking in a new 4k scan, three versions of the film, a new commentary track, and a good selection of new/ archive extras. The US version of the release is on Vinegar Syndrome.
Gobblefoot is a US low-budget horror film from last year. It mixes eerie atmospherics, neat enough creature design, lo-fi splatter gore, quirky characters, with touches of awkward humour. The film follows the titular creature going on a killing spree in a village, with an ageing & troubled academic trying to find out what’s going on/ track down the creature. Here from SRS Cinema is a DVD release of the film, featuring a director's commentary track and a few other things.
They always say you can’t judge a book by its cover, and the same goes for not judging an album by its title. Take last year's double CD album Funkstille- by Cologne-based composer Darius Heid- a title like this suggests deep bass grooves, upbeat pace, maybe a playful edge- but above all, some funk. But instead it severs nine slices of taut ‘n’ tense compositions for piano, cello, double bass, percussion, and low-key electronics. Genre-wise, I’d say somewhere between stark modern classical and tense improv.
Palais De Maris is one of the later piano works by modern American classical composer Morton Feldman. Like much of his work-it’s based around patterns- sometimes these are harmonic, sometimes they're moody, and other times their discordant/ angular.
Ten Steps to Thin Mountain Steps 4-5 is the first release in a few years from Thin Mountain, one of the many projects of American noisemaker Sean E. Matzus (Black Leather Jesus & Last Rape). The C60/ digital download serves up a single fifty-five-minute track, which moves through some textural & atmospherically rewarding shifts.
62526 is the latest release from this Wisconsin-based wall noise project. It’s a forty-five-minute wall which focuses on creating a wonderfully taut, constricting, yet atmospheric vibe.
Organ drones and drums. The ingredients are well-established, but their specific movement through sonic space, autopoietic and generous, is anything but on Cold Shoulder by long-time collaborators and experimentalists, Oren Ambarchi and Will Guthrie. That the two performers are familiar with one another is immediately apparent and animates a constantly evolving organic core of the album’s two, side-length pieces, originally recorded live in Berlin in 2024 (the immediacy of the performance is similarly evident). Oh, and the shifting movement of what sounds like the Leslie speaker of a Hammond organ? Well, it’s really Ambarchi’s guitar, called upon to push back the listening environment until there is finally space for Guthrie’s drums to emerge — naked and unmasked.
Well, this is something I never thought I’d see… maybe we really are moving towards the end times?!. Last Foxtrot In Burbank was the first feature film from cult auteur/ infamous horror/ sci-fi filmmaker/ producer Charles Band. Since it was released in the early 70’s, Band has done all he can to remove the film from his filmography- destroying prints, posters, PR, and writing it out of his history. The film is a sex comedy/ send up of Marlon Brando's 1972's erotic drama Last Tango In Paris- with an episodic flow, lots of dirty words, Paris stock footage, and slapstick humour- with female & some male nudity. Here from Full Moon Features is a Blu-ray release of the film
Madhouse is a mid-70s UK/US co-production featuring two horror icons, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. It regards a recent out-of-institution actor (Price) returning to play his classic role, Doctor Death, and people start dying for real. The film is a rather ahead-of-its-time picture, as it blends elements of slasher, post-modern horror, with a whodunit, and campy dark comedy. Here from Eureka is a new Blu-ray release of the picture, featuring an HD scan, a commentary track, an introduction and a few other extras.
The sub-genre of killer ant movies runs to about twenty or so titles. One of the more well-known is probably 1977’s The Empire Of The Ants, and while it’s far from the best the genre had to offer, either in effects, tension, or originality. There’s a rather campy charm to the whole thing, with moments of insect dread/ unease, a few neat enough set pieces, dabs of gore, and a rewarding twist into sci-fi/conspiratorial thriller. It regards a silver-tongued and glamorously real estate agent- played by Joan Collins- trying to sell plots of land in a new development, whose party is attacked by giant ants. Here from Eurkea is a Blu-ray release of the film, featuring an HD scan, two commentaries, and a few other extras.
Appearing four years after the first film, Sex & Zen II is another period-set cinematic slice of sex comedy & fantasy- mixing softcore, raunchy/ at times bad taste humour, wackiness, light touches of horror, and general lush/ colourful look. Here from the fine folks at 88 Films, who reissued the first film last year (reviewed here), is a Blu-ray, taking in a high-def/ fully uncut print, a new commentary track, and a few other things.
The Cars That Ate Paris is a decidedly woozy & uneasy blend of black-as-your-hat comedy, grimly quirky drama, consumerism satire and low-key horror. The early 1970’s Australian film regards a small town, where the citizens are deliberately causing car crashes, and the rather meek & mild man who gets stuck in said town. It’s a film that is very hard to pin down into one genre, but there's often a keen sense of both menace and low-key absurdity. Here from the BFI is a two-disc Blu-ray release of the film, taking in a 4k scan, new commentary track, and a mix of new/ archive extras. Also included is The Plumber, a made-for-TV thriller by the same director, with its own extras. This release is also available as a UHD variant.
Sidewinder is a two-track HNW release from Ohio’s Stalk Market. According to the releases write up, it’s meant to offer up a short and longer version of the same track, but I found a few differences between the tracks.
Dominion Of The Predator is a new fifty-minute release from Hana Haruna, aka Portland's Ken Jamison. It takes in two twenty-five-minute ‘walls’ that focus on the denser/ thicker side of the project's sound.
Here’s a split that severs up two around half-an-hour slices of searing-to-overloaded wall noise. Featured here are Switzerland’s Earthflesh and Brazil’s Kadaveric Kommando.
Jörg Buttgereit's Nekromantik is an underground classic, well known even by those that have yet to witness its perverse love story and bloody climax...literally. However, the man behind the score, Hermann Kopp, has been weaving tense, eerie scores into two other Buttgereit films, as well as releasing many well-received solo works. His love of cinematic scoring hit another milestone when he scored the Wegener silent classic, Der Golem, in 2025. After two different presentations (Paris and Wroclaw), his modern score for the expressionist classic is now available through Cold Spring Records. Engaging all on its own, cinephiles will want to cue up their copy of Der Golem, a copy of Kopp's new score, hit play, and see the film with entirely new eyes.
Composer Ed Cooper offers here an album titled Vestibule, released on the label Thanatosis, with a trio of short tracks one to two minutes long, and a pair of much longer pieces, roughly twenty-five minutes each. I would describe it as a minimalist soundscape, which is apparently performed by several musicians and arranged by Ed.
The Living Dead Girl was the 31st feature film from French director Jean Rollin. It’s very much of a crossbreed bringing together the macabre and tragic gothic of his earlier work, with the extreme gore of the 1980’s. It regards a blond-haired heiress who is brought back to life by a toxic spill, to become a blood-sucking, later mentally tortured zombie.Here from Powerhouse, as part of their series of reissues of Rollin’s work, is either a UHD or Blu-ray release of the film. It takes in a new 4k scan of the picture, two versions of the movie, a new commentary track, and a mix of new/archive extras.