Anticitizen One.

Oh, hi.

My list for this year (I don't think I actually did a list last year) is much less well-rounded than lists I've done in the past. vogdoid's list looks very astutely thorough to me, like the sort of list I would have put together a few years ago; over the last couple of years however I've been pretty happy to stay more or less within my "comfort zone" though it isn't always perfectly comfortable...

Deathspell Omega/S.V.E.S.T. — Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeternum

Deathspell Omega — "Chaining the Katechon"

Going into this one it's better if you've heard some of DsO's previous work, or at the very least are familiar with Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum, the album which marked the most significant departure from their original orthodox black metal style. A good description of Fas: "[it] is not so much a metal album as a musical puzzle box; a labyrinth with moving walls and booby-trapped floors; a hallucination of alternating agony and ecstasy." It's not purely an album to be enjoyed or to find catharsis in. There are moments where it suddenly gels and a fucking monumental riff emerges from the tangle of sound and it's very gratifying, but for the most part it's an album to surrender yourself to, to get lost in its hall of mirrors. Many often likened it to Gorguts' Obscura, being a quite dense and discordant work of technically experimental black metal. For their half of this new split DsO follow up on Fas with a single lengthy track that is no less thoughtfully composed, but perhaps a bit kinder — at least initially. "Chaining the Katechon" right away comes out with some very clear and strong riffs, then begins to explore itself more thoroughly, contorting and erupting further as it goes. And this is but an interlude to the trilogy they began with Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice, continued with Fas, and will conclude on their forthcoming 2009 LP. I cannot wait.


S.V.E.S.T. - I. "Et La Lumière Fut, Comme Un Coup De Scalpel", II. "Le Diable Est Ma Raison", III. "Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeternum"

This sounds so much like some diabolically feverish no wave cutup of '70s rock anthems (particularly the first track; skip ahead to 4:40 if you're not feeling it) and an old horror film soundtrack that I feel like this should appeal to far more people than just fans of black metal. Either way this split has been good for S.V.E.S.T. because DsO is quite a bit more widely known than they are, but this should get them the recognition they deserve and then some. For my money, this split is the best release of the year.


OTHER RELEASES I HAVE ENJOYED:
Deathspell Omega — Manifestations 2002
Deathspell Omega — Manifestations 2000-2001
Urfaust — Drei Rituale Jenseits des Kosmos EP
Leviathan — Massive Conspiracy Against All Life
Old Wainds — Death Nord Kult
Darkspace — Darkspace III
Volahn — Dimensiónes del Trance Kósmico
Sigh — A Tribute to Venom
Darkthrone — Dark Thrones and Black Flags (Dumb title, but another solid record.)
Darkthrone — Frostland Tapes
Grave — Dominion VIII
Dismember — Dismember
Dead Congregation — Graves of the Archangels
Faustcoven — Rising from Below the Earth
Acid Witch — Witchtanic Hellucinations (Yes, you kind of have to enjoy metal camp to like this.)
Boris — Smile
Earth — The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull
Nadja — The Bungled and the Botched
Grouper — Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
Fennesz — Black Sea
Coil — The New Backwards
Einstürzende Neubauten — The Jewels
Aidan Baker/Tim Hecker — Fantasma Parastasie
Portishead — Third
DJ Scotch Egg — Drumized

Today I downloaded the new Boris/Kurihara record, Cloud Chamber, and frankly I'm finding it to be pretty boring — certainly no match for Deathprod's "Cloudchamber". I've actually found my interest in recent Boris output to be waning a bit, but maybe I'm just waiting for them to release something on par with Akuma no Uta or Pink again.

The Craptopsy was probably the biggest disappointment of the year, but I guess it's not like I've actually cared much for anything they've done since None So Vile. Still...

Dunno, I might be forgetting something. Recommendations are certainly welcome.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been finding human beings more and more terrifying.

I found out several days ago that my brother has decided to join the army. He leaves on the 1st of January. How do I feel about this? Well, at first I was pretty bummed out. And I think I still am, but mostly because I know I'll be worrying for him, and I hate to think of how my parents and my sister and the rest of my family will worry for him ceaselessly for the next four years. On the other hand, I'm aware that he's tried to keep this a secret from most of us — he originally hadn't planned to tell anyone until around christmas, actually — and I don't want him to feel like he's going into something like this without his family's support. It's not something I agree with or believe in, but he is my brother nonetheless. I left him a voicemail expressing my concerns and he hasn't called back, most likely because I think he's sick of hearing people make attempts to dissuade him (evidently my aunt and cousin living up in Seattle offered to let him come live with them rent-free for a year or so and decide what he wants to do). I'd just like to let him know that I'm behind him no matter what.

All of this also reminds me of how sad I've been that our relationship hasn't been as fun or brotherly as usual for most of the last year. I'm not entirely sure what changed, or which of us changed more, or didn't change enough. I love my brother, but I feel like he's become someone quite different, much more serious and distant, and I miss him. I have a feeling that this is symptomatic of how lost he feels right now because of certain changes in his life, and that joining the army is his way of finding an answer or a purpose. Maybe he just wants to get away from everything. Or maybe his apparent change has something more to do with me, and expectations I may have failed to live up to as his older brother. It breaks my heart to think that, but I don't know.

I just wish him well.

Things over here in Portland have been pretty good. I'm not getting nearly enough hours at work and it's becoming a bit frustrating, but it's also incentive to get on with finding something better. I'll spend some time updating my resume and looking around on craigslist tomorrow, and maybe go downtown and fill out some apps. Any suggestions anyone in the area may wish to send my way, please do!

My cell phone was dead for a few days there since I didn't have my charger cord with me, so anyone who left me messages on Friday or Saturday, I wasn't ignoring you.

Yesterday/last night was day one of the Grindhouse Film Festival at the Hollywood Theater, featuring Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, Zombie, Demons, and Blackbelt Jones. It was a great time, even though Demons kind of sucked. And we tried to see No Country for Old Men today, but it was sold out. I took a nap instead, and I'm still feeling totally wiped out. Thus this entry is very plainly written and probably a total bore to read. Sorry.

Seems like the hype around this band grows more and more, particularly since they were signed to Southern Lord for the release of their sophomore album, Two Hunters, and deservedly so. Wolves in the Throne Room are a trio of guys from Olympia, Washington, professing "humbleness before nature" and an organic "DIY lifestyle" — living in a cabin in the woods and reputedly growing their own food. Also reputedly "scorning the consumer-based traditions of the modern world", but apparently not so much so that they aren't willing to sell their records on arguably the biggest label for metal these days and tour as madly as any other band earning a living. Whatever; they know what they're doing when it comes to their music, which is all that really matters. Aaron, the drummer, claims that the band's aim is to "[express] the truth of balance in the universe, the flow of energy from light to dark, death to life." OK, fine. Hippie black metal? Something like that.

What we have here is some black metal drawing from most would consider to be the Norwegian quintessentials — Burzum (aesthetically (particularly in light of Hvis Lyset Tar Oss)), early Emperor and Satyricon, etc. — and some rather unabashed Weakling worship (check that logo), not to mention those flourishes of Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance resonance and grandeur. So really, those namedrops are probably what your decision of whether or not you're interested in hearing this band will hinge upon, which is only right. In any case, WITTR are arguably the finest U.S.-based band currently working in black metal. Here (password is thetruewarmongers.)

I look forward to seeing 'em in Portland this Sunday!

Panic is another Circle release — one which was actually released shortly before the more recent and much-loved Katapult. This one comes with a sticker one the front boasting Circle's 'Speed-Kraut Powers', which is apparently what they're calling this burst of freaked-out '80s hardcore punk bookended by a much lengthier set of ambient/electronic tracks along the lines of Tangerine Dream and every soundtrack to every '80s sci-fi/horror flick. The contrast is really odd, and aside from the electronic squibbling and noise shooting through the punk tracks there's really nothing to connect them to the krauty stuff here; nevertheless, despite or because of its oddly polarized style, it's fun and it works. To get all conceptual about it, (which is probably the intent here), you could say it begins with the soft rumblings of dissent and the news of oppression spreading (pretty clearly evident in a song title like "Pigs in the Paper") leading up to a violent outburst (Panic in the streets!) culminating in nuclear devastation before the sudden fallout: "Tunnel" is a dark and droning descent into murky depths, with "And Far Away" returning to a more utopian pulse, perhaps hinting at a bright and calm future (perhaps even one that is a bit sedate and artificial).

Anyway, yeah, I love this band more and more all the time.

You can grab it here (the password is sharedmp3.net (I'll try re-uploading a new zip to mediafire later on, if necessary)).

Is there an easy and FREE way to restore your iPod's files after the iTunes auto-sync decides to wipe it clean?

How fucking stupid can Apple be? Why would anyone want anything that is already on their iPod to be automatically removed just because it doesn't match up with iTunes' empty library? It should only add what isn't already on it. Right? At the very least, if it does remove something, it should immediately present the option to have it restored.

At least I've got my external hard drive out here, so I can put some things back on it later, but ugh.

It's Circle doing yet another 'New Wave of Finnish Black Metal' record, only this time it actually sounds a bit like black metal — '60s black metal, they say — and not just some grim psychedelic noodling (e.g. Tyrant). On this one they actually bring the metal like they haven't since the very Judas Priest-like Sunrise, complete with ridiculous(ly awesome) grunting and growling; however, it's just as replete with delightful kraut-y weirdness and some goofy David Bowie-ish vocals, living up to its promise. "Four Points of the Compass" even sounds like the score to some imaginary Italian horror film. Give it a spin.



Darkthrone get even dumber, and even more fun. This record fucking rules. EDIT: I still think Sardonic Wrath is the best record they've done since Panzerfaust, but after The Cult is Alive left me feeling a little underwhelmed, this is quite a welcome improvement. Gone are the blastbeats or much of anything overtly black metal — what we're left with here is a completely solid metal album, slightly crusty and blackened.

Are all of Ang Lee's films about repression and hidden true identities? I haven't seen everything he's done, but thinking of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hulk, Brokeback Mountain, and now Lust, Caution, the pattern holds true. These movies are about different things, of course — CTHD is a gorgeous Wǔxiá tale, Hulk is a totally retarded comic book movie, Brokeback Mountain is a gay cowboy drama, and Lust, Caution is a WWII espionage thriller (sort of) — but they all share this theme of repression and the concealed true nature/identity of their central characters. I'm not going to sit here and speculate on how this might be significant in some very Chinese way, which I might imagine that it is; nonetheless, it's something that I find interesting and, in a way, fairly universal. We're all somebody else at least some of the time, aren't we?

Anyhow, I was totally pleased with Lust, Caution. Reactions seem pretty mixed, but I recommend it.

Just doing some last minute things around here, feeling both nostalgic and excited for the near future. A little bit anxious, admittedly, but I know it'll be good. I've got two very cool friends there, as well as two cousins, and a whole lot of motivation to be focused and make the best of it.

Maybe I'll even start writing a little more again.

I'm so lost.

If you've ever enjoyed anything by Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paranoia Agent) — hell, if you enjoy movies — be sure to see Paprika. It's wonderful; easily his best work yet, and certainly the best full-length anime I've seen since Mind Game.

So Dead as Dreams was all we ever really got from Weakling. They managed to sink their claws into the edge of the cliff of the best shit, that sought-after majestic obscurity, but never gave themselves the chance to pull up and beyond that with a second album, according to Gossard himself. (Though in my opinion the one record we got is pretty well up there.) "It's a personal flaw of mine never to want to stick around long enough to see if that's gonna happen. Everything I love artistically in music is guaranteed to fail by the second to third album." Hey, even Asunder made it to a second album, along with a split EP or two. Well, that's alright.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a couple of things: the live demo and rehearsal recordings, pre-Dead as Dreams and sans vocals (thought it sounds like you can hear someone shouting without a mic at points). Talk about sketchy! Nevertheless, if you love Weakling half as much as I do you'll want to hear these. It's not another album, but it's something!

O)))

Also Listening To
Jesu — Sundown + Sunrise 12"
Actually just a domestic vinyl pressing of the two lengthier tracks from the bonus disc that came with the Japanese Conqueror CD. It's somewhat on the Heart Ache side of things, with an even greater emphasis on hazy electronics.
Nadja — Corrasion
Another 2007 re-recording of an older release, vastly improved. Fucking blissful and crushing. Like doom metal + Fennesz.
Ruins of Beverast — Rain Upon the Impure
I've been listening to this one just about as much as I've ever listened to Dead as Dreams at any given time. It's much more cohesive than their first record, Unlock the Shrine, which itself was quite stunning. Just gorgeously washed-out, murky black metal with the weight of doom.
Drudkh — Blood in Our Wells
This is another one I just cannot get enough of. Their recent EP was a little dull, but I'm seriously hoping that this year's Estrangement will be the amazing full-length followup that it could be. Blood in Our Wells and Rain Upon the Impure are both astounding records that came out last year, too late for me to notice them in time to have them on my best of '06 list, but they absolutely should be.
Sigh — Hangman's Hymn
Sigh complete the titular spelling of their own name for a second time with their second "H" record. What this one lacks in Gallows Gallery's textural diversity it makes up for with their most ferocious sound on record yet; they've more or less returned to full-on weird, symphonic black metal, Sigh style (circa Hail Horror Hail but cranked up a few notches), and their new drummer keeps them blazing along with relentless propulsion. The highlight here is "In Devil's Arms", which also happens to be the most reminiscent of Gallows Gallery.
Rakhim — Crimson Umbrella
Two songs, entitled "Transylvanian Error" and "Ultimate Sword". This is a couple of guys from Circle and Pharaoh Overlord doing an even blacker (yet still a bit krautrockish and improvisational) take on black metal than Circle's own Tyrant disc. It's more like a sort of "free black ambient" — the New Wave of Finnish Black Metal. Check it out if you enjoy Abruptum's Obscuritatem Advoco Amplectére Me.
Colleen — Les Ondes Silencieuses
Cécile Schott moves even further away from the lush electronic sound of Everyone Alive Wants Answers in favor of warm acoustics. A few tracks leave me wanting, but "Blue Sands" and "Sea of Tranquility" are particularly lovely. I'd say it's her most ponderous and melancholy yet.
Raccoo-oo-oon — The Cave of Spirits Forever
Check 'em out if you enjoy Gang Gang Dance, Bardo Pond, Jackie-O Motherfucker, etc. — something between Wolf Eyes and Animal Collective, maybe? Nice sparkling gobs of free jazz color and texture throughout, when they're not being grim and dirty almost to the point of blackened, earthy metal. I'm still exploring their wealth of output (which can be a bit uneven, quality-wise (and they've released countless cassettes)), but this one and Behold Secret Kingdom I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.
Merzbow — Coma Berenices
It's Merzbow. It's psychedelic. And there's guitar!
Tim Hecker — Harmony in Ultraviolet
Almost every night. This is easily one of my all-time favorites.

Andee and Allen of Aquarius are about to start their "weird black metal" special on KHJC 89.7 FM. Should be fun! "...three hours of the blackest of metals. Blasting, grim, frosty, kvlt, weird, damaged, demented, epic, majestic, bleak, miserable, ridiculous, and all the shades of black in between." It's running from 7-10pm PST, and I'll definitely be listening. Just thought I'd toss this up here in case anyone else might be interested.

David Lynch's Inland Empire has been making its rounds, and it finally hit the local arthouse theater in my town today.



Rabbits and holes and rabbit hole after rabbit hole. This is perhaps the most Lynch Lynch movie, often to the point of hilarious self-parody -- albeit deliberately so, I think, and I can appreciate that. It's more than a bit indulgent with the most densely layered worlds-within-worlds structure of any Lynch film, and by far the most rampant with its use of bizarrely abstract imagery and subconscious-penetrating sound effects (and a fucking great soundtrack (why is this not released on CD already?)). It's cold, raw, even unpolished compared to Mulholland Dr. (particularly because of the choice to shoot in crappy digital video (I seriously hope he goes back to film after this)) and far less seductively relenting in its pacing. At times it takes on the hypnotic qualities of a noise record, layering and folding over itself, whirling around some dark and obscure enigma -- a sound, a shape, a flash of color. Almost always something as much a part of your own mind as the train you hear sounding its horn in the distance as you fall asleep, somehow distorted and made strange and foreign. Bizarre canned laughter in the rabbits' hole...

I feel like I need to see it at least once or twice more before I can begin to develop anything of substance to say about it, or what it's about, mostly because I feel it never quite coalesced like Mulholland Dr. or any of the earlier Lynch films did, even upon the first time seeing them. Perhaps it's because this one is so much more overwhelming, packing in easily five times as many dreamlogic twists and turns, not to mention the (again, seemingly deliberate) abundance of nightmarish non-sequiturs and symbolism. The upside of this is that I can see it'll be a movie that spreads out and reveals itself further upon every viewing, and a DVD purchase is a sure thing (and because of the digital video quality I think it'll actually look better on the small screen). Even if that weren't the case, though, it was a mesmerizing movie-trip about a woman in trouble.

http://fallout.bethsoft.com/index.html
http://fallout.bethsoft.com/index2.html



An enormous, derelict aircraft carrier full of flames within a totally ruined city. God, the scope of it! Imagine what this would look like in a huge, completely explorable 3D environment! If they can manage to pull that off, it will be enough to sell me the game all by itself.

OK, so I've never been able to play much of the first two Fallout games because I missed out on them the first time around (I blame my Super NES and PS1); by the time I was getting interested in PC games again Windows XP was out, and these games can be tricky to get running in any environment that isn't Windows '95. Even with this laptop, which I have running Windows 2000, I was only able to play for an hour or two before I ran into crashes that prevented me from going any further. It's almost as if I'm cursed to never properly enjoy the Fallout games, a fact that only bothers me because I know some of my friends love them so much and I feel like I'm missing out on something great.

At least I should be able to enjoy Fallout 3, which (going by this early concept art) seems quite promising. I don't know much about the game yet, but some have speculated that it'll be along the lines of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda's other larger-than-life, free-roaming, first-person RPG), though set in post-apocalypse and with guns or whatever else you can use as weapons. Maybe a closer comparison would be the recent S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, which has been described as Half-Life meets Fallout (also drawing from Tarkovsky's Stalker, the Roadside Picnic novella, and real-life Chernobyl itself). I'll be playing that one soon, myself -- got a copy ready to go once I get my new computer built come Monday or Tuesday of next week. (Can't wait to play HL2 and Episode One at maximum detail settings, too!) I suppose I ought to finally give Oblivion a look as well, before Fallout 3 hits.

I guess I haven't spoken much of videogames around here recently. Anyone playing anything?

So at long last I'll be building my new computer this weekend. I've only been stuck with this wheezing old laptop for a couple months now, and I'm lucky I had something to use at all, but it feels like I've been trying to get this new machine together for ages.

( Here are the parts I've got... )

... And I've got an old keyboard and monitor to use temporarily, though I'll probably be looking into buying some new ones pretty soon. First of all, though, the video card -- I think I was looking at this one, but I'm sure I can get better by now. Any recommendations? I'd rather not spend more than, oh, $180-ish. Maybe this one?

Can't wait to get this thing fully operational!

EDIT: Bought this EVGA 512-P2-N548-TX GeForce 7600GS 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card

Velvet Cacoon are quite a strange band; a mirror facing a mirror with a dense fog being their only reflections, reality blotted out. So it happened it was revealed late last year that their lovely dreampop EP Dizzy from Eternity was actually Clicks & Hisses by a band called My Violent Ego (scroll down to the post mentioning VC), and the demo How the Last Day Came and Stayed Then Faded Into Simulated Rain was actually Shipwrecks & Russian Roulette by Miranda Lehman aka Korouva. Of course, this wasn't the first hit on their credibility, though it was by far the most damning. Before that they'd admitted their claimed 'ecofascist' beliefs and other bits of information they'd been spreading around the internet were nothing but a false facade, and that they were simply parodying the black metal scene and black metal internet forums in particular. However, it remained that their own records like Genevieve were genuine and sincere expressions of their supposedly true asexual/artistic eccentricities, their fascination with DXM and 4th plateau trips, etc. Interviews revealed a sort of aloofness and pretension so severe that it all seemed almost unbelievable, like another layer of unreality even richer and more confounding than the 'ecofascism' thing, but just believable enough to be fascinating and mystifying -- possibly the exact result they were aiming for. Possibly the simple and absurd truth.

Rumors of a new album called P aa Opal Poere pr. 33 started a while ago, and for quite a long time even the website of their record label Full Moon Productions contained mentions of the upcoming album, but by now they've pretty much confirmed that it'll never be recorded and they're leaving the stage with a two-disc remaster of Dextronaut, their debut.


Angela, aka LVG

Whatever the truth is about who they are, Genevieve in particular remains a sublime minimal black metal/ambient record and they deserve credit for at least that much even if they deny it. As one with an acute appreciation for the wonder of mystery and unreality (not to mention their subversion of the black metal genre (if nothing else they're commendable for releasing such excellent records without leaning on a generic 'grim and true' image)), whether all of their eccentricities are elaborate fabrications or the absolute truth, none of it really matters, and I appreciate them for indulging me with some good music (even that which wasn't their own) and such a strange aesthetic. It's fun to speculate, but what it all comes down to, of course, is the music.

You can read some interesting things here.

"There is no reason. No rhyme, no reason. There is no point to any of it. If you're looking for a plot line, a climax, a theme, a reason, you won't find it. We are random and without cause. Up is down, left is right. Drugs are good and drugs are bad, and the only thing we stand for is this: everything is pointless. You don't matter, this doesn't matter. Stop thinking. For once, just stop. Just enjoy the moment. It's better this way.

We're random people who think the world and life/humans are amazing. [Note: they also claim they're asexual because people are nothing but "little grunting meats".] We're laughing in our amazement of everything, and in very brief moments (and I'm talking MICROSCOPIC whisps of time) when we stop laughing for a moment and sober up, we create music that is symbolic of life in its entirety. Absurd, pointless, and mesmerizing.

That's what Genevieve is. It's what PaoPP.33 [which doesn't seem to exist] is. Perhaps the only two records in the world made where everything from the outside world is voided out.

Are we crazy? Bi-polar? MPD? Does it even matter? The entire world is crazy. 'Normal' is an illusion. The only thought that is really constant in my mind is that I love absolutely everything about life. Relax, we know everything now. It's over."

"We only treat the world like a puppet because we know how to. The puppet enjoys feeling alive."

I just found out about Atsuo's (Boris-related) side project called Rollo. Who knew! Pinhole is a fluffy psych-folk record with the expected (yet subtle) drones of soft distortion and a few more electrified flourishes of guitar. Mostly instrumental aside from sparse and nearly mumbled singing. A nice little surprise, for sure! I'm sure everyone who loves Boris will want to hear this, but it should also be enjoyable to anyone who likes some good, fuzzy ambience, and so because it's another one of those ridiculously limited LPs being sold for $23 before shipping, I say we all 'borrow' it until there's a CD version or a larger pressing of a domestic LP version available for less than $15.

Throbbing Gristle's Part Two: The Endless Not might be the best thing I've heard so far this year. It's very much in the vein of later Coil (though maybe not quite as amazing as The Ape of Naples) while feeling like a slightly cleaned-up 21st century TG. After "Vow of Silence", a funky cut-up of Genesis P-Orridge's wretched, nasal screeching and sobbing with the TG of Now's industrial throb, the second track, "Rabbit Snare", brings in a slummy, jazzy swagger with its shuffling rhythm, plinking piano, straining brass, and hissing, thrumming pipes and machinery. P-Orridge could be some half-drunk, downtrodden singer slouching behind the microphone in his/her shiny red dress, cigarette dangling from shiny red lips, somewhat-beyond-middle-aged belly flopping out and augmented breasts not sagging one bit. "Kind of insidious/ Kind of ridiculous/ Do you love me?" Throughout the rest of the album they demonstrate that, along with Coil, they have come to represent a post-industrial that is entirely apart from the post-industrial of the endless and all-devouring void of noise music (and don't mistake me; I do love to gaze into the void), not to mention the nauseating caricatures of the industrial ghetto that Skinny Puppy have become --- this is all very finely crafted electronic music. I suppose it's pretty laughable that I could appreciate the new NIN in light of something like this (it was just the timing of it, I guess, and a little bit of nostalgia glossing things over (and hey, there are a few pretty good tracks in there (sort of (god, I feel silly now)))) --- The Endless Not is just SO far beyond that it may as well be from a different planet and it's not even worth trying to compare them, but even so; that is that, and this is sublime.

Mayhem's Ordo Ad Chao is probably their best record since De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. And don't get me wrong --- some of the Maniac stuff is great, particularly Wolf's Lair Abyss, and Chimera was a step in a much more satisfying direction after the goofy Grand Declaration of War and would've been a stellar album for any OTHER black metal band --- but this is true fucking Mayhem; rather, this is a reinvented Mayhem. In addition to the return of Attila Csihar, whose versatile vocal talents shame most "extreme" metal screechers (he goes from his black metal rasp and shriek to death growls to "clean" wailing to Blixa Bargeld-esque squeals), they seriously benefit from the decision to peel back the production values and expose the raw viscera of their sound; Hellhammer claims to have used triggers on the kickdrums only, and his drumming is as spectacular as ever. The blastbeats are utilized with relative restraint, allowing for some more interesting compositional meandering. Not that they're reluctant to lay down the crushing brutality. This is Mayhem, after all. I hope to see them with Nachtmystium in Chicago this July!

Also, just for the hell of it, here's Maja Ratkje's limited Stalker LP. The greatest thing about this, for me, is that the B side sounds almost exactly like what I heard when I saw her perform alongside Arve Henriksen with fishwife and abominari back in late 2004. I've always wanted to have a recording of that show, and if this isn't it, well, it's probably about as close as I'll ever get to such a thing! To recap what I wrote about the event back then:

Maja started out by combining her own voice with pre-recorded vocal samples in a hand-held tape player, looping and layering them in various patterns, and applying extra color and texture (and immense, throbbing basslines) with her laptop. She was intense, focused, and totally dominating. I laughed when she paused between improvisations to say, "If it gets too loud for you ... cover your ears." I wouldn't have dared, even if my eardrums had threatened to disintegrate (and her voice seemed like it might tear a hole in space/time). There was only one extended moment of relative serenity: when she performed a rendition of a poem by Bertolt Brecht's "The Drowned Girl" accompanied by an audio-converted recording of particles from the northern lights entering the atmosphere. Mesmerizing. I doubt that anyone has ever looked so elegant waving her hands around a theremin. She's a gorgeous woman -- a pleasure to watch, and the sound she creates is harshly, viciously beautiful. It was almost overwhelming. I loved every second of it.

Other listening
Arve Henriksen -- Strjon
Björk -- Volta
Circle/Verde -- Tower
Circle -- Earthworm EP
Growing -- Vision Swim
Borgne -- III
Wolf Eyes -- Black Wing Over the Sand 12"
AMT & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. -- Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under the Stars
AMT & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. -- Nam Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo
World's End Girlfriend -- Hurtbreak Wonderland
Flower-Corsano Duo -- The Radiant Mirror (thanks to unskilledlabor)
Koch-Schütz-Studer -- Tales from 30 Unintentional Nights (again!)

Fuck, my paid account just ran out. Bye-bye, icons!

So I just read the latest Game Collector's Melancholy column over at GameSetWatch, and it's about the Clock Tower series. This is a series I've ignored pretty much entirely aside from a cursory glance at the PS1 game, but this article reveals a few little facts that grab my attention. Particularly about the very first game...

Most people know of the Clock Tower games on the PlayStation, but the series actually began on the Super Famicom. Created in 1995 by Human Entertainment, Clock Tower told the story of a teenage girl named Jennifer [heh!] who was orphaned under mysterious circumstances. She and her friends from the orphanage are sent to live with a wealthy family whose gothic mansion lies isolated in the mountains of Norway. Upon arriving at the mansion things quickly turn sinister and Jennifer's friends are murdered one by one in a variety of cruel ways.

Clock Tower resembled a point and click adventure but undermined the measured puzzle solving with a wicked twist. Periodically, a maniacal killer called the Scissorman burst into the scene and began chasing Jennifer. With no means of fighting back, she could only flee from Scissorman and hopefully find a safe place to conceal herself until the pursuer moved on. It was a unique style of play that called to mind frantic games of hide and seek or the desperate flights of nightmare.

Visually, the designers of Clock Tower had a particular love for the films of Dario Argento with Suspiria and Phenomena being major points of reference. One of the first murder scenes that Jennifer witnesses is a recreation of the brutal first ten minutes of Suspiria, including an earnest attempt at imitating Goblin's crazed soundtrack on the [Super] Famicom’s sound chip. The game also gave a nod to William Peter Blatty's Legion (filmed as Exorcist III) as Scissorman wielded an enormous pair of autopsy shears.

Jeffrey Fleming (the guy who does this column) goes on to write about how Clock Tower III featured cutscenes directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Who knew!

I'm interested in playing Clock Tower now, so thankfully there's a translation patch available.



See? The girl in the dialogue avatar even looks like a young Jennifer Connelly! Also, it's interesting that Scissorman is pretty distinctly a major precursor to Pyramid Head of Silent Hill 2 and yet you never see anyone talking about him.

< dark_steve > weird how pyramid head is a phallic symbol with all the subtlety of a brick to the head and scissorman is a one-dude parade of castration anxiety
< dark_steve > and that the genders of the characters are completely opposed

I've been watching some movies, as usual. I thought I'd collect some of my thoughts on them here.

I saw Following last week, and I think it's my favorite of Christopher Nolan's films even if he has matured as a director. He himself said that Memento was a far superior film, but I really can't agree --- probably because Following is far subtler with its camerawork and methods of exposition (oh, shut up, Brian). It also has the advantage of the sheer impact of style and claustrophobic atmosphere that comes with beautifully saturated black and white set to a dark and evocative ambient score (check out "The Box", which sets the tone at the beginning of the film, and the main theme); it's a kind of modern noir, I guess. I think I may have liked it even more than The Prestige, which itself was quite good.

MEIN HERZ BRENNT

Respect to Lukas Moodysson for making a Rammstein song work in a film (something I felt only marred Lynch's Lost Highway (confession: I really liked Rammstein around the release of their Sehnsucht album and though I think they're awful trash now I still kind of like them for some reason (I continue to punch holes in my own credibility (but really, I just think "Mein Herz Brennt" sounds good in this context)))). Lilya 4-Ever is only the second of Moodysson's films I've seen, after Fucking Åmål, but having given them both five out of five stars on Netflix I'd say he's on his way to being a favorite director, or at least one that I'll be paying attention to.

About the titular main character, though, good god. I think it was only once the movie was over and I was trying to find out what else Oksana Akinshina had been in (she had a small role in The Bourne Supremacy and her latest film is one called Moscow Zero (which I have read is not very good)) that I fully realized she was not actually Lilya, and Lilya was in fact only a character. Her acting was absolutely perfect. When she was running [spoiler] at the beginning and end of the film, with that song playing (fucking Rammstein (awesome (ugh))), my heart really did burn for her. Moodysson's great at making movies that will crush you and make you ache. They're flawed, yes, mostly due to their soundtracks and the oddly conflicting, mostly immature happy moments amid the raw pain and isolation, but the performances transcend that. Here in particular.



I love images like that --- just like Faye Wong crouching by her reflection in Chungking Express, or Irène Jacob sitting near the window on a bus in The Double Life of Véronique.

I'm looking forward to seeing Sunshine, We Fuck Alone, and a number of other things.

( TOP 20 )

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Their recently released and updated version of the album Touched is excellent and I recommend it.