Tell

Last week was pretty intense and quite stressful for me and I didn’t find the time to watch and analyse a whole movie. I even promised a friend to re-watch Von Trier‘s Antichrist, to review it and to note down some of my thoughts  but yeah, I simply couldn’t balance it. Nonetheless, I don’t want to disappoint you by not posting anything, so I decided to recommend you a movie instead of reviewing it.

Tell (2012) is low-budget, 32 minute psychological horror film by writer, director and editor Ryan Connolly who is probably best known for the internet shows Film Riot and Film State. Tell is loosely basesd on Poe’s short story The Tell-Tale Heart and was made available via YouTube.

“Connolly’s do-it-yourself pragmatism is evident with almost every aspect the film: a single, readily available location, a small cast, no showy special effects.  It’s the amateur filmmakers handbook played to perfection, relying on classic methods of suspense to grip the audience–the kind of flick where you cover your eyes with your hands, but still peek through the gaps of your fingers. Connolly specifically chose to shoot the film on an HDV camera with a letus 35mm adapter as opposed to a big sensor DSLR in order to capture the grain of old-school horror movies. It works. The mood of the film is precise; the cinematography and color grading are both technical high points. Contributing to the overall mood is the film’s score, a fantastically eerie soundtrack from UK based composer, Daniel James. Upon completion of the project, it took Connolly 6 months to locate and finalize his post audio team. The wait was worth it.“ Ivan Kander via shortoftheweek

I absolutely agree with Ivan and even though Tell  is not perfect, I refer to the cast which (besides the main character) is quite weak, the foreseeability and the few lengths,  its cinematography and the score are simply amazing! Give it a try!

Bosnian Rainbows – Bosnian Rainbows

The Mars Volta are dead, time for Omar Rodriguez Lopez to start another of his numerous personal projects. However, Bosnian Rainbows is a band in which he leaves the foreground to others, first of all Teri Gender Bender from Le Butcherettes, escorted by keyboarder Nicci Kasper and the one-arm drummer-while-keyboarding-with-the-other-one, Deantoni Parks. All together, the quartet plays a very hypnotic mixture between pop, synthpop, postpunk and progressive rock, although the “jamy” character of the last one apparently is way more present on stage than on this self titled debut.

The playfulness and creativity in which the front singer is covered during the whole album certainly defines the band’s character. Furthermore, the love for details provides many different spaces to discover synthetic and hypnotic secrets for the lovers of the genre, not to forget beats, sound walls and effective guitars. Still, the songs always have a clear line from the beginning to the end as a base frame, even though one sometimes misses a certain step to craziness. However, this may be due to my personal love considering The Mars Volta’s unpredictability. One obviously shouldn’t compare those two bands.

Rodriguez Lopez, as already stated, pulls the strings in the background, but never loses presence at any moment. In songs like I Cry For You one can even hear a certain will to break out and let the rock guitar beat the synthies, making the song sounding like a relationship crisis between guitar genius and electronic superiority. This may sound negative at first, but in fact this is one of the strongest songs of the LP.

In others however, as already suggested, a certain courage to go further is highly missed in my ears. The songs sometimes lose themselves in synthpop hymns that every one of us has already heard over the years. Nevertheless, Omar Rodriguez Lopez has never operated a really bad project, which is still the case in 2013. For lovers of the genre, Bosnian Rainbows will certainly deliver much joy with this first album and hopefully also with future outputs.

Ferium – Reflections


At the Scarred release party on June 1st there was one band that took the majority of the people I talked to by surprise, if you were there you know that I can only be talking about the Israelis Ferium, who were kind enough to provide many guests of the show with a free copy of their debut album Reflections.

The quintet plays, rather modern, death metal and takes no prisoners. While every song has a clearly distinguishable melody to it, all twelve songs are very much straight-forward thus leaving you no time to rest. While this is not relevant to the album itself I can say that the tracks work extremely well in a live setting; my neck and I can vouch for that.

On an instrumental level the band primarily moves between groovy, heavy and partially (caution made-up term) djenty guitars before bursting into full melodic explosions during their solos. The bass is, even for me, clearly audible throughout the fifty-three minutes but without being too much in the foreground. Production-wise all three instruments are very well orchestrated, especially if you consider that, as far as I know, the entire album is self-produced. The drums are on a pretty high technical level and during some songs even have a certain jazzy feel to them. By that I mean that there are quite a few off-beat rhythms and unexpected fills. The only, however small, criticism I have is that they are slightly under-produced in comparison to the stringed instruments…by far not bad, but not quite as strong as would have seemed ideal.

There is not a lot I can say about the vocals since they fit the ensemble perfectly and are executed flawlessly. They mainly stay in the guttural area but on a few occasions you can hear squeals and screeches. If I had to name a local counterpart, albeit defunct by now, I would say that Ex Inferis‘s Fab should give you an idea.

In conclusion I can only say that you should definitely give this band a go if you are into modern death metal or if you maybe want to discover something new. You can find more info about the band on their Facebook page and you can get an idea of what I just wrote about by giving the song below a listen.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQwHTg85wxQ]

Run

Since I have to try and dodge the short film review spoiler trap, there’s not much I can reveal about Run except that it’s about a backpacker who writes to his mother about his adventures on the road. It was single-handedly written, shot and edited by UK filmmaker Mat Johns for the 2012 edition of the Halloween KinoKabaret event in which he’s been taking part since 2006, filmed with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the help of a shoulder rig, and done on a zero budget in under four days.

I’ll skip the beating around the bush business and say that I am impressed. Flat-out impressed. I’m floored that a compact 6:45 minute watch managed to have such a profound emotional impact on me. The visceral handheld cinematography, the gentle but distinctly eerie voiceover and the main actor’s performance build an incredible atmosphere that takes a painful turn halfway through. The only thing I am conflicted about is the soundtrack — I’m generally not a big fan of background music because I find it emotionally manipulative and imposing in a bad way, as though it’s trying to dictate how the viewer should feel — but ultimately, the melancholic piano piece only adds to the twisted beauty of this short.

There’s no use in writing more as Run speaks for itself. Even British national treasure Stephen Fry loved it so much that he sent it out to his over 5 million Twitter followers. Mat Johns has created a short film which is heart-destroying in its magnificence, and I strongly encourage you to watch it.

Mr. Oizo – Amicalement

Expect the unexpected, kids. You never really know what Mr. Oizo a.k.a. Quentin Dupieux‘s up to when it comes to a new release. Except that it’s gonna be electronic, trashy and yet geeky as fuck.

Amicalement‘s got every ingredient disposable that characterizes Mr. Oizo‘s sound and there’s still room for a surprising collaboration with Marilyn Manson on the second track Solid, which is a sick masterpiece. With 4 tracks on this EP, I have to admit that it’s just the right amount of electronic banter / genius you probably need in order to love or hate this guy even more; there’s no in between! If this is the way French electronic music should sound like, I’m all in!

You can currently get the EP for free on Mr. Oizo‘s fantastic website that looks and feels like an old Macintosh system or you can play some cool beats and samples on his Shit MPC, which also is a nice and  original gimmick.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/7336472″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

The Smoking Hearts – Victory!


I’m back! After taking a two week writing break to party like no tomorrow and go to some cool gigs, I bring you The Smoking Hearts‘ debut album Victory! which was released in April. I first heard and met the guys back in 2011 when they opened for The Used, and I immediately dug their stage presence as well as their music. Two years later I read that they were the opener for Stone Sour, which got me quite excited since I hadn’t really kept up with their evolution. To keep it short: it was a bad idea to have put this album off for so long because it kicks ass.

But let me elaborate: the UK-based band refers to themselves as rock’n’roll, but I’d say that hardcore with an occasional punk influence puts it more to the point. The intro track Off With Your Head just kicks you right in the face from start to finish, dictating the pace for the rest of the eleven tracks in total. On the second track, however, you get confronted with the more melodic instrumental aspect during the chorus, which is coupled with gang vocals, thus making the whole thing a lot less repetitive.

The instruments are flawlessly played and provide a driving backdrop which is groovy and heavy at the same time. There is nothing to whinge about when it comes to the production, either. The only thing that might be putting first-time listeners off are the partially raspy, for lack of a better word, vocals. While they do fit the ensemble quite well, I’d say that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

To sum things up, I’d say that while The Smoking Hearts‘ debut might not be a victory for the entire musical genre, it certainly is a big Victory! for them. I for one am looking forward to seeing them on stage in the, hopefully, near future and also, in due time, to their next release. You can find more information on the band’s Facebook page and you can get a taste of the album below.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEOeAz8aAK4]

Begotten


There is a lot of disturbing stuff out in the cinematic world and even though I have seen a lot, there are always films which literally fuck my mind. When I ask people about the most disturbing movie they have ever seen most of the answers are related to either the New French Extremism with Martyrs and À l’intérieur, the Italian cannibal films with Cannibal Ferox/Holocaust or the Asian splatter and gore genre with the Guinea Pig series and Ichi The Killer. I partly agree with the people and claim that most of those films are disgusting, brutal and controversial but in the end they are not really disturbing. This probably is a question of definition but personally, I think a disturbing film should have more to offer than simple shock value and that’s when experimental cinema comes into the limelight.

Begotten‘s premise is not easy to follow and there are a lot of different interpretations throughout the internet. I won’t concentrate on those but the movie contains all kind of religious references. I highly recommend watching the film without doing any research but to look some stuff up on the internet afterwards. The plot alone is probably one of the weirdest things I have ever read.

After director Elias Merhige, the script is inspired by Antonin Artaud’s Le Théâtre et son Double, Nietzsche‘s ideas on aesthetics, and a near-death experience Merhige had when he was 19 years old. To sum up, Begotten is an intense and dazing avant-garde horror experience, a cinematic wreckage and if this wasn’t enough, the film was shot on black and white reversal 16mm film and the director rephotographed, filtered and manipulated every single frame in order to intensify his surreal visions and artistic violence. Together with the unconventional decision to abstain from dialogues and traditional storyline the cinematographic brilliancy attains to perfection.

I am still enraptured by the grotesque and radical atmosphere, by the pulsing images and the raw violence. Begotten is a movie which you will never forget! And last but not least here is an interesting article I came across a few days ago: Begotten Antichrist: Did Marilyn Manson synchronize Antichrist Superstar to the movie Begotten?