Friday, October 17, 2025

Helloween

Jonathan Sothcott: The English Charles Band; Albion’s Dino de Laurentiis; The Big Smoke’s William Castle; The Nation’s Jason Blum. Whichever your choice, the UK’s Gangster Flick Don has now shifted firmly across to where he began – horror – and that can only be a good thing. I started jotting down the different films that […]

IX TAB: Ropes, Rituals, and Inescapable Dread

Capricorni Pneumatici – ‘Ix Tab’, Eighth Tower Records I don’t often start reviews like this, but I think the accompanying text with this release speaks (in tongues) for itself: Ix Tab is an album dedicated to the mysterious Mayan deity, goddess of ropes and snares, and patroness of those who hang themselves. Originally released on […]

Beyond Telstar – The Horror and Western Themes of Joe Meek

Various – Joe Meek – A Curious Mind Outer Space! Horror! Death Discs! The Wild West! Demos!. Cherry Red Joe Meek, astronaut extraordinaire (in his Holloway flat), was the launchpad for some of British pop’s most eccentric experiments. But while the stars get most of the spotlight, A Curious Mind – a new 3CD box […]

The Residents Wage War on the 80s – American Composers Series 1982-1987

The Residents’ ‘American Composer’s Series‘ – Cherry Red There are bad years for music. Then there’s 1983. It was the year everything got airbrushed. Bowie traded Berlin’s paranoia for peroxide and pastel suits. Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ was less an album than a an attempt to allocate him his own GDP.  UB40. Just…UB40. MTV had turned […]