Ultraviolence

I ran across one of the Frank Kozik "A Clockwork Orange"-inspired Beethoven busts for the first time yesterday, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and it definitely made me chuckle:



More info here

As street art seems to fall further and further out of my viewfinder I guess that I had missed the curve on this funny crossover (lower right):

La Terza Madre

I continue to have less and less interest in Dario Argento's films, and newer Giallo films, in general, but once in a while I try... It is clear to me now that Argento's style, in particular, really never successfully made the transition out of the 1980s. His earlier work has such a great look and feel for the time but it just seems so dated and cheesy now. "Mother of Tears," like everything else that I have seen past "Opera" (1987), did not satisfy, at all. And why does his daughter have to be in it? As an adult woman who has kids of her own, even the idea of some weird incestual nepotism on her father's part holds no interest. Thumbs down.

Like A Frog In Winter - Sold Out At Source

FYI: I had hoped to get additional copies of the "Like a Frog in Winter" compilation to include in the January catalog but the LP+7-inch set is already sold out via Hospital Productions.

Heavy Rotation

Loop "Fade Out" 2xCD re-issue
Loop "Heaven's End" 2xCD re-issue
(Loop has never fallen out of rotation with me, and the start of the re-issue campaign is an exciting thing for me -- aside from the re-enforcement of my fear that sometimes I prefer acquiring re-issues of favorite groups/albums more than hearing new music)

Haptic "Repetition" (master for BloodLust! cassette)
Climax Denial (tracks for split with Staccato du Mal)
Wertham "Memories From The Pigsty" CD (Excellent! Thanks, Marco!)
Körperwelten "Avatars Of Rape And Rage" CD (with thanks to Jonathan Canady, who did the appropriately over-the-top artwork... but is this really named after the hokey traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies?)

Head of David (Loop era, no shit. Everything, including BBC sessions... When does that re-issue campaign start? 2xCD sets with "H.O.D.I.C.A.," "The Saveana Mixes," and "White Elephant" vinyl as bonus material, for a start???)

Still:
All the Saints "Fire on Corridor X" CD (only slightly dislodged by Loop)
Brainbombs "Fucking Mess" LP

+ continuing to work my way through a haul of great Cleveland "noise" stuff from a recent show... David Russell, Outer Space, Tanked, etc...

To The Moon

As a foot of snow begins to fall upon Chicago I am prompted to look at photographs from Mexico City, from June 2007. Here is a shot of me, Isidro, and Heber (L to R) - on a very warm day - up on the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan. We were gallivanting around when we should have been preparing for the lecture that we had to deliver that night.

Wierd Back In Stock

The previously sold-out Wierd Compilation Vol. II 4xLP has been re-pressed and copies are now back in stock. Please check the catalog weblog for details...

Coming Soon...

The return of the BloodLust! button... I still see those PRO-ANA and PRO-MIA pins on a good amount of people... and the occasional INTRINSIC ACTION pin, too... As I get ready to wrap up the SUPER EIGHT LOOP cassette series, this new design is now in the works:

Pre-Orwellian

Inside

Practice was called off on account of the snow... so I took the opportunity to watch one of the goriest films that I have seen in ages: "À l'intérieur" - somewhere between "Slug Bait" (the T.G. song), an Unsane record sleeve, and the recent USA gore-thriller-failure, "The Strangers." Béatrice Dalle must not have satisfied her blood lust in "Trouble Every Day," etc., so she picked up a monsterous pair of scissors and went to work. Was it a great, smart film? No. But it was bloody as hell, with some fairly rough moments. Not bad at all...

Light

A dim light increases the feeling of death and sorrow. An ample amount of warm light creates a sensation of life and comfort

Sleep Museum at Wierd

BloodLust! artist Sleep Museum performs live this Wednesday December 17 at Wierd at Home Sweet Home (131 Chrystie Street at Delancey, NYC; Info: 212.226.5708)

http://www.myspace.com/sleepmuseum
http://www.sleepmuseum.com/

Fecalove Art

Fans of the recent Fecalove "Like a Dog" CD on BloodLust! may want to make note of a new series of related screenprints executed by Nicola Vinciguerra:



http://www.nicolavinciguerra.com/tisbor/news.htm

New Locrian Review

Re-post from The One True Dead Angel


Locrian -- RHETORIC OF SURFACES [Bloodlust!]

The more I hear from the Chicago noise duo Locrian, the more impressed I am. Combining a deep appreciation for drone and harmonic noise, the six longish tracks here are actually a combination of old, out of print material and new, unreleased stuff. The tracks have been selected and sequenced, however, in such a manner that the album sounds like a coherent, cohesive statement of singular vision, as opposed to a collection of odds and ends. Part of this, I suspect (although it's hard to be sure having heard only a small sampling of the band's catalog so far), is their attention to quality control; this is a band that consistently releases excellent work. Whether that's due to routinely high-caliber performances or a good sense of what's suitable for public release is an open question, although I suspect it's the former as much as the latter. On this particular release, it doesn't hurt that everything was remastered (by Jason Soliday) for maximum conformity of audio quality.

Two of the tracks, "Burying the Carnival" and "Visible / Invisible," were previously released on split cassettes with Continent and Colossus (and reviewed by TOTDA back in August); "Gruen Transfers" is from the Scissor Death compilation NO MORE NOISE; the final two tracks, "Chiladni" and "Amps Into Instruments," are from the band's self-released (and now out of print) cd-r / double-cassette release II; and the opening track, "Drosscape," is previously unreleased. Regardless of the different sources and time periods involved with these recordings, aesthetically speaking, they're all squarely in the territory of ominous, dark-ambient noise drone; some of the pieces are more rhythmic than others, and there's a fair amount of variation in the noises and textures involved (the band favors a sound rooted heavily in the use of guitar and keyboards for the bedrock of their droning noise death), but they all share a dark, plodding atmosphere filled with swirling shards of noise and harmonic overtones, and the pieces flow together well. The sounds are sometimes harsh, but outside of an unexpected peal of really piercing feedback early on in 'Burying the Carnival," this is not work that assaults your senses with cut-up explosions and noise bombs. The pieces are more concerned with a hypnotic trance vibe and a vaguely metallic tonal quality, and above all else, the healing power of the almighty drone. If you've never heard the band before, this is an excellent place to start, especially since their earlier stuff is so hard to find. Bonus points for the simple but elegant graphic design.

Lord Of All Fevers And Plague

You know it is probably time to lighten up and dial down the music fan stuff when ordering a fucking hamburger entails loads of conditions. It seems unreasonable to me to want to qualify a decision with a server at a restaurant - in this case, of course, Kuma's - by making a statement, like, "I'll have the December special, the Morbid Angel, but primarily on the merits of the ingredients (red and green pesto, fresh mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, prosciutto, and pine nuts) and secondarily based upon the bands demos and their oddly sequenced first three albums. I am pretty much discounting everything from 'Covenant' forward and I am protesting anything that David Vincent ever said in public."

Whatever. The burger was amazing!

This was the second annual unofficial BloodLust! corporate holiday outing. Not really, so don't feel left out. Just some esteemed guests in from Milwaukee...