Don’t Breathe
is another horror film from Fede Alvarez, and it takes an already
adrenaline filled subject: burglary, and finds a way to twist it into
something more horrific. The film follows Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex
(Dylan Minette) and Money (Daniel Zovatto), characters who largely
fall into “semi-likeable mother doing it for her kid”, “wet
behind the ears lovelorn tag-along with access to keys” and
“arsehole boyfriend”. The opportunity to burgle the house of a
blind guy, who also happens to live in a derelict part of town,
dangles the prospect of an easy score above the heads of the
money-short trio, a job that sounds like it should be a piece of
piss, easier than a more mundane burglary any day of the week. Wrong!
This blind old man (Stephen Lang) has more than money in the house,
and when he discovers their presence, blood is spilled not long after.
I enjoyed the core
dynamic of the film a great deal, as it lent itself to so many
situations in which the characters had to stand stock still, breath
held (ah ha!), hoping that he wouldn’t realise that they were
there. As a horror mechanic, it works very well. Later, in this fast
paced film, the odds swing even more against the invaders as the
blind man cuts power to all of the lights in the house. This leads to
the night-vision fueled scurrying seen in the trailer, where he
knows the layout, but the burglars walk into and knock over all kinds
of things as they try to make their escape. Good stuff.
The narrative itself
takes a number of twists and turns, many of which I didn’t see
coming (no pun intended). From a minimal setting of the scene, the
film launches into the “job” and pretty much doesn’t let up
until the end. It wasn’t a scary or jumpy film, for me at least,
but it did provide some great tense moments that left me impressed
with it as a whole. The characters were largely forgettable horror
fodder and I must admit that their fate didn’t really bother me one
way or the other. I don’t think I ever found myself rooting for the
blind man either, but there was certainly a feeling of sympathy
involved, even after the film twists into something more sinister.
Don’t Breathe
is well worth watching for the tension involved in the burglars’
trying to outwit a seemingly disadvantaged blind man. Don’t go
expecting to be scared though, just maybe hope for some tension, and
the chance to see something a bit different to the usual jump-scare
fodder. I give it 4/5.
Hoshin, also know
under his alias Esylt, presents us with a soothing ambient music
album. Ripe with field recordings of lush forests and damp ancient
temples. Layered with mechanical undertones it creates a unique
atmosphere. An enlightening voyage to the center of Mysticism.
Blackened machines summon dread, while the spiritual world knocks on
the door of reality. The stench of decay stand in stark contrast to
the awakened mind. We feel throbbing bass one minute, the other
surrounded by murmuring crowds. From within them the cough of
pestilence echo through halls that never end. This is fresh twist on
the dark ambient genre and drone music.
There
is a great app on the Google Play app-store called Tao Mix. It
lets you make your own simple soundscapes, dragging icons around and
resizing them to change the sound’s position in the scene, its
volume, and things like that. One of the sounds the app lets you drag
around is the noise from a busy coffee shop. Add a hint of rain and
some wind-chimes, mess a bit with the volumes and you find yourself
in a surprisingly relaxing scene. It was while using this app that I
realised how relaxing the sounds of conversation can be, so long as
it isn't jarring. The first two tracks on Path of Dissolutions
feature scenes that use this idea, only a hundred times better than
the simple things I could create in Tao Mix (it’s an app
well worth checking out to make your own simple relaxation
soundscapes though). As I listened, I did kind of hope that Path
of Dissolutions would feature this kind of human-based soundscape
throughout, but sadly that wasn’t to be.
Hoshin
makes tremendous use of field-recordings, from the dripping rain and
bustle present in Souvenir From The Sacred, to the echoing crackles
of a bonfire in The All is A Flame. The other tones that tend to
surround these recorded sounds are, as the album description states,
deep bass rumbles and lighter, sustained up-swells, to add a bit of
balance. I particularly enjoyed the muted rumblings contained in the
final track: How It All Ended, a composition that seemed to portray
massive tectonic upheaval, maybe as some catastrophic force causes
the ground to crack open and flame to rain down from the sky.
Path
of Dissolutions contains a nice mixture of tracks, from the quiet
echoing spaces to the aforementioned rumbling goliaths. My initial
disappointment at the disappearance of the human-based soundscapes
was tempered by the obvious quality contained in the ones that
follow. I particularly liked the tracks that sounded as if they
featured some kind of eldritch machinery grinding up through gears in
the distance. An example of this is the rhythmic muffled thumps
contained in Ruins in Focus, which put me in mind of some kind of
giant press working somewhere far away, the soundscape
becoming more violent as the thumps turn into stabs.
Path
of Dissolutions is a quality dark ambient album, with something
for most tastes contained inside, but also the drive to push into
more novel areas, such as the human-based soundscape scenes. I give
it 4/5 and certainly feel that it is an album that I will return to
again and again.
Visit the Path of
Dissolutions page on Bandcamp here for more information.
Bombastic title aside
(I quite liked it when it occurred to me moments ago), I have been
struggling a great deal lately, and the sentiment kind of arises from
that. My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and my Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome have had some kind of secret meeting and decided that their
host must be pulled to the ground and thoroughly beaten, that there
is just nothing else for it. As their host, I would say mission
accomplished.
I’m quite good at
accepting (read as making room for) my anxious thoughts, even at
times being able to accept that my physical health is about as robust
as a cobweb fluttering from a car aerial as it hits 70mph on a dual
carriageway. Sometimes no amount of CBT, mindfulness, progressive
muscular relaxation or acceptance can lift my spirits and give me
space needed to find the good stuff in life again. The image of Atlas
holding up the sky kind of applies, but with knees almost on the
floor, and a mightily pissed off look on his face.
That doesn’t mean I’m
giving up or anything like that, but I’m really feeling it at the
moment, the isolation, the fatigue, the vicious stabs of anxiety that
make the fatigue worse, and so it spirals down. Even putting some of
my favourite dark ambient tracks on and imagining that I was dead
didn’t do much to ease the stress fracturing my peace of mind (you
might find that weird but it’s a valid meditation practice in some
contemplative traditions). Treating it all as something that doesn’t
need “fixing”, I’m perfect the way I am kind of bullshit didn’t
help either, even when I could genuinely mean it without the sneaky
underlying goal of changing this “perfect state” into something
more workable.
Seeing as I’ve gone
all “mystic”, I should probably end this short piece with some
trite sentiment about “planting seeds in my shit for brains to grow
more positive qualities etc etc”. At the moment, I just feel like
scooping it up in big sticky handfuls and flinging it at passers by, like a monkey whose
banana was stolen when he wasn’t looking. Yes, I quite like ending
on that image, it tickles me.
How To Use Naughty Spam
Email for Writing Inspiration
Written By Casey
Douglass
*Contains adult
language but isn’t pornographic. Just a warning for delicate
flowers visiting this post*
Over the course of the
last week or so, I’ve had a particular spam email that seems to
have made my junk folder its permanent home. The chances are high
that it’s just an email with the same title but coming from
different senders, but I’m not going to open it nor mouse over it
to find out. The title is the focus of this little piece as it makes
me chuckle and also, just might be a fun writing exercise.
“Save
your neighbour with your cock!”
Isn’t it a doozy of a
title? Now I know that spammers have to try all kinds of things to
get your attention, or to get around your junk mail filter, and these
usually leave a mangled mess as the title that looks more like the
typer had a stroke while sending it than a proper sentence. It’s
even less common for the titles to seem semi-creative. After I
chuckled at this particular email’s second appearance, I got to
wondering: How on earth would my neighbour ever be in a dangerous situation
that would need my cock to get involved? I thought I would brainstorm
some ideas, just for the hell of it, and obviously, this is just a
bit of fun and not based upon my real neighbours, who are lovely
people.
Okay, onto the
possibilities:
Maybe an armed burglar
would point a gun at us and say, “If you don’t fuck, your
neighbour’s dead!” It’s a bit on the nose this one, I’m sure I
can do better.
Another possibility
could be that my neighbour is pinned against the wall by some
slavering giant dog, more wolf than pet, whose only interest beyond
killing and maiming lies in sausage-like objects dangling about 3 ft
from the ground? Fucking ouch. I’ll try to avoid scenarios that end
in eye-watering fashion I think.
Maybe my neighbour is
defusing a complicated bomb that has so many strange wires and
devices attached to it, that she needs an extra pair of hands and a
handy protuberance to loop wires over to keep them out of the way?
Doubt you’d ever see that scene in Mission Impossible, but
if it went well, we’d all survive I’d imagine.
I might just be over thinking
the title. It could mean something as simple as “save your
neighbour’s blushes”. Maybe she is hosting a nude painting class
and has told everyone how good it will be, but the model has dropped
out and would I stand in for him? It might save my neighbour’s
blushes but it wouldn’t save mine.
I'm sure that the
longer I sit, the more ideas I will generate, but I think I’ve
reached the end of my interest in this one now. I think it just goes
to show, you don’t always need a posh writing prompt from some
upmarket literature website to get your ideas popping; even the utter
shite that fills your email junk folder can be fodder for pondering.
Just be sensible and don’t open any of them.
From the moment I saw
the trailer for horror film Lights Out, I was very interested
in seeing what looked like a horror based on a slightly fresher idea
than the usual ones that seem to be redone ad infinitum. I was able
to watch it at the cinema last night and my thoughts basically
revolve around three words: it was okay.
The film follows the
story of a boy (played by Gabriel Bateman) who just wants a good
night’s sleep but can’t get one. The reason behind this is that
the house he shares with his mentally troubled mother has a third,
shadowy occupant who roams the hallways and generally creeps around
in a way that would probably keep any one of us up at night. He flees
to his sister (played by Teresa Palmer) for help, but it seems that
nowhere is beyond the thing’s reach.
The key idea for the
film is that the creature/ghost/monster only really has power and
appears when it’s dark. I really like this, probably because it
harks back to many childhood fears that saw countless children
rushing for the light switch when they thought something was lurking
in the dark. As far as its use in Lights Out, I found it to be
very effective. The film does a good job of building the tension,
better so than actually being scary. An example is one of the first
few times the apparition appears, crouching in an open doorway
scratching on the floor with its back to the camera. It was pure
silhouette, but when it stopped scratching and turned to look at the
camera, my whole body chilled into goosebumps.
Then the whole effect
was pissed away by a standard jump-scare sequence, with the sound
ramped up to silly levels, to try and raise the audience’s pulse
rates. Predictable and a bit disappointing, even though you could
kind of guess what the film would be like before even sitting in your
cinema seat. The film didn't make me jump once. It creeped me out, as
in my goose-bump example, so it did connect with me on some primal
level, but it wasn’t particularly scary. Some of this is likely
down to an affliction that many horror fans seem to have, a kind of
immunity to jumps and frights that would make a more green viewer
reach for the hand of the person next to them.
On a more mundane
level, I wasn’t a fan of the actor who played the young boy. I just
didn’t think he really cut it, and I’m pretty sure near the end
he actually looked at the camera when he wasn’t supposed to. The
other acting was fine however, the sister was played particularly
well I thought, although this did mainly seem to entail making her
eyes get wider and wider. As far as the creature, it has a great
audio signature that foreshadows its appearance, and being only
visible in silhouette certainly adds to the suspense. As in most
creature-features though, this film trips over the line of showing
too much, in my opinion, particularly in a late scene where you see
its face briefly. Leave some things to the imagination! Grumble over.
Lights Out is a
genuinely creepy, but not really scary, horror. It is worth watching
but I would only give it 3/5. I think it could have been so
much better.
A few nights ago, I was
browsing the interwebs like a bored spider looking for a fly, and I
came across Wychhound, a North London Stoner rock/grungy metally
band. I gave their EP a listen and was pretty bowled over by what I
heard.
Cold Temple opens with
an easy pace, Jimmy Holified’s vocals sitting comfortably on layers
of fuzzy guitar and punchy drums. Then the main chorus hits “It’s
gonner follow you-uuu--”, the guitar swelling and cosseting the
words, before letting rip a little as the next verse kicks in. Cold
Temple is a seriously ear-worming track, and features some nice
changes of pace and soloing, especially in the second part of the
track, which turns into a different kind of beast.
Next up is House of
Cards, a track that opens with gentle guitar melody and a more
relaxed tone. As the heavier guitar backing comes in, it foreshadows
the melody of the chorus, kicking off with the “I am the wind that
blows” and venting until things die down once more for the rest of
the song. Just after the midpoint of the track brace yourself for a
fantastic guitar solo too.
Truant Mind is the
penultimate track, and it starts with a heavy pounding wall of noise
and a drum rhythm that grabs your forehead and forces it into a
nodding pattern. Jimmy’s vocals really cry out well in this track,
embodying the angst of the subject of the song. I enjoyed Truant Mind
for these reasons but did find it less ear-worming than the previous
two.
Last up is Hourglass,
listed as a bonus track. After an upbeat opening interspersed with
heavier doses of guitar, things get even heavier as the vocals kick
in, backed by a wall of fuzz that dances and buoys up the soulful
words. Again, not a 100% ear-worming track but the rhythm still gets
you nodding along.
The Wychhound EP is a
solid collection of tracks that all feature some great rhythms and
themes. I really clicked with the first two but enjoyed the others as
well. A quick browse of Wychhound’s Facebook page appears to show
that they are working on their next EP at the moment, which on the
basis of what I have heard already, I will be eager to check out. I’d
give the Wychhound EP 4/5: it’s just the kind of thing that I enjoy
at the moment and has entered my album rotation. That should say it
all really.
Wychhound consists of
Jimmy Holifield (Vocals), Miles Mcdonald (Guitar), Roberto Pini
(Guitar), Neil Neighbour (Bass) and Sid Naghdi (Drums).
Visit Wychhound on their Bandcamp page here and check out Cold Temple below:
Metatron Omega
returns with his second album out of Serbia on Cryo Chamber. Dark
gothic choirs, ritual drone and archaic atmospheres strives to
enlighten the listener on this esoteric Dark Ambient album.
Recommended for those wanting to explore the soundscapes of Majestic
Cathedrals, Sacral Monasteries, Secret Orders and Occult Rituals.
Metatron
Omega’s Sanctum is probably one of the first dark ambient
albums that I’ve listened to that is so overtly gothic and choral
in nature. If a good number of albums seem to start in the darkness,
Sanctum appears to start in a peaceful monastery garden with
golden sunlight and harmonious voices all around. It’s very
relaxing and soothing. As you might expect from a Cryo Chamber
release however, things don’t stay that straightforward for long.
After
the birdsong and peace at the beginning of opening track Transductio,
the same track takes a darker turn, like a shadowy taint on the air,
a drone seeps in from the background, vying with the melodic male
chants that rise above it. It doesn’t take long for these chants to
become warped and twisted, darker undertone chants subtly ramping up
the “things not right” factor, before things go all out bleak at
around the midpoint of its running time. Strange chimes, unkind winds
and a feeling of a hostile space take over, and it’s a really great
listening experience.
Up
next is In Search of Lost Wisdom, a track that begins with an effect
like a howling wind at distance, married to the fabric-restricted
sound of what sounds like someone breathing through a mask.
Organ-like notes blare, growing and fading in volume, interspersed
with snatches of choral harmony. The track then becomes a
bell-ringing rumbling-infused space in which the sacral chanting
repeats and dances hypnotically in the ear. Things quieten at the
midpoint, the soundscape changing into an echo-chamber of knockings
and undulating distortions. The chants return in a muted way in the
last third, the general tone feeling melancholy and downhearted.
Cultus
is next. It starts with a smooth stuttering effect which is soon
joined by a sustained sacral tone that pulses and changes little.
Other chants sing along at intervals, the delicate notes of chimes
lending some feeling of sunlight to what otherwise might feel like
another dark and shady track. Swelling bowing effects emerge around
half way through, before deep notes bubbling below more chime
tinkling takes over. Later, the track sinks into a pregnant void,
much rumbling vibration and slow uplifts of female chants competing
with more chimes.
Trinitas
starts with a sonorous bell-ringing sound that flaps and flops with
distortion. A return of the repeating hypnotic chant effect appears,
darker swellings and chanting underpinning and then subsuming the
soundscape into something wholly more twisted. Strings emerge later,
the looping chant and the clanking sounds of infernal clockwork their
accompaniment. Things quieten as more clanking and banging echoes
out, a gentle electronic warbling seeming to ape their echoes. The
second half of this track is a broodier, more rumbling affair, a bit
like the vacuum left after a clap of thunder.
The penultimate track,
The Eastern Star, throbs into life, higher tones counterpointing the
bassy swellings. The higher tones take on a kind of revved up jet
engine effect, if a little more muted than that would sound. Chants
are later joined by a rhythmic beat that adds a shamanic effect to
the soundscape, although it still conjures images of majestic
temples, to me at least. The final third features machine-like
rattlings and distorted voices on the wind, a repeating beat and
sand-like particle scrapings seeing the track end with a strange kind
of energy.
The final track is
called Sanctum, and it begins
with what could be a muted explosion, brief slices of chant, and a
growing drone, that all give the impression of being slightly removed
from where the real action is, like holing up in a safe place during
an outbreak of conflict. The chants echo and drift, like the kind
that float down from high-ceilings and centuries old masonry. Chimes
sound like multiple clocks all reaching midnight at once, furtive
flutterings shooting past the listener as the world takes a breath.
From the midpoint onwards, the drone becomes higher and lighter, with
higher tones and resonances building on top, before things take a
turn for the dark again as the end approaches.
Sanctum is an
album that does a wonderful job of living up to its description. It
evokes the sense of being in sacred places, peaceful sanctuaries and
dark temples with great aplomb, making it a fine album to listen to
when feeling in a contemplative mood, or simply when just wanting to
rest. I have fallen asleep at least half of the times I have listened
to it whilst laying down, which only goes to show how relaxing it can
be, even if you do have to have a certain dark nature to find it so.
Gregorian chants this is not. You will likely already know if the
concept of the album will appeal to you or not, but even if you don’t
have any set ideas, at least check out a few of the tracks before you
make your mind up. It’s another 4.5/5 album for me.
You can check out the
first track Transductio below:
Visit the Sanctum
page on Bandcamp here for more information.
