Dark Ambient Review: Witch-Works

Review by Casey Douglass

I recently reviewed Mombi Yuleman’s Storm-Maker Red Horse, a turbulent dark ambient album full of the glory of nature and the unseen gods that just might be driving things. During Halloween, Mombi gave out some free Bandcamp codes for an earlier album he created: Witch-Works. It’s a dark ambient, retrowave album, and I was lucky enough to nab one of the codes. After listening to it, I decided to write this review.

Firstly, Witch-Works was a great album for Mombi to gift around at Halloween. From the pumpkin-orange colour in the artwork, to the theme of the album, it is certainly a very “Halloweeny” creation. It is based on a narrative about Black Cat Toys, a company apparently run by modern day warlock Harold O’Bannon. When the locals who live nearby find out, things don’t go very well for Harold. His cult followers set in motion a plan to resurrect him, and to also curse the town at the same time. Detective Kobritz and his son have to investigate why residents begin dying in strange circumstances, and the track titles hint at the kinds of scene that they are treated to. Jars of Spiders anyone?

Actually, Jars of Spiders is one of my favourite tracks, so I might as well start there. The track opens with busy strings, fuzz and a falling tone. There was something about how these mixed, that led to me envisioning a carnival tent with a stand of jars, neon light illuminating the darkness just enough to show the long-legged things inside them. The track feels like an 80s horror, but it feels warm and quirky rather than scary, unless you can’t stand spiders of course. Some way into the track, there is the sound of shattering glass and skittering across the floor. For me, this created the image of all of the spiders (and there are hundreds...) racing for freedom. Then you see what is left in the jars, shapes that look strangely anatomical and human. I thought this was a really fun track.

Another track that jumped out at me was Lil Breath Sucker. This track makes great use of the sounds of a cat, from the meows when it wants something, to a deep and soothing purr at the very end. I’m guessing the inspiration for this track comes from the fears of cats climbing into bed and stealing your breath. The sounds in this track seem to point that way, and it’s a nice kind of mental friction to listen to something you like (I love cats) and how that thing might kill you.

Two other tracks that I will give brief mention to are Extracting the Razor Blades and Silhouette of the Factory. The first features life support beeps and muffled underwater sounds, but also something I’d describe as a great “80s cop film slow car chase beat”, the kind of “Don’t let him see us” undercover stuff. Maybe the person being operated on last watched a TV detective show, who knows. As for Silhouette of the Factory, I enjoyed this track because it made great use of metallic sounds, echoing beats and hissing steam, and other sounds that really brought to mind what it might be like to be near a stark factory at night, viewing it against the moonlight and seeing the shapes clattering and grinding. It half brought the video-games Limbo and Inside to mind.

Witch-Works is a fun, beaty, dark retrowave experience. There is a plucky playfulness to many of the tracks, the spirit of the carnival, of the freak-show, and of course, of Halloween. There is darkness for sure, but it is wrapped in attractive neon glowing paper. I enjoyed listening to its mix of soundscapes and 80s style beats, and I hope that if there are any toy factory running Warlocks out in the world, that they appreciate they have a fine soundtrack for the movie that might one day be based on their deeds.

Visit the Witch-Works page on Bandcamp for more information, and check out Jars of Spiders below. Mombi also recently created a Facebook group for people who enjoy using creativity to deal with their internal fears or monsters. You can find that here.

I nabbed a gift code for this album.

Album Title: Witch-Works

Album Artist: Mombi Yuleman

Released: October 04, 2019

Dark Film Review: Goodnight, Halloween

Review by Kasey Douglass

Almost two years ago to the day, I posted about a newly released teaser for a horror film kalled Goodnight, Halloween. It was framed as a news report from a world in whikh Halloween kreatures are being persekuted by humans, their rights being torn to shreds and their lives free for anyone who wants to terminate them. Goodnight, Halloween is now komplete, and it was released, free to view, on YouTube at the end of Oktober.

The film plays out on 13^th September 1986. The viewer slowly approakhes a komputer with a kall waiting to be aksepted. Goodnight, Halloween is set in a world where the letter C doesn’t exist. As you kan see, I opted to adopt this idea for this review. Bet you thought I’d gone mad? I must say, it’s an awkward fit for some words, fine for others. Anyway, the film...We see the news reporting the extermination of various kreatures on skreen, and then we see the viewer, a strange plant kreature with big teeth. It is here that we begin to konnekt with the main plot driving tool in the film.

As tekhnology has permeated (infested?) our lives, it’s not unusual to see a narrative play out by way of elektronik messages and video kalls. Goodnight, Halloween uses this tool to great effekt, letting the viewer eavesdrop on earnest konversations between the various Halloween kreatures fighting for their lives. There is fear, suspikion and paranoia, and I must admit that the digital effekts on the video kalls really heightened my enjoyment of these elements. One kall in partikular was so washed out and low resolution that the way it amplified the features of the worried figure it kontained was genuinely very striking.

I won’t say a great amount about how the film klimaxes, but it’s a dark film and it has a dark ending, something that is just fine by me. It kept me guessing until the end, and Monzen Nakacho’s darkwave, retro soundtrakk simmers under the intrigue that plays out on skreen. Yes, I know there is a “c” in the name. There are limits to my meddling. The makeup and effekts all looked suitably sinister, with a kind of grain and murk that I fully approve of. The film is deskribed as a “stylish throwback to the creature films of the VHS 80s era” and I’d say it nails this aesthetik wonderfully.

Goodnight, Halloween was 14 years in the making, and I have to say, I’m pleased to see it and that I found a lot to enjoy in it. I love how it plants the supernatural or otherworldly into a squalid little human reality, and how those things rub up against the other, korrupting and warping the kharakters. When I first saw the news report teaser two years ago, I wouldn’t have expekted it to lead to a film of tense konversation and hastily-made plans falling apart. I’d have bet on a more aktion-based short. I’d have lost some money on that one. The film was better for not being that kind of film, in my opinion. The fakt that it has released during a year of lokk-downs, isolation and bizarre politikal happenings, also makes it seem a fitting time for it to be unleashed. Head over to YouTube now and give it a view and a like.

Film Title: Goodnight, Halloween

Released by: Faster Productions

Length: 13 minutes

Genre: Horror/Fantasy

Written and Directed by: Luther Bhogal-Jones

Starring: Jean-Daniel Byrne, Natasha Lamper, Christopher Dingle, Stewart Barham, Sunita Shroff, Scott Hanley, Rocco Solato, Jim Faulkner, Mike Stoke, Minda Bhogal-Jones. Terence Drew, Alistair Lock.

Soundtrack: Monzen Nakacho

Released: 29 October 2020.

Dark Ambient Review: Kosmobushir

Review by Casey Douglass

If I could, I’d love to visit some of the dark, sci-fi universes seen in fiction. There is something soothing about bleak distance, from the comfort of your own armchair anyway. As I can’t go into space, dark ambient albums like Kosmobushir are the audio vehicle to carry my imagination there, and I’m so glad that they exist. Kosmobushir is a dark space ambient album from Anihila, which in turn, comes from the mind of Flowers for Bodysnatchers’ Duncan Ritchie.

The album description paints the picture of the Soviet Union beating the U.S in the space race, and by the year 2158, being the power exploring the fringes of the solar system. Many Soviet citizens live out on the various planets and their satellites, with others pushing further out all of the time. One such ship, Akademgorodok, went missing near Neptune, and 14 years later, a strange transmission is received hinting at what it might have found.

Kosmobushir includes a lot of the things I hope for with a dark space ambient album. I want to feel like I’m on a spaceship, drifting in the darkness, hearing the metal creak and groan, seeing strange sights, and feeling like I’m somehow alone, but not alone. I found all of this on Kosmobushir, a prime example being the track Further Aft. Dripping echoes along metal corridors, a fuzz or static seems to permeate the air, and a strange yowling sound gives everything a creepy tint. This track is full of straining metal and cascading rumbles, making me feel like I was exploring a doomed spaceship, but one with a story to tell.

Alongside the metallic groaning and shuddering, Kosmobushir also makes great use of the whine and sweep of radio signals. The very first track, Neptune, opens with a “shrill, whistle-like scanning sound” (from my notes), with other sounds around it seeming to take on the aspect of half alarm siren, half swarm. The knocking and deep vibrations that come later really created the mental picture of approaching Neptune on a space ship that has to fight against itself to slow down, possibly because its sensors have just seen something very strange out there.

I think the most captivating track for me was the final one, Far Beyond The Reach. It makes great use of changes in direction, the soundscape morphing at different stages. I can only say that it made me wonder if this was what it might sound like to enter a black hole and to return again: the feeling of death and doom as the ship sinks in, finding yourself in a strange place that seems at odds with what you expected, and then being spat out somewhere else, back in our universe. Maybe I’ve watched Interstellar too many times. No, I don’t think that’s possible.

Kosmobushir is a fun journey into the bleak mystery of a doomed spaceship. If you find the idea of being in space riveting, even with all of the peril and strangeness that it might entail, this album might be a great one for you. Not only does it give you ominous creaking and hissing soundscapes to relax to, but it also frames them with an alternative history-fuelled future, and a conundrum, to boot!

Visit the Kosmobushir page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Kosmobushir

Album Artist: Anihila

Released: 31 Aug 2020

Dark Comic Review: Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #2: Two Worlds Enter, One Leaves!

Review by Casey Douglass

In my review of the first issue of Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia, I read about Rory Landell, a wrestler who declared himself to be the “Galactic Champion of the Universe”. By doing this, he managed to piss off not only people on Earth, but also aliens far out in the galaxy, aliens with their own idea of who the champion is: Manifest Destiny. Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #2: Two Worlds Enter, One Leaves! Is set to show how Rory’s words have sent a few pebbles tumbling down the mountain, the avalanche of the whoop-ass to come just starting to rumble in the heights.

In the opening pages of issue two, we are sucked into a flashback scene, one of a young Rory watching his parents argue and bicker sometime in the seventies. He has lots of newspaper clippings of his wrestler dad on his bedroom wall: Terry Landell “The Human Torture Rack”. Not a happy home, and an insight into some of the baggage Rory might be carrying around, baggage masked by his bravado. In the current time, we then see two astronomers picking up on strange craft that seem to be building something around the Earth. Yes, Manifest Destiny has arrived on Earth, to answer Rory’s challenge and to lay down the prospect of a Regal Rumble if Rory refuses the “call of Destiny”. What is a Regal Rumble? Well, think Royal Rumble, but with the population of two planets taking part!

Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #2: Two Worlds Enter, One Leaves! Ratchets up the tension nicely from the first issue. Rory’s bold declaration of being the “Galactic Champion of the Universe” has given him the first direct bite on the backside. As in the previous issue, the clean, colourful art-style and crunching wrestling moves are fun to take in. I particularly enjoyed seeing the alien wrestlers body-slamming a camel in Cairo, and suplexing their way through Whitehouse security personal. It was great to take in some of Rory’s past too, even if, in one scene, he ignores the offer of pornography in a convenience store and opts for a wrestling magazine. I mean, in a magazine about intergalactic wrestlers attacking Earth, I guess there has to be something unbelievable. Chortle.

The humour of the first issue continues to flow in the same pleasing way, particularly with Rory trying to get an elderly woman to remember him in a bar; he even runs out of breath as he reels off his wrestling patter. In the same bar a little later, a cryptic comment is muttered over an unconscious Rory, one that hints at the alien wrestlers not being fully united behind Manifest Destiny. I’m guessing issue three will reveal if this is really the case, and that it might also resolve whether we will get to see a Regal Rumble or not. It will be interesting to find out.

Visit the Comixology page for more info.

I was given access to a review copy of this comic.

Comic Book Name: Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #2 : Two Worlds Enter, One Leaves!

Authors: Ed Kuehnel & Matt Entin

Artist: Dan Schkade

Colouring: Marissa Louise

Lettering: Dave Lanphear

Publisher: Starburns Industries Press

Released: 15 May 2019

Price: $1.99

Dark Ambient Review: Advent

Review by Casey Douglass

Advent is the title of Randal Collier-Ford’s latest dark ambient album, one that has just been released by Cryo Chamber. When I hear or read the word “advent”, I always find myself thinking of the modern advent calendar that many kids use to count down the days until presents. Sorry, I mean to Christmas. Luckily, the word outside of this context can simply mean the beginning of something. Fortunately, Randal’s Advent is a syrupy dark creation that blows away any notion of jolly fat men and mass consumerism.

The album description describes the appearance of a bizarre and sinister new world in the forests of South America, one with denizens that are hostile to explorers and whose fringes are roamed by titan shadows that roar in the night. Strange structures are mentioned, the contents a mystery to distant observers. My own journey through the soundscapes of Advent seemed, in the main, to be concerned with these structures, the sounds and atmospheres taking me deep below the ground. I also seemed to see things in the colour that permeates the album art above, darkness filled with that kind of glow. I really like that artwork!

Advent makes great use of long, horn-like sounds and a variety ritual drumbeats. They are the sort of signal that, when heard at the edge of an unknown darkness or stretch of deep water, you’d find yourself holding your breath as you wonder if some creature really will surface and answer the call. I enjoyed how the atmosphere reacts to these sounds too, the horn or beat at times gaining extra twists to its tone just at the moment it halts. A little like if you clap your hands in a room with metal pans hanging, you might hear a quiet “ping” afterwards, in the microsecond where your clap stopped. On a dark ambient album where strange things are afoot, that is a very pleasant addition.

The first two tracks (there are three in total on this 40 min album), saw me being a bit of a dark “Indiana Jones”, delving deeper into the stone tunnels of the temple, hearing drumbeats, chanting, and catching sight of strange flickering eyes in the red/orange light that seemed to illuminate things. The drumbeats seemed to echo back along strange corridors, the rattles, vibrations and buzzing the soundtrack for dark energy flowing and strange forces moving. There are also some sounds that might be bone cracking, strange creatures tapping on the walls, or some languid beast slowly moaning its way along a pathway that is probably too close for comfort. It’s not all ritual and darkness though.

At various times, the sound of string notes sing out. Sometimes in juddery bow jangling form, other times delivering a melancholy melody that changes how the soundscape feels. The Second Wound is an example of this, as I felt that the first half of this track had a morose and gentle feel to it, piano notes also adding into the mix to create a strange sad space. The second half of the track becomes more ominous with pounding drums and higher energy. With regards to the images that crossed my mind, I felt that I might have been roaming the dark vaults of some deep, underground temple, the “monsters” I’d been afraid of all laying dead on the floor, killed by something far worse that was coming up out of the depths. I liked that feeling.

Advent is a primal quest into the dark recesses of a newly manifesting world. Ritual, and the force of the raw unknown, dance together in the mind of the listener. The drumbeats seem to give the mind strength and confidence but to also be summoning some kind of doom at the same time. When you are tired of the Christmas madness this year, especially with the way Covid has warped the common sense of so many people, escape into Advent for 40 mins, and come back overflowing with dark ambient refreshment.

Visit the Advent page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Beckoning Absurd Shapes below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Advent

Album Artist: Randal Collier-Ford

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 17 Nov 2020

Dark Ambient Review: Life Passes Slowly Unto Death

Review by Casey Douglass

Life Passes Slowly Unto Death Album Cover

When thinking or talking about death, it often doesn’t take long for the topic of “lights at the end of the tunnel” to emerge, usually in relation to a near death experience or a glimpse of the afterlife. Life Passes Slowly Unto Death is a dark ambient album from Scott Lawlor, and on listening to it, this contrast between light and darkness soon came into my thoughts.

The opening track: “Life Passes Slowly Unto Death”, gets things moving with a gentle opening, but one with, to my ears, a faint screech. The tones that emerge seem to channel a kind of “The Angels are coming!” vibe, blaring, manifesting and fading again, only to rise once more. For me, this track brought to mind how dust motes floating lazily around a dark room might look when one stray ray of sunlight breaks into the gloom. This is one example of how the light vs darkness aesthetic seemed to emerge for me.

Where the first track conjured light, the second track, “As the Dying Process Begins, Comprehension of Mortality is Realized”, seemed to focus on the tunnel. Shrill, pulsing tones and warbles create a dark, chittering space. It almost takes on the aspect of a sacral chant at times, the insect-like chirrups joining a shimmery tone. I felt myself journeying along a dark tunnel, a very distant light always moving around the bend minutes before I reached the same curve. The second half of the track feels like an even darker, and at times, quieter space.

“Drifting Through Unsequenced Memories” is one of my favourite tracks. After a smooth, low opening, both deep and shrill, howl-like tones sound, joined by voices and whispers. There is a clattering and skittering, and it feels like a space of intangible things. A bendy, pulsing note seems to thread stronger voices together, like a narrative does to the words we tell ourselves. This track seemed to very amply illustrate its title, the listener feeling like they are drifting through a space of disjointed impressions, with some force, consciousness maybe, trying to make sense of them.

The last track that I will mention by name is another favourite: “Whisperings Far Beyond the Veil Call You Home”. High chiming notes ring out in this soundscape, beginning to warp after some time. The echoing space is soon filled with a stuttering wind and bird-tweet-like whispers, giving way to a low pulsing that thrums through the space. There is muted rustling and muffled movement, and an ominous metal clanking at times. This track brought to mind a graveyard, the living and the dead brushing up against each other, the occasional communication getting through to one side or other.

Life Passes Slowly Unto Death is an album of dark spaces and liminal places. The soundscapes felt more dark than light, but the molecules of brightness do stop the whole thing feeling too oppressive. I found it to be calming, introspective and intriguing, and if you like dark ambient music themed around death or what might come after it, you should head over to Bandcamp and check out Scott’s album below.

Visit the Life Passes Slowly Unto Death page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Life Passes Slowly Unto Death

Album Artist: Scott Lawlor

Released: 18 Nov 2020

Dark Comic Review: Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #1 : A Date With Destiny

Review by Casey Douglass

When I was younger, I used to enjoy watching the wrestling on TV. Show me a growing boy who doesn’t like watching people throw each other around, flexing and laughing while they do it. At that time, it was the WWF, the likes of The Legion of Doom, Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior. I drifted away from it over time, and today, I find myself generally disinterested. When I was given the chance to check out some issues of the Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia comic, I wasn’t sure if it would be for me. I saw enough though though, to think that it would be a bit of a light-hearted giggle, so I was happy to wade in and see what happened.

Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #1 : A Date With Destiny, lays the foundation for what is likely to come. I remember how so much of wrestling used to be about someone’s mouth getting them into trouble, and the beat down that would often follow. The main character in this comic is Rory Landell, and he makes probably the ultimate boast that a wrestler might make. Live on TV, he proclaims himself to be the Galactic Champion of the Universe! In a universe in which we are the only life-forms, he’d still probably annoy enough humans to regret his words, but in this comic, there is life elsewhere, and it gets mightily pissed off to hear his words.

We get to see some of what brings Rory to make his claim next, his disillusionment with how things are, and his inspiration to turn the brag dial to 11. Part of this plays out in a particularly novel scene in which he argues with a wrestling promoter while a bear is sparring in the ring behind them. The bear is called Kodiak Jack, which I think is probably one of the best names I’ve ever heard a bear have. Stand back Rupert and Paddington! Rory later finds himself in disgrace, boozing and getting into trouble. At around this time, his TV broadcasted boast reaches far enough out into the stars for other beings to hear. Uh-oh!

The artwork of the comic is bold, colourful and very pleasing on the eye. The panel layout has enough variety to keep things looking fresh on each page, and I particularly liked the art style for the “universe hearing his boast” page. It made me think of retro sci-fi comics. The wrestling action itself, feels like it has impact and heft; you can almost hear the “slam!” as the bodies hit the ring’s floor. As far as the humour, I did find myself smiling, and I can be a moody git so that would probably be a laugh for a “normal” person.

At 36 pages, Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #1: A Date With Destiny felt like a nice, fun introduction to Rory Landell and the trouble that is probably (I hope) coming his way. I’m looking forward to reading the next issue to see how things progress, and I’m hoping things continue in the same amusing vein. Visit the Comixology page for more info.

I was given access to a review copy of this comic.

Comic Book Name: Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #1 : A Date With Destiny

Authors: Ed Kuehnel & Matt Entin

Artist: Dan Schkade

Colouring: Marissa Louise

Lettering: Dave Lanphear

Publisher: Starburns Industries Press

Released: 01 May 2019

Price: $1.99