The best of the worst: Trennen Sie Ein

One year ago today, I started this kooky blog, and it has been quite a fun ride since. Thanks to anyone who's read my crap. As a means of celebration, the lovely and talented Kitten suggested a run-down of my favorite bad movies - ones I actually like. To thank her for both her response and her fabulous ushering, I will dole out ten choice nuggets of entertaining cinema le pew over the next several posts. But first, some words about the art form itself.

My annual list of favorite movies always includes a "so bad it's good" designation to single out the year's best cinematic trainwreck, something particularly awful but nonetheless fascinating. (For instance, last year's winner was the screamingly terrible visual assault "Son of the Mask", the most expensive-looking mega-flop sequel since "The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas.") There is a crucial difference between bad movies and movies that are merely mediocre. A bad movie is usually not planned very well, poorly executed or at least an ill-conceived bid for commercial success by someone very confused about what the public likes. A mediocre movie is the product of a competent crew and production values, doesn't aim higher than would be appropriate and always achieves what it sets out to do.

But that crucial difference is in how much harder mediocre movies are to sit through than bad ones. A bad movie can make you spit out your beer and gasp, "Did you see that?" or "What did she just say?" The lighting will make the actors cast shadows. The soundtrack music will start and stop abruptly, as if operated by a monkey with a tape recorder. Exposition will confuse, annoy, sometimes even amaze with its sheer stupidity. Special effects will cause laughter rather than wonder. Sets will tremble if an actor bumps the wall. Dialogue will have you marveling at the ways language can be perverted. With a mediocre movie, you get none of these mistakes, but none of the surprise or bewilderment a bad movie can engender. It just sits there like leftover beige wall paint - inoffensive, bland and useless.

This is why I think the Medveds, and even on occasion the MST3K crew, tended to confuse "bad" and "unwatchable." How can Ed Wood's customary craziness be considered harder to sit through than, say, "Bed of Roses"? In what way is the thoroughly ridiculous "Glitter" a tougher slog than something as aggressively mediocre as "Speed"? It's been argued that bad movie fans are condescending jerks who like to laugh at other people's failings, and as a bad movie fan, I will admit there's some truth in that. However, to me, a bad big-budget movie is far more offensive than a bad cheap one, because the low-budget folks probably lacked the resources and experience, and their films are as often labors of love as get-rich-quick schemes. Bad big-budget flicks have just wasted enough money to have wiped out AIDS in Africa. I don't care one bit for "The Blair Witch Project", "Nowhere" or "Gummo" (well, that one has a good soundtrack), but they're all more creative than anything Roland Emmerich has foisted upon the public.

For the films that follow, that condescension comes with a bit of genuine admiration. The insanity they dole out is as entertaining as anything you'd get in a "good" film, just not in the same way. Of course, it's stacked toward horror movies, because I've seen more horror movies than anything else, and there are a lot of bad ones. All but two were made on the cheap, since not too many bad big budget movies are worth saluting. So, in no particular order, here's the beginning of the ten best bad movies I can think of...

"Blood Feast"
(1963)
The first gore movie in history was the product of director Herschell Gordon Lewis, an advertising genius who was working out of the Wrigley Building and had previously churned out a number of "nudie cuties," plus David F. Friedman, the legendary carnie-turned-exploitation film producer. The pair decided that since mainstream Hollywood was starting to show more skin to compete with what independent movies were doing, they would stay a step ahead by delivering something no big studio would: extreme onscreen violence. Now, I respect Friedman, but consider myself a big fan of H.G. Lewis, not just because of the blood and guts. The guy's story is amazing. I interviewed the man for a college class. There's a picture of him on my desk at work. He's my MySpace friend. Lewis is also partially responsible for the no-joke worst movie I have ever seen: "Monster A-Go Go", which even Joel, Servo and Crow couldn't make pleasant. But aside from the historical significance and still-extreme carnage shared by a number of his highlights, his movies are very often plain-out nuts, and "Blood Feast" is a fine introduction to that madness. Look no further than the first exchange between the homicidal Ishtar-worshipping Egyptian caterer Fuad Ramses (hammy Mal Arnold with thick brows painted on) and Mrs. Freemont (the vacuous Lyn Bolton), who is trying to set up a dinner party for her idiot daughter. Fuad says, "Have you ever had... an Egyptian FEAST?!?" and gives her the evil eye as a loud soap opera organ portends calamity. The lady's response? An enthusiastic "Why, that would be fine!" It's so inappropriate and abruptly edited, it gives you the instant giggles. Bolton, one of the most obviously amateur cast members, later reads lines off of a script clearly visible on a table. After Fuad's first murder, a newspaper headline screams "LEGS CUT OFF!" The music, composed and performed by Lewis, is a bizarre jumble of trombones, kettle drums and organs.

However, the match of dialogue and delivery provides the biggest laughs. It's hard to properly describe, but the actors are all stagey and wooden, like a high school play rehearsal. In group scenes, everyone has to shout their ridiculous lines because there's only one microphone, a budgetary limitation that inspired John Waters to later use it for its comedic effect. I always laugh at the melodramatic rantings of the botched murder victim ("Wild eyes! He had WILD EYES!"), the awkward romantic scenes (the lead couple, upon leaving a lecture on Egyptian sacrifice rituals: "To actually eat human flesh... Pete, how could they?" "Oh, come on, honey, let's talk about something more pleasant. Like, for example, you and me?") and the cops' forehead-slapping repartee (the hero - played by the great Bill Kerwin, going here under his frequent and appropriate stage name "Thomas Wood" - says to his boss, upon discovering gory remains: "Frank, if I'm right, these are the leftovers from the preparation of the feast of Ishtar. That's a blood feast. They take all the young girls... and they cook 'em to satisfy their goddess." Frank's reply: "Oh, no."). But the most gut-busting moments occur after a girl gets her brain scooped out on a beach, in the histrionic reactions from her wailing masher boyfriend (he goes from "Now prove you love me!" to "Waaahh! She wanted to lee-hee-heeeave!") and grieving mother ("I made her a dress, a white dress... and now she'll NEVER WEAR it she'll never wear i-hi-hi-hit!"). Even today, most of the gore scenes in "Blood Feast" are pretty gross, especially the chunky gunk that sluices out of Astrid Olson's mouth after the famous tongue-ripping scene. The limbs are usually very fake, though, and some will object to the opaque paint-like quality of the blood, which became a staple in all of Lewis' subsequent, more ambitious gore epics.

Others have dissected its myriad charms much more capably and thoroughly than I could, so I suggest you check out what they have to say. Me, I chose "Blood Feast" for this list over "The Wizard of Gore", the best Lewis gore movie (soon to appear as a remake with Crispin Fucking Glover in the lead role of Montag), because at a mere 65 minutes, it's shorter and more compact, thus more conducive to repeat viewings. I have seen it many times, and it still entertains - which is all Lewis and Friedman set out to do. The infamous trailer, with intro by Kerwin himself:


"The Executioner"
(aka "Massacre Mafia Style," 1978)
If you're one of those Italian-Americans who gets their undies in a bunch over unflattering stereotypes, this movie will give you a coronary. Producer, director and star Duke Mitchell was once the Deano part of the Martin & Lewis knock-off act that starred in "Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla". Mitchell also allegedly did Fred's singing voice on early episodes of "The Flintstones." Here, he crafts a sensitive post-"Godfather" portrait of an unhinged racist Sicilian mob assassin with a penchant for voice-overs and an unsettling mother/whore complex. First of all, the guy's nickname is "Mimi," which may be at the root of some of his problems. He's got a bushy pompadour and a moustache to match, wears a lot of tight pants and loud, open shirts, as befitting the style of the time. He enjoys big gold rings, watches with thick gold bands, and not trimming his nails. Actually, he looks like an extra from the parts of "Casino" that are set in the '70s. The movie starts off with a great sequence - lifted for the trailer, which was attached to Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond" when Sage Stallone and Quentin Tarantino rereleased it eight years ago - where Mimi (Mitchell) and his goombah Jolly electrocute a guy in a wheelchair by sticking his foot in a urinal and running over a plugged-in a cord from his desk lamp. Then the boys proceed to wipe out the entire building, going office to office and blasting everybody they see, all while some peppy "Mob Hits" song bops along in accompaniment. Then the movie flashes back to Mimi's kid getting baptized, describing his soon-to-be-dead wife as "a woman of simple Italian heritage, a saint, a woman in fear of the man she loved." What a sweet fella. From here, we get the whole story of Mimi's tumultuous rise and fall, like a skid row spin on "Scarface" with worse actors but also without all the coke and annoying synth music. His dad is a deported patron, and Mimi wants to get the old order up and running. His plan, I think, is to go to LA and wipe out all the pimps and bookies so he can take mob business back for the, um, right kind of people.

Other than Joe Spinnell's repulsive Frank Zito, I can think of no other movie protagonist who is so thoroughly slimy and unsympathetic but so creepily fascinating as Duke Mitchell's Mimi Miceli. His frequent rambling monologues, spoken or otherwise, often veer wildly into existential moaning, supremacist rhetoric, food metaphors or just some totally insane shit. For instance, as he's eating dinner with some mob guys, one laments Italians being disgraced despite their pleasant, bacchanal nature. Mimi counters that it's their fault. He gestures to the guy's mother, who just cooked their huge meal, and says, "This old woman here is the one who's been disgraced. She's the one who's been taking the punches. She's the one that was handed the organ grinder and the monkey when she got off the boat." He almost sobs during that. Then he grabs the visibly shocked old lady's hand and kisses it. I quote verbatim: "See these hands? You know what they smell of? Oregano. (unintelligible Italian word) Beautiful herbs. They gave you mostaccioli, lasagna, pizza, the most appreciated foods in the world. What did we give her? We gave her violence. We gave her death. We gave her dishonor. We gave these hands the ability to follow the rosary beads and pray for us in jail facing the electric chair. These hands, praying for me and you, kissing the cross for us before the guy pulls the switch. Let 'em call her wop, dago, the old Guinea, the one with the bun on the back of her hair with the knitting needles in it and the knots in her stockings. Because to me, she's as pure as the homemade wine she makes, the cookies she bakes. She's a powerful as the atomic bomb that Fermi invented, her son. I love her, and some day we'll forget that she is violence, Cosa Nostra, that ugly name we gave her, mafia. So every time you see her beware of this woman. She'll come up to you and she'll ask, 'Did you eat? Have some more.' That's all she wants. I love her. I love her." If that made any sense to you, you must be more Italian than I am.

Mitchell also croons a number of Englebert-y lounge songs, and they conjure the appropriate velour mood, but the best song is at a wedding. Immediately after a guy lectures us about the significance of the groom serving bread to his father, the movie comes to a halt for some old dude to lead a sing-along that will be stuck in your head forever: "Rigatoni, moostaccioli or spaghett/It's a dish a-like you never gonna forget/When the waiter comes around/don't be bashful, just siddown/For rigatoni, moostaccioli or spaghett." But don't worry, "The Executioner" does not just taunt Italians. I think every black person in the movie dies, including a pimp named (gulp) Super Spook, who gets crucified in a cemetary. "Hey, he told me Jesus was black," quips Mimi in what's supposed to be a light-hearted moment afterward. "Let him make a resurrection." And we're supposed to be rooting for this guy. Anyway, Mimi and Jolly kill some people, piss some people off and make some porn. Mimi's hot girlfriend and Jolly get iced, so Mimi blows up the funeral to kill all the mob guys, then goes back to Sicily, tells his dad at length about how fucked up America is with their blacks taking over and their free love and their "Godfather" movies, and is finally shot up by his own son with a gun hidden in a loaf of bread. This is a mean, ugly film, one which would never get made by a studio. If you ever get the chance to see this rare bastard, the shit that comes out of that guy's mouth will make your mind feel foamy. Grindhouse Releasing was supposed to put "The Executioner" and an unreleased follow-up entitled "Gone With the Pope" out on DVD, but there's apparently some legal issue because they put the awesome "Massacre Mafia Style" trailer in the extras of their fabulous "I Drink Your Blood" DVD without permission. Imagine how pleased I was when I bought that.
UPDATE 6/30: At the request of someone (who?)... I have removed the "MMS" trailer that I originally posted. I don't want to tread on someone's legal shit, even if I am helping to advertise the movie. So, you can go watch the aforementioned awesome trailer here. RIP, Duke.

"Rats: Night of Terror"
(aka "Rats: Notte di terrore," 1984)
What's better than an Italian post-apocalyptic action movie? One that's also a killer rat movie! This fucked-up picture collides the two concepts into a grimy, shambling progression of forehead-smacking stupidity. "Rats" is the product of genre hack Bruno Mattei, whose "Hell of the Living Dead" is admittedly one of the more satisfying lesser Italian zombie flicks, but whose spotty resume not only includes ugly shit like "SS Extermination Love Camp" and "Emanuelle In Prison", but the non-Fulci parts of the universally reviled (for good reason) "Zombi 3". This seems to be his most entertaining work, if only for its relatively unexplored hybrid approach and its extremely laughable proceedings. The only similar movie that comes to mind is the relatively boring "Damnation Alley", a big budget affair highlighted by a part where George Peppard and Jan-Michael Vincent are temporarily beseiged by flesh-eating cockroaches in a post-nuke desert town. "Rats" takes that segment's brilliance to feature length, packing in weird dialogue, bizarre visuals and a quintessentially Italian lack of concern for animal welfare - something usually showcased to a brazen degree in cannibal gut-munchers.

Upon viewing it, you may be reminded of that beloved children's rhyme: "Shake and shake the rat-filled bottle/None will come, and then a lot'll." That's how a lot of the rat attack scenes are played out. I particularly love the scene where a horde of rats plummets from a fireplace; they all fall in one huge mass, as if someone just dumped a box down the chimney. Then the poor little guys just sit there, looking dazed and irritated at the paint that has been slopped on their fur, ostensibly to make them scarier. The filmmakers don't appear to have been very concerned with the fates of Feivel and family, since they toss piles of live rodents down water pipes and all over various victims, including one who's on fire. (By endorsing this movie, I'm not saying that filming real violence perpetrated against animals is cool, but a sad fact that inevitably adds to the film's trash factor, revealing another shoddy and sleazy facet of its construction, albeit one which might rightfully dissuade some viewers.) When the rats advance on Our Heroes during the climax, Mattei cuts from the humans' bug-eyed reaction shots to what appears to be hundreds of rubber novelty rats glued to a rickety conveyor belt, a risible effect that outdoes even the famous bogus bat in "The House By the Cemetery" and the plastic tarantulas from "The Beyond." In addition, whenever rats appear in "Rats," the apocalyptic biker scumbag protagonists flip out, either shrieking in overblown terror or launching into hilarious anti-rat diatribes while smashing at the confused critters. Like Cookie Monster, these rats will eat anything - they even chew through the bikers' tires so they can't leave. Personally, as is the case with snakes, I don't find rats frightening in the least; I'm sure I'd freak out if I woke up and found one in my sheets, but otherwise I find movies where they're supposed to be fearsome very amusing.

About those bikers... let's start with Lilith (Moune Duvivier), because she's the hottest, and while she's unfortunately killed too soon, she gets one of the more lurid demises. Lilith struts around in a red cape and appears to be the only woman in the group with a libido, since she and her jerk boyfriend get ostracized for having sex too loudly. They leave and finish, then he goes off to get chomped. She stays in their sleeping bag, which has already been established to have a faulty zipper. Sadly, one little Ratty McRatticus gets in there, finds its way to her bare uh-uh and tunnels its way through to her mouth (you only see the exit). This leaves behind such losers as Video, who mistakes a computer for an ancient video game and tries to mask his ignorance by declaring that the "stupid machine needs a kick in the balls," and Chocolate, the lone black woman who, during a maniacally joyful discovery of packaged food supplies, gets playfully covered with flour and proceeds to dance around telling her companions, "Look! I'm as white as you!" Of course, this group of morons is just there to get picked off, and you'll cheer for each subsequent strengthening of the gene pool. I won't blow the astounding "shock" ending, but it's so totally pulled from the asses of screenwriters Hervé Piccini (who'd previously worked on the abominable Michael Sopkiw vehicle "Devil Fish") and Claudio Fragasso (the man behind another of our upcoming flicks), I'll kiss your ring if you can see it coming in any way. Once again, the trailer, under the ludicrous alternate title "Blood Kill":


To be continued ASAP. Today's recommended listening is "The View", Eucharist's characteristically odd slice of Gothenburgia which was exclusive to the 1993 Peaceville Deaf Metal Sampler. Remember when I was saying their old A Velvet Creation was a much better slow melodo-death album than the new Dissection? Well, you can get a free, band-endorsed download of that, its astounding follow-up Mirrorworlds and (almost) everything else the late Eucharist ever recorded right here. Drummer Daniel Erlandsson is now in Arch Enemy, where his skills are often shunted aside to keep the spotlight on the Amott brothers' guitar wrangling. Generally considered a footnote today, Eucharist was up there with early Darkane and Dark Tranquillity in my book - unique, infectious and remarkably tight. Swedish supremacy!

Straight in the eyehole

Yo, I'm working on something larger than has ever been published on this site. Expect to be reading for a while, if such a thing amuses you. But I also have lots to do other than type. I do have something of a life, you know. So excuse my inability to offer you more than a review of yesterday's Slayer show and the openings to some TV shows which I enjoyed during my childhood, but which sadly do not live on in reruns today. Let's begin with the most exciting movie-of-the-week intro ever devised:

The ABC Sunday Night Movie


"Blackstar"


"Manimal"


"Tales of the Gold Monkey"


"Spectreman"


"Tales from the Darkside"


"Misfits of Science"


"The Great Space Coaster"


"Riptide"


"Today's Special"


"Sledge Hammer!"


"Just the Ten of Us"

Quick Skrik

Holy bananas, I am slacking. Charlie Granberg made a new Katatonia video, for "Deliberation." Apparently inspired by Munch's "The Scream." The band's not actually in it, and it's not as cool as the one he made for "My Twin," but the song rules. One of the most beautiful guitar performances on the entire album. I've tried repeat listens to The Great Cold Distance focusing on each instrument, and it amazes me how many subtle hooks each of those guys bring to the songs. When that perpetually late end-of-year list comes around, it will be impossible for anyone other than Katatonia to top it (I retain hope that Blind Guardian will deliver something that improves on the "Fly" single).

Oh, and did I mention that they're finally touring America? No? Well, they are. If you want to make old SoulReaper very happy, you will buy tickets for yourselves and lots of your friends to attend whatever show is nearest you, and you will all scream like lunatics while they're on stage and buy up all their merch so they can come back and eventually conquer the land. I hope they get so fucking huge over here, stupid old decrepit Metallica and Korn will be forced to open for them. At the very least, "An Evening With Katatonia" at the Chicago House of Blues is not unimaginable. I mean, stranger things have happened. Katatonia are far more accessible to your average rock listener than their old buddies in Opeth, and Opeth is getting pretty big over here now. Åkerfeldt should pony up and bring 'em with already. Hope you enjoy "Deliberation."



Visions come
Visions come
In a sickroom bed
There's something left to learn
Pass them on
Let it show
Let the rich meet death
Confront our own concern

See us sleep behind the glass
Unaware of crime
Will you wake us up before it is time

The red circle holds the only light
Break down my perspective
And notify everyone when the time is right
My mouth remains inactive

So when you let me in
You let me justify my own reward
You put your hands on me
And I learn the words I didn't know before

I am ice
I am clear
Let the world be cold
Our deliberation
Pass them on
Let it show
Let the words come slow
Your constant incantation

Repeating cycle of light/no light
There's nothing in the airspace
There's no one in the airspace
Repeating cycle of love/no love

Tramp stamp fever

There she was; tall, toned and tawny. Her long, dark locks cascaded around her shoulders and her back, gently rustling as she churned her sweaty hips this way and that. Up there on the bar, the young lady seemed lost in her moves, occasionally scanning the gyrating crowd as if seeking a sympathetic eye but mostly staring down at her own bared, fresh-from-the-gym tummy. Once in a while, she slid her crotch down the shiny pole, providing an ample view of her whale tail. You'd think this would be an erotic sight, and to the right kind of person, you'd be correct. Unfortunately, I can find nothing sexy about a woman in a cowboy hat, no matter what she's doing.

Yes, this was the scene I witnessed 'round midnight on Saturday. I found myself standing, sweating and guzzling my umpteenth import inside the undulating meat market known as Hogs & Honeys, the third stop in a debauched cross-city tour celebrating my buddy Jon's impending marriage, otherwise known as a "bachelor party." Jon loves to drink and ride the mechanical bull - in that order - so we had stumbled over to this cesspool from Exit, where Guinness is served, the music is good and the women are actually attractive. Naturally, I was not in favor of this move, but I was thankful that Jon didn't insist on strippers. Anybody who knows me well knows that I would rather nail my earlobes to the bumper of Tara Reid's SUV than enter a strip club. There's something incredibly depressing to me about paying someone to get naked for you. If this was the worst it was going to get, I wasn't going to bitch.

Fashioned after Coyote Ugly, the chain bar advertised in the Piper Perabo vehicle of the same name, H&H is remarkably crass as both a concept and as a real place to get crunk. I believe it's a spinoff of a New York bar that goes by the more disturbing name of Hogs & Heifers. It was absolutely packed to the gills with wasted, white bachelors and bachelorettes. Terrible, terrible club music, the most predictable shit imaginable, constantly boomed at maximum volume, while the mecha-bull operator and a bartender often interjected yells of "It's Jodi's 23rd birthday! Everybody buy her shots!" and "I need five single guys to get up here on the bar and dance with these fine ladies!"

The place is LOUD, so it was lucky that I had some earplugs with me (I planned to duck off to a show at Double Door, but that didn't happen). The aforementioned bartender, an abrasive blonde girl, frequently called folks who were celebrating something to stand on the bar so she could make them disrobe, drink whiskey out of her mouth, bend over so she could smack them with their own belt or do something similarly demeaning. In between, the bar served as a Jäger Bomb-slicked platform for self-styled hoochies who wanted to shake their business while it's still young. And you could even try to get a drink there.

I feel that I should reiterate that the lady I described at the top wasn't an employee, but a paying customer. She chose to get up there, even if it was with the help of her friends' egging and a bit of liquid courage. At any rate, whether they were writhing on the counter or hanging out on the floor, the females generally seemed pretty comfortable. In contrast, most of the males in attendance were either shuffling about in a slack-jawed daze or obviously on the prowl: chests puffed out, guts sucked in, eyes circling like vultures, lurking for a sign of some gal who was too drunk to mind if someone started rubbing his nuts on her leg. These are the kind of guys who will punch you if they walk into you.

What was most surprising to me was that there seemed to be more ladies than gentlemen patronizing the joint. I suppose I can guess why. Perhaps it's liberating to behave like a stone-cold skeezer once in a while. That's cool if that's your thing, but I would be horrified to meet someone who claimed to frequent the extablishment, regardless of their gender. Luckily, after Jon (minus shirt, plus hideous novelty bra) got tossed from the bull, we ended the evening back at Exit, where dark Irish suds, a little Agent Orange and some ladies still in costume from the World Naked Bike Ride ganged up to boot the nightmare that was Hogs & Honeys into the receding past. Oh, how I love Exit. If it weren't for the Hala, it would be the greatest drinking establishment around.

Anyway, thousands of congratulations to Jon and his way rad bride (you may have seen her in a recent KFC commercial - she's the lady offering to dump gravy and cheese on some goon's tater-corn-chicken bowl). In honor of the groom, the flyest MC with whom I have ever traded rhymes in a suburban garage, I offer three new Jurassic 5 tunes which are up at MySpace. Their third LP drops July 25, and will obviously be quite the awesome summer jam. If you have even the slightest interest in real hip-hop, go listen and revel in true old-school skills. If not, then try the first sign of life from "Weird Al" Yankovic in three years: a parody of that big James Blunt hit "You're Beautiful," which, like many songs Al has parodied during the last decade, I don't believe I have ever actually heard.

ONCE AGAIN: Folks, we're creeping up on the first anniversary of Entartete Kunst. How should we celebrate?

Can you smell the glove tonight?

Happy 6/6/06 - otherwise known as the National Day of Slayer.

Boy, has it ever been lousy. Electric shaver's on the fritz, it got all hot and humid outside, too much to do at work, my headphones broke while I was listening to a particularly boring indie hillbilly CD, no more "Lost" for months... I think the only good news I've heard recently was Jon Nödtveidt's statement that he plans to end Dissection before sullying the name any further - probably due to the poor reception of Reinkaos, to which I proudly contributed.

Yes'm, things are languid and cruddy. You know what this means. Time for a revival of the negative scale. Today's theme: sonic lobotomy. In unnecessary detail, I will examine a few examples of experimental "mood" records. Strap on yer drool cups.

Aghast - Hexerei im Zwielicht der Finsternis: Two ex-wives of Norwegian black metal royalty made this evil sonofabitching haunted house recording, released in 1995 by the creepy Swedish industrial/neoclassical/ambient label Cold Meat Industry. Andrea "Nebelhexë" Haugen was hitched to Emperor's church burnin' fool Samoth before starting her pagan folk band Hagalaz' Runedance, while Tanja "Nachthexe" Stene was famous for having been wedded to Isengard mastermind Fenriz as well as for doing some cool paintings shown in the inside sleeves from one of Fen's other bands. (Can you imagine how crazy destructive their marital spats must have been? If only they had sleazy police reality shows in Norway.) The duo only released this one recording as the brilliantly-named Aghast. Oh, and the popular story is that they recorded it with a microphone once owned by Dead, the loony Mayhem vocalist who legendarily slit his own wrists, shot himself and ended up on a bootleg cover (DON'T click that link if you're a delicate flower, it contains real brains and blood). Hexerei is supposed to be this classic freaky-ass recording, so I drank a bunch of these Warsteiners I have sitting here, turned off the lights and got ready to have my soul hexed to the beyond forevermore. I guess this what goths call "dark ambient," different from "darkwave" in that you cannot dance to it, even in a dazed or sullen manner. Everything is absolutely drenched in echo, everything meaning spooky chants, singing and spoken word with eerie minor key horror movie sounds. The artsy witch vocals are what clinch it; I've read reviews comparing them to Diamanda Galás, but they aren't nearly as technical. The recording often obscures them under reverb or distortion, or makes them sound far away, but at a few points they are up front and alarmingly loud. This all helps add to the "wrong," raw and grim feel of the thing. In its own lo-fi occult way, it's actually quite black metal without ever using guitars or other metal tools. Some of the tracks such as "Sacrifice" and "Call From the Grave" (sadly not a Bathory cover) approach a minimal melody, like a looped snippet of incidental music from a particularly scary episode of "Night Gallery". I imagine all the nonvocal sounds are done on a keyboard, but it's hard to tell, such as with the ringing sounds in "Enter the Hall of Ice" or the funeral drum pounding on "Totentanz." Sure, it's pretentious as hell, and it's not very musical. If I was playing it in the middle of the day, driving around or whatever, I might find it silly or boring. All I know is if I woke up in the middle of the night and something like "Das Irrlicht" was drifting in through the window, I would fill my bed with so much piss my kitchen would be yellow. Horns up to Nebelhexë and Nachthexe for the unsettling atmosphere.
NEGATIVITY: -4 (nocturnal rites indeed)

Karl Sanders - Saurian Meditation: Karl Sanders is the big, blonde guitarist/vocalist/amateur Egyptologist behind Nile, one of the few truly innovative bands to rise to prominence within the br00tal death metal scene's most recent surge. Nile's known for extensive and informative liner notes, which detail nuggets of Egyptian history to put the songs into context, as well as for working traditional, even ancient Middle Eastern instrumentation into often astoundingly complex, downtuned, doom-informed death metal savagery. Now, that may sound like a horrible idea, but from the vigilant assault of their early live shows to the intricate (if indulgent) artistry their fame has allowed them to explore, Nile honestly don't lack for ambition, ideas or talent. Two years ago, Sanders quietly popped out this home-recorded solo disc on Relapse. As expected, Saurian Meditation is basically like a Nile record with all the metal taken off. Every track is an atmospheric jobber with Sanders either playing acoustic guitar or Turkish-style lute. Nile's original drummer, Pete Hammoura, provides all the percussion, and a singer named Mike Breazeale does some new agey chanting-type vocals here and there. I have to admit, by the fourth track I was looking at the player to see how much time was left. It's cheesy and a bit close to my usual tastes to say that I like the epic tracks that feature electric guitar solos best, but it's true. "Of the Sleep of Ishtar," "The Elder God Shrine" and "Beckon the Sick Wind" actually move around a bit. The shorter tracks often sound like the sort of ominous Egyptian ambience you might hear piped out of a plastic Anubis carving while waiting in line for a King Tut-themed roller coaster. Aside from the convincingly majestic "Whence No Traveler Returns," it's not really that relaxing, just sort of hanging around sounding mystical, occasionally serving a cool sound or rhythm but mostly serving to block out the dull ache of silence. The worst is the penultimate clunker, "The Forbidden Path Across the Chasm of Self-Realization," where after about three minutes of spooky droning, Mensa candidate David Vincent of Morbid Angel fame comes on to spout some awful narration which begins "I am that which hath become... omnipotent! Eternal! Boundless!" It manages to get worse from there. He may still sound fine roaring out "Chapel of Ghouls", but here Vincent has the deep, resonant voice of your average D&D Dungeon Master, making a boring but inoffensive track skid straight into Crapville. And every song, even the ones I like, go on for too long. Maybe I'm just not cut out for sonething this close to pure "world music"; I got a copy of that Amadou & Mariam album that everyone was going apeshit for last year, and I ended up giving it to my uncle. I honestly prefer acts like my MySpace friends Secret Chiefs 3, Glittertind and Gogol Bordello, who put their global influences through prominent, idiosyncratic rock filters. I'd count Nile in that group, but Karl Sanders' solo joint doesn't do much for me.
NEGATIVITY: -0.5 (bedsheets of vengeance)

Jääportit - Uumenissa: I don't know shit about electronic music, but I've heard a few things I like. I saw this dude Solvent the other night at the Kinetic Playground. He was pretty bad-ass, but his music reminded me more of old synth-pop like Depeche Mode or New Order than any sort of "pure" electronic stuff. I thought Underworld was OK, and I listened to a lot of industrial in the early '90s, if you count that as electronic. As for ambient, I can handle it if it's trippy. I remember enjoying The Orb and old Moby when my friend's brother played them at parties back in the day, although they never inspired me to purchase an album. But my general apprehension is always that it's going to be too monotonous or plain for me. This Finnish guy known as Jääportit ("ice portal" or "frost gate" or something) was born Tuomas M. Mäkelä, does nature-inspired ambient, and for some reason in 2004 put out this disc through Firebox Records, Finland's finest boutique purveyors of funeral doom and other slow, atmospheric types of gloom. I put it on right after listening to a excruciatingly ugly, terminally boring early Swans album, so after only two minutes it's already great in comparison. Though his new agey hums lost me at times, I was never turned off by Jääportit's effort. No beats, just drawn-out keyboard tones, and peaceful ones at that. For something supposed to invoke the pristine Scandinavian frostlands, it sounds too futuristic and sci-fi to my ears, but it's a good listen anyway. "Ilmaan Kylmään" is probably my favorite, twinkling with cold Vangelis-style synth melodies and draped in wind sounds that gradually increase in prominence. If I ever find myself trudging about a post-nuclear holocaust wasteland, locked in a deadly battle for survival with a horde of bemohawked reptile robots, this is what I want to be playing in the background.
NEGATIVITY: -1.5 (any music that gives me visions of the future is not very nihilistic)

Folks, we're creeping up on the first anniversary of Entartete Kunst. How should we celebrate?