MYSTERY SONGS

Grouper is the ongoing musical project of Oregon born musician Liz Harris. I listen to Grouper all the time, perhaps more than any other contemporary band, but their music is so enigmatic that I can't say I really know it, in fact, virtually every listen is an exercise in unknowing. Much of it is so lo fi it sounds like it is drifting in from another room. It reminds me of radio waves from space: as a non-scientist, I have no way of measuring where it came from, who sent it, or how long ago. 

Harris builds repetitive but mobile layers of treated guitar and keyboards to create noisy but clearly very personal soundscapes. When Harris sings it is beautiful and haunting, but any words are either indiscernible or indecipherable, and so it carries some of the mystery of Medieval music. There are no drums, ever. This may not sound like much fun, and it certainly doesn't result in something you might bang on the car stereo as you're driving to B & Q (other destinations may apply). There is no foot tapping, head nodding or air punching. It is, however, supremely listenable: compelling, hypnotic, unfathomable. I understand that this might be perplexing to some, even annoying, and that's okay, we all have different tastes and needs. 

When I listen to Grouper, I find myself transported to an indeterminate landscape where it is no longer possible to analyse and understand everything, but I find that this is a relief rather than a frustration. When I was a kid I wanted to know everything about everything. Now I'm old I've learned how important it is that at least a few mysteries (the meaning of life, Bigfoot, Grouper) remain.

You can find most of their remarkable back catalogue here. There is no right or wrong entry point, it's all good.

NEW! DIFFERENT! SHOCKING!

DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN, d. Al Adamson (USA, 1971)

Dracula Vs Frankenstein is a paradoxical work, being simultaneously the greatest horror film ever made and the worst. I feel no need to unpick that, it seems the fairly logical product of an imperfect universe.

Dracula was played by one of producer / director / maniac Al Adamson's business associates, and he was selected for the role because there was no-one else available and, in a visionary leap of imagination, he 'looked the part'. Disappointingly, his real name was Roger Engel.

In 1995, Adamson was murdered by a genuinely scary business associate, a man he had hired to renovate his home in California. His remains were found under the floor where his hot tub had been.

Happy Halloween, people!

THE HORROR

 

Zandor Vorkov IS Count Dracula in Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971).

STRANGE TWINKLE

 

A nice exchange from Tarkan & The Silver Saddle. I genuinely love these films, they're totally ridiculous in all the right ways.

NINETY SIX POINT SIX PERCENT FUN

SLEEPAWAY CAMP, d. Robert Hiltzik (USA, 1983)

After a speedboat accident that kills her father, teenage Angela remains withdrawn and mute. Given her obvious trauma, sending her to a summer camp full of bullies and predators seems unwise, but it happens anyway. When her principal tormentors are killed one by one, it becomes clear that a psychopathic killer is on the loose.

Mindless but entertaining for more or less 87 of its 90 minutes, it all goes wrong when it suddenly blunders into highly dubious territory about gender, culminating in a tasteless twist ending accompanied by a genuinely disturbing final image.

Four sequels appeared between 1988 and 2002, but I won't be watching those, as they apparently lean even more heavily into the elements that derailed it in the first place.

Slasher movies are not necessarily my go to sub-genre, but I watched Teenage Sex & Death In Camp Miasma three times last week, so I thought I'd give it a go.

GOLDEN YEARS, WAH WAH WAH

 

It is a basic tenet of human existence that life always used to be better in the past. 500 years ago, Lucas Cranach the Elder painted 'The Golden Age', evoking a halcyon time when men and women and animals co-existed in a peaceful, shame-free existence, you know just like the 50s/60s/70s/80s/90s (pick your era). It is a fallacy that must be resisted, it genuinely impacts our full development as a species.

PRISMATIC

 

From Diamond Pyramid, d. Andras Rajnai (Hungary, 1985)

COSMOS / VORTEX

 

This seminal artefact by F.C Judd, was released in 1963, and I've had it in my collection since the late 1980s. 

The sleeve notes state that  'this record introduces sound phenomena that cannot be produced with conventional musical instruments or by simple mechanical or electro-acoustic means'. The results are wonderful, and simply having it in the house makes me a better person.

GOOD TIMES / BAD TIMES

 

O Trapalhao No Planalto Dos Macacos, d. J.B Tanko (1976)

I've known for some time that there was a Brazilian Planet Of The Apes, but is it as good as that sounds? No, absolutely not, it's totally rotten.

HOT PANTS DETECTOR

 

September 29, 1971 - Miami, Florida: decked out in hot pants, Denise Vickary, an airline stewardess instructor, tried to fool a new hijacker device called the Mark III Friskem by putting a knife in her pants.

The device, a magnetometer, measures disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field. The disturbances are created by a large piece of metal like a weapon. If the field is disturbed, a light flashes on a small screen. The device is set to differentiate between size and mass so that a passenger with a wrist watch or small pocket knife could pass through and board the aircraft, but the device will detect a weapon or large knife. This device is now being used by Eastern in Miami is now more sensitive than previous devices used by the airlines.

From Skyjacked.