THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD, BY ROGER WATERS

One of the strongest compositions on Roger Waters' career best solo album Is This The Life We Really Want?, this tune is finally available on Youtube, so any remaining skeptics can see one of the reasons why they NEED to own this album for themselves.

And if you're not convinced by this one, try Bird in a Gale, another favorite of mine from this album...

Be sure to listen soon, and download the audio if you like them, because they won't be up for long!

CHILDISH GAMBINO'S INCREDIBLE NEW SONG/VIDEO

This is a goddamned masterpiece.

EMINEM'S SPECIAL FREESTYLE MESSAGE FOR DONALD TRUMP

SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ SEPT 30, 2017

Over at the New York Review of Books, J. Hoberman writes about "Fake News", a new gallery show by veteran Pop surrealist Peter Saul, about whom/which Hoberman writes:

With his imposing paunch, outsized neckties, and pompadour as pointy as Woody Woodpecker’s beak, Donald Trump has the most recognizable profile of any American president since Richard Nixon. Yet, as a cartoonist of my acquaintance has complained, artists are having a hard time caricaturing Trump, mostly likely because he already is a caricature—one reflected in mass culture’s fun-house mirror for close to forty years. 

We’re sick of Trump and we’re sick of being sick of him. Well-populated by images of the president, Peter Saul’s new show “Fake News,” at Mary Boone Gallery through October 28, is hardly a palliative, but it does illustrate the crass absurdity of the current moment. 

Saul, now eighty-three, has been categorized as a political pop artist and a proto-punk neo-surrealist, although he has as much in common with the grotesque Mad magazine cartoonist Basil Wolverton as with any American painters.

Personally, any art review that references Wolverton's work has got my attention. Anyway, here's another piece from the show, one of many more that are showcased at the above-linked overview. Enjoy!

***

It has become an increasingly open question as to whether the creation of the Internet was more of a boon, or a bane, to contemporary civilization. Regardless of the ultimate answer to that fraught question, there can be no denying that the web has been a godsend to obsessive nerds who wish to pore over every conceivable element of their favorite artist/author/musician/superhero/cartoon or whatever. 

Take, for instance, one of yer old pal Jerky's personal favorites: the notoriously camera-shy Thomas Pynchon, author of such majestic literary milestones as V., Gravity's Rainbow, and Mason&Dixon. Without the Internet, would Pynchon scholar Christian Hänggi have been able to put together this... well... here, let me let Christian explain:

The British literature scholar Cedric Watts once wrote: “One test of literary merit is fecundity, the ability to generate offspring”. More than many other novelists, Pynchon’s work has generated not only literary but also musical offspring: songs, bands, entire albums inspired by Pynchon’s themes and novels. In 1982, Steven Moore made a first attempt to collect such songs and inspirations in Pynchon Notes under the title “Pynchon on Record,” to which Laurence Daw added “More on Pynchon on Record” in 1983. Sixteen years later, Juan García Iborra and Oscar de Jódar Bonilla published an article that added more names to the previous lists. Since then, the search algorithms on the internet have vastly improved—and so has the amount of available information and the possibilities to upload one’s own material. 

I wrote a dissertation on music in Pynchon’s work (which I hope to publish soon), and since I believe that no large-scale study on this topic would be complete without acknowledging his musical offspring, I spent many days researching his impact on the music scene. I ended up with a list of more than eighty songs, artists, albums, and record labels who make their nods to the novelist, and I am happy to present it here for the first time, replete with links and comments.

I don't know about you guys, but to me, stuff like Christian's article -- titled Pynchon on Record Vol. 4 -- is precisely what the Internet was made for. And no, you don't need to have read any of Pynchon's incredibly dense but indescribably rewarding novels to be educated, entertained, or even excited by Christian's literary detective project. Who knows? You might even be tempted to crack open a challenging book for the first time since you threw your tasseled mortarboard into the air on graduation day!

***

What with Google having abandoned Youtube to the self-described "anti-SJW" Alt Right, who've somehow managed to game that site's algorithms in such a way that it is now, for all intents and purposes, an Alt Right Propaganda Organ, I'm having a difficult time figuring out whether it's even worth linking to the few remaining anti-anti-SJW voices still operating there. 

On the one hand, I think unique, intelligent creators like Hbomberguy, Shaun&Jen, and Counterpoints (creator of today's highlighted video, below) deserve a big audience and a wider platform. I have serious reservations, however, about whether Youtube can be that platform. Because, in case you hadn't already noticed, no matter what your political predisposition or how many progressive videos you watch there, Youtube will invariably invite you to watch a continuous rolling cavalcade of Alt Right, Far Right, and even occasionally openly Fascist bullshit by the likes of Sargoon of Arcade, Milo, Gavin MacInnes, Lauren Southern, Dave Rubin, Black Pigeon, Atheism is Unstoppable, Ben Shapiro, Richard Spencer, Alex Jones, Blair White, Red Ice Creations, David Duke, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum. 

It's fucking ridiculous. No matter how many times I've made the extra effort to try and block specific Youtubers on an individual level, it never fucking ends. I've even written Youtube's complaints department about it on more than one occasion, and have yet to receive any response or explanation whatsoever for this blatant bullshit. 

Anyway, Contrapoints is awesome; the most entertaining and intellectually substantive trans activist currently using Youtube as a platform. Not that she focuses exclusively on trans issues. She doesn't. But her education level, production values, and telegenic qualities are enough to make her a real up-and-comer on the punditry scene. If I was a manager at CNN or MSNBC or what have you, I'd snap her up as a special commentator in a heartbeat. 

Anyhoo, in today's offering, Contra steps up and tries to describe... THE LEFT! So buckle up, buttercup, and click play. But watch it here. Don't go over to Youtube. Unless you enjoy being assaulted by Alt Right propagnda... 

PARTING THOUGHT FOR THE DAY...

Support for Donald Trump's impeachment is now (and has been for months) higher than his approval rating, in virtually EVERY poll that measures such things. The last time I checked, his approval rating was hovering somewhere around 39%, while support for his impeachment was at 43%. So the next time you're feeling shitty about how low your fellow Americans have sunk in so many different and important ways... just keep in mind the fact that Trump is INCREDIBLY unpopular. It's a minor comfort, but it is comfort nonetheless.

FHTAGN ROCK OPERA OF DOOOM!

Our old pal Fabian Rush has, at long last, fulfilled his lifelong dream of creating a rock opera based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft! And the generous bastard went and uploaded the whole thing--entitled Fhtagn! Rock Opera of Doom--on Youtube, where you can watch it for free!

I'm about 20 minutes in, myself, and I'm LOVING IT! The music is fantastic, particularly if you're an aficionado of dark ambient, or heavy metal with a Gothic and/or Industrial flavor. It's also got a sense of humor about itself, which helps the somewhat DIY special effects go down easy.

Help spread this around! It fully deserves to achieve cult status!

SUGGESTED READINGS FOR JUNE 25, 2017

Of the many indicators that the Anglosphere's public intellectual ecosystem is in a sorry state of decline, perhaps the most compelling is the fact that telegenic mediocrity Sam Harris--he of the soothing, hypnotist's mien and the cold dead eyes of a serial killer--continues to be taken seriously, and that he maintains a significant readership, as well as a positively rabid online fan club.

Fortunately, the mysterious Reddit escapees who produce THErHizzonE have taken it upon themselves to provide the interested reader with a forensically thorough and meticulously argued case against paying any attention to anything Sam Harris has to say on any topic, whatsoever. And yet, as entertaining is it is to see such a self-satisfied, narcissistic fraud be so utterly dismantled, the author(s) have also done a great public service, producing a must read for anyone concerned about the deleterious effects that one well connected phony can have on the wider public discourse.

***

Speaking of malevolent bad faith actors with sinister ulterior motives and an inexplicably large and vocal American fan base, how about them Russians?! The Daily Beast's excellent overview of America's long history of having sincere attempts at rapprochement backfire spectacularly, titled How Moscow's Spies Keep Duping America Over and Over Again, is both fascinating and chilling. It's enough to make you wonder which evil genius magician managed to convince so many ostensible Trump "foes" that there's nothing to the whole Russia thing, when the Russia thing is fucking HUGE, man, in all its ugly glory. Trump is covered in sucker marks from all the tentacles the Kremlin, Russian organized crime, the oligarchs (same dif) and all those weird Central Asian post-Soviet kleptocratic petrostates have wrapped around him. And yet we have self-styled lefties and Democrats screaming to stop talking about Russia. It's a testament to the New Fascist International's insanely powerful, next level propaganda skills, that's for goddamn sure.

***

That's enough heavy thinking for one day. Let's close off today's offerings with a video: Wheeler Walker Jr.'s hit crossover (from Filthy Trucker Novelty Tape to New Country Fringe) "hit" single, "Pussy King"!

LEMONS FOR EVERYONE, BY TRANS LOVE AIRWAYS

I don't know what it's going to take for me to convince you that my friend Steve Banks (peace be upon him) wrote, and his band Trans Love Airways performed, the single greatest Canadian rock song of all time. So I guess I'll just keep trying to educate you fools. I mean, just listen to that song. And then just look at that video's play count. Does that seem at all logical to you?!

AN UNLIKELY HYPOTHETICAL

If a hyper-advanced race of aliens came to earth and told us to assemble our species' greatest achievements so that they could use them to stand in judgement over us, I would be perfectly comfortable with including Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii in total, and "Saucerful of Secrets" in particular, among the prime exhibits in our favor.

If you have any suggestions for achievements and artifacts to include in this hypothetical collection in defense of humankind, please either e-mail them to me, or let us know in the comments section, below. I know it's annoying to sign up to YET ANOTHER online entity just to leave a lousy comment or two, but I'd like to include more polls and things making use of Blogspot's commenting function, so please take the time to sign up, okay? I know that there are scores - and sometimes hundreds - reading each post, and I'd like to see that reflected in comments activity.

SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ MAY 28, 2016

1. In your recent online travels through the more political sections of the Internet - but most especially in journalistic comment sections shitted up by Matt Drudge's loyal army of Keyboard Kommandos, as well as other assorted subhuman garbage people* - you may have come across a newly minted taunt: "Cuckservative", often shortened to just plain old "cuck". This Baffler article by Amber A'Lee Frost is a good place to begin learning about both the origins of this insult, and the pretty obvious psychopathies pulsing through the mushy brains of the people who make up the online "movement" that has so enthusiastically adopted it as their go-to insult of choice. Frost explains:

Just as you’d assume, cuckservative combines conservative and cuckold, referring not literally to the husband of an unfaithful woman, but rather to the sort of insufficiently masculine RINO (Republican In Name Only) who is unable and/or unwilling to vanquish the corrosive forces of Marxism, feminization, and reverse racism that threaten to destroy the very fabric of our once-beautiful country. 

At Salon, Joan Walsh professed her shock and disgust at the coinage, thanking The Daily Caller’s “mild-mannered, clean-cut conservative writer” Matt Lewis for bringing its ugly genealogy to her attention. Lewis claimed the first half of the word comes from the “cuckold” genre of pornography, wherein a black man has sex with a white woman while the performer playing her white husband watches ashamed, titillated, or both. In this context, the slur implies a “race traitor.” Over at The New Republic, Jeet Heer corroborated this usage and expounded on the term’s disturbing undercurrents of psychosexual racism under the too-clever-by-half headline “Conservatives Are Holding a Conversation About Race.” ... 

Not long after the first wave of cuckservative commentary washed over the servers of the left-leaning Internet, the sheer spectacle of liberal agita over the expression attracted the attention of more respectable outlets of debate. The Columbia Journalism Review dove into an intensive etymology of the term. (Did you know that The Oxford English Dictionary informs us that “cuckold” likely came from “cuckoo,” a bird that lays her eggs in another bird’s nest?) Even the venerable Gray Lady, though reluctant to broach the topic of pornography, felt obligated to translate cuckservative to her readership, unfortunately covering it under “Politics” and not, as I had hoped, in the Style section. 

As cuckservative went more or less mainstream, most conservative pundits scrambled to distance themselves from it, which makes sense, since it wasn’t doing much to enhance their standing in a presidential election cycle (and since conservatives, as we know, are traditionally averse to both pornography and obscenity). Erick Erickson at RedState denounced the word, calling it “a slur against Christian voters coined by white supremacists”—a condemnation echoed by Matt Lewis, the aforementioned “mild-mannered, clean-cut” sociologist of porn. It’s a fantastic feat of mental gymnastics to twist the cuckservative affair into fodder for a Christian persecution complex, but it’s hardly an unprecedented move for white commentators on the right. After all, many talking heads initially treated the recent massacre of black church parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina, by white supremacist Dylann Roof as a secular assault on a Christian house of worship. ... 

As far as I know, the only high-profile conservative who went to the mat for cuckservative was right-wing novelty act and gay Catholic Breitbart scribe Milo Yiannopoulos. He presumes that since he has “literally taken black dicks in the ass,” his careful analysis of the theoretical racial dynamics at play afford him a sort of Standpoint Theory expertise—the kind of intellectual authority granted only by personal experience. ... 

Yiannopoulos further argued that cuckold and cuckservative are not racist terms because they were popularized not on Stormfront or in some KKK chatroom, but in that bastion of postracial enlightenment, 4chan, which, as it turned out, played no small role in Roof’s radicalization.

Unfortunately, Frost misses some important stuff regarding cuck's coinage, which, stray outliers aside and notwithstanding Yannapowhatsis' mincing prevarications, apparently took place in the rabidly racist cesspit of TheRightStuff.biz, home to a cohort so deaf to the signature screech of cognitive dissonance that they can go from denying the Holocaust to celebrating the Holocaust in a single sentence without even pausing to add a dash or a comma. A breed apart, indeed. Anyway, read Frost's article, keep in mind what I have added to it here, do your own research if you feel it's necessary, but above all, remember... people who say "cuck" should be avoided, but you should also keep tabs on them. See the asterisk at the bottom of this post to find out why.

2. As if the above story (and all its various parantheticals) wasn't enough to fill your heart with hate this morning, why not read this Prospect Magazine story about Max Martin, the Swedish "Svengali" of the international music industry? This is a man who got his start with the execrable Ace of Bass, and who appears to have recently cracked the code for writing godawful saccharine pop music hits.

In a new book entitled The Song Machine, the New Yorker writer John Seabrook forensically tells the story of “All That She Wants,” and what it set in train: a new kind of industrialised popular music in which every last nuance is carefully considered, instant impact is all and songs are filled with enough sonic punch to monopolise people’s attention. 

The story moves from the watershed success of Ace Of Base, through such international boy-band sensations as the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, on through the rise and fall of Britney Spears and on to the modern pop aristocracy: Rihanna, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. The speciality of the songwriters and producers who work with such artists, Seabrook says, is music “made for malls, stadiums, airports, casinos and gyms,” which is metaphorically “vodka-flavoured and laced with MDMA.” 

If you want a illustrative flavour, listen to Swift’s frantic 2014 masterpiece “Shake It Off”: as exciting a pop record as I have ever heard, and so addictive that having it buzzing around your head produces an anxious, unfulfilled feeling similar to needing a cigarette. The only cure is to listen to it again and again. 

Seabrook calls tracks like this “industrial-strength products.” And self-evidently, they are made in an industrial kind of way.

The music being discussed is, of course, absolute and utter shit. But the story itself is quite interesting, if a little bit creepy with some definite (but subtle) MKUltra undertones. Bad music, a conspiracy? Why the hell not!

3. And finally for today, we bring you the story of the weird-ass machine that succeeded in freaking out none other than Nikolai Tesla, himself: the Spirit Radio!

“My first observations positively terrified me as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night”

– Nikola Tesla, 1901 article Talking With The Planets

The first link, above, has a video featuring some audio recordings of the super-spooky, cosmic sounds made by this most unique device, and even links to a set of instructions so that you can make your very own Spirit Radio! How cool is that?! If I was more of a tinker, I might give it a go, just to have something to put next to my very own home-made Dream Machine!


*A list that includes Trump's True Believers, Social Security-collecting FOX News "libertarians", Red Pill-poppers, meme-spewing Alt-Right Mega-Trolls, Evangelical Hyper-Zionists, Conspiritarded "Info-Warriors" (actually the woolliest sheeple on the Animal Farm), "Race Realists", proponents of the "Dark Enlightenment", NeoReactionaries (NRx), and other such groups among whose ranks currently lurk the next David Koresh, Dylann Storm Roof, Tim McVeigh, Cliven Bundy, Anders Breivik, Anton Lundin-Pettersson, Frazier Glenn Miller, Wade Michael Page, etc, etc, etc... 

PRINCE (1958-2016)

Lemmy. David Bowie. Keith Emerson. Gary Shandling. And now, Prince, The Purple One. His Royal Badness, is gone. Snatched away from us during what seemed like a career upswing, at a time when most everyone was prepared to, even if begrudgingly, admit his objective greatness and the legitimacy of his claim to the title of bona fide Musical Genius.

A prodigy with (thankfully) a bit of a Napoleon complex, Prince wasn't just a multi-instrumentalist; he was a master of multiple styles, as well. He had the funky groove of a young James Brown. He had amazing and intuitive Jimi Hendrix-like guitar chops. He had an experimental drive and force of will not unlike that of Frank Zappa, with whom he also shared a hatred of Warner Bros and a lifelong devotion to maintaining a racially and sexually integrated touring band. Also, like Zappa, he could be a strict disciplinarian, was incredibly prolific, and died far too young, with much left to do, and much of his life's work sealed in a vault, waiting to be discovered. 

Image-wise, Prince played the gender-bending game more successfully than anybody else, surpassing even the great David Bowie, if only because the latter was so alien that he often transcended sexuality completely, whereas Prince at his best was able to bring a visceral erotic dimension to the numinous... no small feat. And he did it all while flaunting a sleek, tight, unmistakably masculine physicality not unlike that of his fellow diminutive, Bruce Lee. 

And style! From the first glimmers of his super-stardom, the album 1999, Prince dressed and carried himself as though he were some kind of sexual superhero, or an ambassador from an alternate, funkier, sexier dimension. He was an urban Dionysus, a sophisto/aristo avatar of the Great God Pan. The man was a fucking giant and, if the legends are to be believed, he was also a giant of fucking.

For those of us who didn't know him on a personal level, perhaps the most inspiring aspect of Prince's life is that he was an artist, all the way. Yes, he had raw talent, seemingly gifted by God or Mother Nature with musical abilities beyond that of his fellow humans. And that alone would have been enough for most of us. Not for Prince. He didn't spare himself the disciplinary rigors through which he put his band mates. He never stopped sharpening his chops, honing his craft, reading, learning, investigating, and applying the fruits of his efforts to the incredible gifts that he made. For his audience; for us. For you. 

And now he's gone. 

This essay by A.J. Hartley, titled "Bowie, Prince, and a Note to (Baffled?) Millennials" does a pretty great job of articulating what it is that a lot of us are feeling these days, and of enumerating the evidence that we have, in fact, turned some kind of collective, cultural corner. I mean, intellectually, we all understand that time marches on and death claims us all--even the most legendary--but there's more to it than that.

Personally, while "Purple Rain" was a favorite back when it was everyone else's favorite, I would never call myself a super-fan. Which is why I'm finding it hard to account for the level of grief I feel. His music keeps coming at me in waves, breaking in sadness on the Heideggerian shores of Dasein. And even though "Purple Rain" definitely makes the short-list of songs in the running for Absolute Perfection status--up there with the likes of "Hallelujah", "He Stopped Loving Her Today", and "Ace of Spades"--I can't help but think he would have wanted his fans to remember him, at least in part, as the sexy motherfucker from the video for "Kiss".

Here it is. Sorry for the bad quality. Copies keep getting taken up and pulled down over copyright infringement, which is kind of cuckoo for a promotional video, but there you go. 

Watch, listen, enjoy, and remember.

THE LAST HALLOWEEN: COMIC AND FILM STILLS SET TO SCORE

This is pretty great. My long-time creative partner Marc Roussel, who directed the short film version of my 8 page comic The Last Halloween based on a script we co-wrote, has put together a video to showcase our film's amazing score, which was created by our friend and frequent collaborator Christopher Guglick, pairing it with stills from the film and pages from my comic. Thanks, Marc... Now it's time to get back to work on our next batch of projects!

MEDIAVORE ~ THE BEST MUSIC VIDEO EVER MADE

DDD SUGGESTED READING ~ SEPT 6, 2015

1. I assume we're all Pink Floyd fans here, right? Well then, I'm going to have to assume that you guys are going to be as shocked, surprised and delighted as I was to discover that the boys created a multi-page comic book "program" to coincide with their Dark Side of the Moon tour in 1975. As Dangerous Minds explains:  "It has an appealing lack of polish that puts it somewhere halfway between 'professional promotional item' and 'schoolboy’s notebook scribbling.' ... The 'programme' is credited to Hipgnosis, Nick Mason, Gerald Scarfe, Paul Stubbs, Joe Petagno, Colin Elgie, Richard Evans, and Dave Gale." You can download the whole thing at the link, and find more vintage Pink Floyd ephemera at the Ultimate Pink Floyd Fan Site. Especially their Tour Book Project page.

2. I am currently working on a long essay about the Rise of the Conspiritards, in which I will be making use of some of the concepts first delineated by Richard Hofstadter in his ground-breaking essay for Harper's entitled The Paranoid Style in American Politics. It's a great history lesson, and a wonderfully argued bit of intellectual polemic. I urge you all to bone up on it so you'll be better able to grapple with the ideas that I plan to put forth in my own essay. If you're one of those particularly wooly sheeple who believes that nobody died at Sandy Hook, THIS MEANS YOU.

3. And finally for today's "curation" (see Saturday's Suggested Readings for why that's kinda funny), I bring you Italian pop/rock superstar Adriano Celentano's "Prisencolinensinainciusol", a song that topped the Italian pop charts in 1972. The lyrics consist of gibberish designed to sound like English. “Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did,” said Celentano during a 2012 interview with All Things Considered. “I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn’t mean anything.” Thanks to my writing partner Marc Roussel (and BoingBoing) for bringing this gem to my attention. Somebody needs to put this thing in a movie before Quentin Tarantino does.

MEDIAVORE:MUSIC & SATIRE ~ HAM

Eric Wareheim presents us with this gorgeous vision of what America, in his satirical eyes, has become.

HAM from Eric Wareheim on Vimeo.

NEW MARIANNE FAITHFUL TUNE PENNED BY ROGER WATERS HAS VINTAGE PINK FLOYD VIBE

Personally, I kinda dig it. There's an "Arnold Layne" meets "Mother" thing going on there. Then again, I have always worshiped at the Temple of Floyd, so perhaps my judgement is clouded. Regardless, let me know what y'all think down in the comments section, below.

ROB ZOMBIE'S LORDS OF SALEM

I don't usually do movie reviews, but I just finished watching a film that I hope a great many of you will seek out in the coming weeks and months. It is Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem, and I really, REALLY enjoyed it. Let's kick things off with a trailer.

With his latest film, Zombie goes a long way towards rehabilitating his reputation after his Halloween reboot and its sequel. Displaying a masterful control over tone and style elements, Zombie has created that rarest of things in Lords of Salem: a sophisticated, avant garde horror film that is also a fun and engaging viewing experience. With this film, Zombie is now one of the small handful of directors working in the genre whose work every horror fan should henceforth pay close attention to. Zombie may very well produce an unqualified masterpiece one day soon.

I have read some inexplicably negative reviews that bark about Sheri Moon Zombie's performance, but I personally found her to be an engaging leading lady, very easy to like, to root for and - more importantly - to fear for. In any case, her performance  is surrounded and supported by a uniformly superlative ensemble cast  including a veritable coven of magnificent actresses playing Salem witches, both past and present. I hesitate to single out any one of the performances in this film, because they're all so good, but I will say that it was a real treat seeing (and hearing) Dawn of the Dead veteran Ken Foree back on the big screen again. Oh, and Dee Wallace, too, in a hilarious turn. And Judy Geeson is just flat-out awesome as the nice-but-somehow-off landlady. And Bruce Davison, who turns on the charm as a randy academic. And... well... you see what I mean. Zombie's abilities as a director of actors has obviously evolved leaps and bounds in recent years, and it pays high dividends in Lords of Salem.

On the more technical side of things, the movie just looks fantastic. Zombie serves up a feast for the eyes, meticulously constructing every shot and filling the frame with unforgettable images that stamp themselves into your grey matter and resonate for days afterwards. His camera glides fluidly from scenes anchored in warm and grungy but somehow comforting earth tones, to brilliantly lit set pieces awash in blazing primary colors, and it all makes a mad sort of sense. Visually, Zombie approaches and frequently equals the very best works of Dario Argento and Mario Bava. Yes, Lords of Salem looks that good.

With Zombie setting such a high bar for himself visually, it should come as no surprise that Lords of Salem also features the most chillingly effective sound design in a horror film since Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Spooky, almost subliminal sounds skitter at the threshold of stony silence to keep you ever on edge. Many shock scenes feature sonic punctuation that is brutally efficient as a sledge-hammer to the forehead. And, every once in a while, the malevolence of what we suspect might be transpiring on the other side of a closed door is underscored with a nerve-shattering slash of otherworldly roaring that echoes up from only God - or the other guy - knows where. Again, I say, best sound design since The Shining.

Speaking of Kubrick, Zombie has borrowed liberally from many masters to make Lords of Salem into a monster. For instance, he engages in Kubrick's penchant for needle-dropping the very best classical music to grand cinematic effect... but more about the music, later. Roman Polanski is also an obvious influence here, as are Jodorowsky and Ken Russell. Zombie shares with these directors a feral intensity of vision and a willingness to follow wherever that vision takes him, no matter how absurd it might seem on paper.

Finally, a word about the music. I'm not much of a fan of Zombie's heavy metal output, but his decision to showcase the decadent droning of the classic Velvet Underground songs Venus in Furs and All Tomorrow's Parties was a wise one. And I suppose you could cycle through images of a star nosed mole eating a worm while playing Mozart's Lacrimosa and it would still send chills running up and down your spine.

But perhaps the film's most impressive musical element is the piece of music included on the vinyl record surreptitiously sent to the radio station where Sheri Moon's disc jockey character, Heidi, works. The song, by "The Lords", is brilliantly lo-fi; a decidedly Pagan sounding, repetitive drone that really gets under your skin. In fact, it very much reminded me of the most terrifying music I've ever heard.

I first encountered the music of Belgian ensemble Univers Zero during my quest to discover ever more obscure progressive rock music. I read reviews about them in the Prog Archives, and subsequently tracked down a CD version of their 1979 album Heresie. Just as the reviews at the Archives promised, their music scared the living shit out of me. And now that I've seen Lords of Salem, and heard the piece of music that is so central to that film, I can very much recommend Univers Zero's early works to anybody who would like to hear more music of this type.

I include, here, a sample that should give you a pretty good idea of what I'm going on about. Buckle in, perk up your ears and listen good. That may just be the Devil knocking at your back door there at the end...

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PS - Don't forget the ongoing journey through history at our sister-site, the Useless Eater Blog! In the latest edition, we cover everything from Nick Berg's beheading to the freaking SKY falling down upon our heads! It all happened, ON THIS DAY in History! Enjoy!

THREE EXCELLENT, HORIZON-EXPANDING BBC MUSIC DOCUMENTARIES

First up, PROG BRITANNIA, an Anglo-centric (and thus, necessarily incomplete) history of Progressive Rock, which recently aired on BBC4. Absolutely essential viewing for one and all.

Not quite so mandatory but still quite instructive and illuminating is KRAUTROCK: THE REBIRTH OF GERMANY, which goes to great lengths to fit this particularly viral and enduring strain of prog into a holistic political and socio-cultural context. Very well done.

And, finally, SYNTH BRITANNIA, a revealing and encyclopedic examination of the history of electronic British music. I was, of course, very satisfied to see that Stanley Kubrick was given his proper due as a ground-breaking trend-setter in this case, having hired electro-musical maverick Wendy/Walter Carlos to produce the haunting, blazing score for his version of Clockwork Orange.