Hello all! This week we are stoked to finally bring you LUZ by Simon Waskow. This film blew us away when we saw it on the festival circuit in 2018, and we knew we had to release it.
The film, directed by Tilman Singer on glorious widescreen 16mm, is a surreal nightmare concerning a young female cab driver named LUZ that stumbles into a police station after an accident. What unfolds is a beautiful yet brooding take on possession films that is wholly original and riveting. It is currently streaming on SHUDDER and available on Blu Ray.
We also have two distributed titles this week: Metavari's ABSURDA: Music Reimagined in the Short Films of David Lynch from One Way Static and The Magnetics' A Historical Glimpse Of The Future (1981) from Strange Disc Recordings.
As usual, new releases go on sale on Wednesdays at NOON (CT) via mondoshop.com.
NEW THIS WEEK
LUZ - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack LP. Music by Simon Waskow. Artwork by Gilles Vranckz. Pressed on 180 Gram "Demon" vinyl (Red and White Galaxy effect). Comes complete with a digital download of the entire score. Also available digitally on Bandcamp. Expected to Ship in April 2020. Ships Worldwide. $20
Death Waltz Recording Company cordially invites you to join LUZ on her nightmarish journey into the night and beyond, accompanied by a terrifying score by Simon Waskow from a film by Tilman Singer. Luz is a taxi driver who finds solace in the safety of a police station after escaping from the clutches of a woman possessed by a demon. However, the police station is only the beginning of her ordeal, which Waskow musically interprets with disturbing results.
"LUZ begins almost in medias res, with tension immediately apparent as isolated synth notes reach out, lost in the darkness. There are two forces at work here - the searching melodies that stretch and modulate in minimalist tones and the sounds from otherworldly frequencies that provide a counterpoint. Disembodied voices float in the ether speaking to the reflection of the moon on the water, krautrock vocals that chant like they're coming from a cult and a final assault that bombards and confuses you with dissonant synth and insane percussion time signatures, breaking the line between dream and nightmare. You might think the broken humming is the end of the story, but the coming cacophony will deny you. This is but a warning of the real power of the narrative of LUZ." (Charlie Brigden CritiqueFantastique.com).
DISTRIBUTED TITLES
METAVARI - ABSURDA: Music Reimagined in the Short Films of David Lynch. Distributed by One Way Static. 180g vinyl packaged in a deluxe reverse-board printed jacket with a custom die-cut center hole, also included is a digital download card and a special four-panel insert pressed on Clear vinyl. Strictly limited to 1,000 copies worldwide. Expected to Ship in 7-10 Business Days. Ships Worldwide. $20
Metavari, the moniker of American composer and electronic musician Nathaniel David Utesch, introduces his new album – ABSURDA: Music Reimagined in the Short Films of David Lynch. The album contains 11 original tracks, each of which have been scored in unison to a collection of short works from filmmaker David Lynch. Spanning Lynch's career, the films represent a breadth from student work (e.g., 'SIX FIGURES GETTING SICK' and 'THE ALPHABET') to contemporary pieces like the title track, 'ABSURDA,' and his now-infamous animations: 'INDUSTRIAL SOUNDSCAPE' and 'DREAM #7'. ABSURDA plays through as thoughtfully as the rest of Metavari's synth-heavy catalog, but there's an evolution here that explores a deeper level of experimentation. It is a chaotic collage of sound, rhythm, and melody; weaving through both harmonious passages and abrasive acousmatic music.
Metavari has found himself on a new path as he carves his niche in electronic music, describing the process as a "scribbling on top" of Lynch's films. "I've followed David Lynch's career my entire adult life; cherished pages from a series of love letters that feel like they were written just for me. This project is the semblance of what I've scribbled, in my language, on top of those letters as I write back to the man who has inspired me more than he'll ever know."
THE MAGNETICS - A Historical Glimpse into the Future. Distributed by Strange Disc Recordings. 180 Gram vinyl containing an insert with extensive and exclusive liner notes from Jakob Magnússon himself. Expected to Ship in 7-10 Business Days. Ships Worldwide. $20
Strange Disc Records proudly presents the first-ever vinyl re-issue of a landmark Icelandic minimal Synth album: The Magnetics' A Historical Glimpse Of The Future (1981). The Magnetics were Jakob Magnússon and Alan Howarth, an intriguing international & iconic duo. Keyboard player Magnússon was an Icelander who already had an impressive jazz resume, while Howarth was making a name for himself as a Hollywood composer – in 1981, the same year that A Historical Glimpse of the Future was released, he also was involved in the soundtracks for two hit John Carpenter movies, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and HALLOWEEN II.
Both have been quite successful in their post-Magentics careers, Howarth with more soundtrack work (THEY LIVE, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, CHRISTINE etc.) and Magnússon with various jazz outfits. Throughout the fantastic A Historical Glimpse of the Future album you can hear the soundscapes people came to associate with the 1980s films scored by Carpenter/Howarth. Dark and moody material but with a strange twist as you can hear on the synth cover of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and the old-timey cabaret-styled "I'm Getting Married Today," two truly bizarre pieces that don't seem to fit at all…and somehow by not fitting actually fits perfectly, which is the real story of A Historical Glimpse of the Future.
