stay frosty

Ahh, October.

She rise, she rise. Her skin is pale white, and cold. Our Miss October—Ingrid Pitt...to submerge in her tresses! And my invocation is answered, and all women's fashion, hair and makeup comes to an abrupt halt sometime in the late 1960s, generously 1971. No Jordache jeans, no disco tits. No flattened perms, no satin dresses. All is go-go boots, cleavage, mini-dresses, pointy little fangs, and hair, hair, HAIR!—thick and bouncy, rich and shakeable.

The Castle marches on. With every horrorcast™, a few more celebrants join the party. And I was thinking...why this music? No discernable lyrics, melody only in the sense of our beloved film soundtracks, and in the frantically strummed baroque figures of "depressive" or "symphonic" black metal. This music is for us, those who know that things are definitely not all right, and that it's O.K. The ones who desperately cling to their pop and other "nostalgic" music are unwilling to admit that we are at the end of the road, and the view, the view actually isn't half bad. I've set up my chair, the autumn breeze cools my scalp, and no other music will any longer be suitable. The soundtrack to the apocalypse is damn GOOD, and you can get it from The Castle every week. Chaos is bliss.

Two big thoughts for you to ponder, if you wish. Lust (a perennial), and a kind of aesthetically based social elitism. Onto the music.

Comments-board notices this week for Brisbane's Lustration, the great Tukaaria, that crazy-ass Wretched Worst tape on Chondritic, Century Plants, Zombie Zombie, and the *new* out-fucking-standing Wulkanaz 7" on Seed Stock (RB mused last week that it's his best release yet.)

A wealth of special programming assaults us this month, both on The Castle and on WFMU proper. Next week, next Thursday, the Black Twilight Circle tour tromps through our heavy doors, to present sets by Dolorvotre, Arizmenda, The Haunting Presence, Volahn, and Kallathon. Will BHL and Kuxan Suum perform as well, as the tour poster would seem to suggest? Tune in and see. The tour hits our area for live performances as well, with shows on Monday, 10/3 @ Brooklyn's Acheron, and Friday, 10/7, the night after the My Castle of Quiet broadcast, at one of my favorite grimy hot-spots (perhaps because I used to live across the street), The Charleston, on Bedford Ave., in Brooklyn's Northside.

AND...Coming up on the eve of 10/20-21, our friend Mister Matthews, of both Telecult Powers and the Hex Breaker Quintet/Quartet, brings his solo project High School Confidential to the show, along with special guest co-host and co-DJ Bob Bellerue.

The month of October also brings you a unique way to support WFMU and show your specific appreciation for the My Castle of Quiet show, by participating in our non-invasive, Web-only fundraiser (we're trying something new.) There's a new t-shirt design, as well as limited CDr of Sun Ra remixes, to which many staff members contributed, myself included. Perhaps most of all, this is the first time in WFMU history when each individual show has its own pledge-total goal for the month, establishing a make-no-mistake scenario, wherein each listener can individually support the show or shows that they like. It's as easy as few clicks, and you can view the mighty "widget," and contribute NOW by visiting The Castle's main playlist page.

Now have at it, do me proud, and make sure to check http://wfmu.org/ to see what special programs my colleagues at the station have to offer this month as well.

For the moment, lovely, icy Ingrid will take you with a click to the playlist and audio archives of this week's horrorcast. Stay tuned.

this is good bedtime music.

As I wrote in the promotion for last night's broadcast, "[Seed Stock is] One of the best stateside labels dealing in black metal, its antecedents and children, with a far-reaching eye on the genre, marketing titles from both dead center and the experimental fringe," and that certainly more than held true for our last two hours, entirely programmed by RB of Seed Stock.

From a personal perspective, and as a collector maniac, the show provided me with a wealth of dark corners to explore, releases to seek out, and money to spend in the hungry pursuit of same. Black metal is the genre that keeps on giving, and has opened up to the point where each individual project, fronted by creative nihilists and misanthropes from all over the world, can crank out releases—demo cassettes, vinyl and CDs—with the energy of a one-stop spiritual freight train.

As much as there was perhaps a 15% familiarity overlap between Seed Stock's selections and my own personal library of knowledge, the genre is so vast, and globally spread out, with an almost impossible breadth of sub-sub-sub genres, dedicated labels, and one-of-a-kind entities, that much of RB's selections were entirely new to me.

The first hour, "standard" Castle fare (if such a thing exists), brought playlist notices for Jabladav (great, new homespun release), Sudden Infant (stunning new tape on Robert & Leopold), and Grisâtre (a band that always grabs attention on the show, this time from a 2010 full-length, L'idée de Dieu, on Dusktone.)

The latter two hours, which incidentally will be edited down, effluvia-free, and offered as a podcast (keep an eye on WFMU's Web portals), brought much praise in general, as well as individual notices for Jazigo, Nenavist, Tomhet and Tomhet (the North-American Tomhet was heard during my hour), Villains, Ashdautas and Bone Awl.

Thanks again to RB and Seed Stock; I highly recommend checking out their online store, as prices are quite reasonable and the selection speaks for itself.

In two weeks, the Black Twilight Circle east-coast tour hits The Castle, speaking of one-of-a-kind black metal events. For now, Eddie Romero's Beast of Blood (above) will take you to the archive and playlist for last night's horrorcast™.

equal opportunity scythe

I go to sleep, and I dream of massive car accidents. Unwarranted hostility and chaos. Sometimes, the images are positive >>> I dream of living somewhere else, with lots of space, a big house, different environments, a different life. Someone else's life.

At least here, in the Northeast, density of population is no joke, and I can't even muster up the energy to shrug and laugh it off anymore. When I can't leave my home without the assurance of some degree of a bad time, I become agoraphobic, and I am slowly morphing into a textbook case.

Do I really want people to die a fiery, painful death? Sometimes. Mostly I just want them out of the way. I have bore witness to other ways of living than what we have here, and I'm about ready to actually be the person who receives the visit, rather than the visitor, on temporary leave from the chaos for semi-good behavior.

Anyone wanna take me in? I require somewhat more care than a houseplant, some what less than a puppy or an infant. I'm full of funny things to say, natural charm, barbed cynicism, and good taste in all things. The barbed cynicism would naturally diminish gradually, as I flourished under your care.

I am at a loss as to where my next stop on this green globe should be, though I know I don't much care for humidity. Hooray for long pants, jackets, and a cool breeze. At 47, I am in ways older than my years, beaten down by time; in another sense, I never developed internally past 19—and why should I?

As one can tell from the above, I'm through playing it cool, not being "too personal," 'cause that would be "TMI." I need, we all do, and yet we devote so much time to acting as though we don't; we're good, and everything's copacetic. I am fucking lost, and as much as I persevere and I get things done, the person inside is deeply unhappy and dissatisfied. It's this inner turmoil that grows, like a snake with no limits, into a pure, seething hatred of humanity—but that's not where I want to be, necessarily. There are other options, of course, but they require financing, and/or the "kindness of strangers."

Are you a kind stranger?

Until such an encounter drops from the sky, here I am—cutting through the populace like a thresher, cleaving the radio dial like a sabre to butter. I'll burn out fast, spontaneously combust, leave an admirable legacy, if you make me—but I could do SO MUCH MORE.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~enough.

The heroes of our continuing saga this week were >>> Sissy Spacek, Violent Pink, Good Stuff House, Kjeld, Daniel Menche & Anla Courtis, Pregnant Spore, Andrew Quitter, Decimus and Demonologists. All relatively new releases, should be easy to look up, assuming one has an Internet connection and the will to research...I am so very weary of linking everything, and have even read that links within a blog article can distract from, and diminish, the key points, and the last thing I want to do is cheat myself out of a cool drink on YOUR porch, as a welcome breeze blows by.

It's far too late for the all-seeing eye in the windshield, but it will nonetheless take you to the archive and playlist for this week's horrorcast. Thanks again for listening.

Next week, not to be missed—Seed Stock Records co-hosts My Castle of Quiet, same bat time, and that's a hickory baseball bat, leaned protectively near the front door.

William, you are on a whole other unfathomable level. Thank you.

This is Mr. Mascaro. When you've got a guy like this doing your butlering for you (looks like he snaps necks for recreation, never smiles, always wears clown makeup), even armed motherfuckers are going to think twice. It's a great working relationship, that can really free you up to chip away at those plans for world domination. Just make sure to always give Mr. Mascaro his dignity; he's already got the clown face on, so do use some common sense, and don't press your luck. Mr. M. is pretty much the best feature (though there are many) of Blood Dolls, producer Charles Band's attempt to further extend the Puppet Master empire, and I would have accepted the franchise, in the form of about four or five sequels, as many of my Saturday or Sunday afternoons have been satisfactorily wiled away chomping on Full Moon fodder.

The passing weeks continue to leave me with a great sense of satisfaction, as WFMU and My Castle of Quiet approach their very-busy month of October (record fair, special programming, more surprises.) There's simply so much great, new music, and I watch the artists I favor, those I know personally, and those I relate to on collector terms, surge and rise and produce magnificent and memorable works, with the surety of more to come. For example, to see Baked Tapes rise to the plateau of releasing vinyl, and debut that endeavor with two full lengths by two bands that have shaped my reality since 2009, Telecult Powers and Grasshopper, is an odd personal best, considering that I really had nothing to do with it, except to provide encouragement via meta-fandom, airplay, and live, on-air performance opportunities (or, in the case of Grasshopper, releasing their now sold-out first vinyl on the Prison Tatt label; Telecult's PT record is in the works.) Still, it feels GREAT just to see this all happen and to hold the records in my hands.

In general, I have so much outstanding material at my disposal with which to craft each weekly horrorcast™, that I never worry—quite the opposite, the opportunity is so relished that it has for a long time now been my established and steady art therapy session.

But before I get all choked up...
I wish I'd recorded my neighbor saying "fuck you" and "fuck you, Ma" alternately, about 6-7 dozen times. It was quite an odd and destabilizing sound to wake up to the other morning. (Yes I am a substance elitist, and yes, alcoholism sucks.) Sarzan and I have been churning it into humor for the past days, though it was actually quite disturbing. At the same time, the pain of strangers never fails to make me feel a little less horrible about myself; such is human nature, I suppose.

Back to the radio show...
Playlist honors this week to Sound Out Light, the new Jabladav Ayr CD, Cripta Oculta, Smoke (that amazing improvisational black-metal band from the Netherlands), Depths, the great Demonologists, Hive Mind, and of course Grasshopper.

Weary of the circle of self-promotion, I leave you in the able hands of Mr. Mascaro, who will take you to the playlist and audio archives for this week's horrorcast. Thanks for listening.

This is the best part of Thursday night....

Why thanks, listener Howard. Better than whatever party these gloomy fucks above are attending. They're really only happy when rolling their lumpy frames around on the floor in some barely comprehensible immortality rite, caressing one another's greying flesh. Brings the song "Villier's Terrace" by Echo and The Bunnymen to mind. Leave it to director Aldo Lado, who created this blink-and-you-missed-it visual environment I grabbed from his film Short Night of Glass Dolls. As I said to Sarzan, there were NO GLASS DOLLS, neither was it a particularly short night. Such is giallo-logic.

I, for one, had a fucking blast last night putting the horrorcast™ together, I mean I always do, but last night felt especially special, maybe because it was Castle #111. Maybe it was because listener SiHV (the Castle barometer, as I like to call him) was tuning in, in real time. Perhaps it was because the night was taking my sentiment, "forever charmed, forever gutted," and holding it to its breast, for it is when one begins to care that one is truly fucked. THE human mistake, and we rejoice in making it over and over again, and I think you all get my meaning. "YouknowwhatI'msayin'?", as the hip-hoppers confrontationally declare.

Accolades all around for the opening track by Wende, surprisingly a one-man project from the States, though the song titles are all in Deutsche, and the sound strikes me as particularly Swedish, or maybe Swiss, ala Darkspace. Then again, is there really any "ala Darkspace"? I only know the Wende releases are particularly good.

There was a flood of message-board commenting during our first hour, so I know now for sure, though I had always suspected, that a blast of roaring cold is the way to start things off.

What else? Lots. Lugubrum, a perennial favorite of mine that only the nation of Belgium could truly produce, Good Stuff House (Root Strata 2009), Kavra (on Wohrt Records, my new favorite label), Hive Mind's Under Old Earth cassette ... then a beyond-esoteric gibberish discourse with a mysterious listener "ex," and the transmitter/receiver cycle completes itself, having fully read my mind.

As always every week, I am blessed by the music, a gem-thief's cache of exceptional hues, and by your ears, for lending a listen. The evil they, an immortality cult disguised as a chamber-music appreciation society, will take you to the audio archive options and playlist for this week's horrorcast.

MCoQ dates to remember >>> 9/22-23 Seed Stock co-host/guest DJ
>>> 10/6-7 Black Twilight Circle east-coast tour visits The Castle