...it's all white boy bongo music to me so far.

France, with its built-in, cultural-aesthete position in history, with centuries of art appreciation, and particular obsessions with existentialism, death and the macabre, was bound to be a place where black metal would flourish, a fertile ground for generations of uniquely satisfying music.

There's no substitute, then, for a band with a decade-and-a-half's endurance in the genre coming over to the U.S., reminding us that our indigenous black metal, as great as it often is, is distinctly American, and comes from a different dark corner of the soul. ...and with the best French bands, crafting this music comes as naturally as eating snails, or killing off one or more protagonists at the very end of a film.

Mortífera were the indisputable stars of our night, inasmuch as their set was truncated by circumstantial necessity. Those three songs, for myself, were a hearty bowl of black soup, a savoring of what would come the next night, with Mortífera onstage at full force.

We then heard an older track from Celestia; both bands are comprised of nearly the same personnel (adding Ghaast on guitar), yet present so very differently. I'm particularly attached to the song we heard, "Immortal Floating Shadow."

Castlehead-playlist cheers went to Ateh Gibor Le'olam Shaitan  (here's another piece; YT link) | gorgeous grind—one half of a split release by Trepanation | ...and some Stooges-inspired, Swiss, ritual-style electric weirdness from 1978 by Tötenköpf. 

ETERNAL THANKS FOR YOUR ONGOING SUPPORT! AS THE YEARS DRIFT BY ON MY CASTLE OF QUIET, THE TIDE RISES, FALLS AGAIN, SEEMS I CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON APPRECIATIVE MY CASTLE OF QUIET LISTENERS TO DONATE / PLEDGE TO THE SHOW, AND HELP WFMU LURCH FORWARD DURING FUNDRAISING TIME. 
MUCH APPRECIATION FOR YOUR GENEROSITY!

Our screen capture this week, a personal favorite, comes from Catherine Breillat's Bluebeard (2009), a wonderful, beguiling film that I can't recommend highly enough.

Thank you for a fantastic October, with Halloween still to come!

Greetings friends, Castleheads, Castle haters, et al. ...

Pos or neg, I appreciate your participation in the ongoing "radio experiment" that is My Castle of Quiet—trying always to bring those darker emotions and unsavory music to the airwaves. WFMU is hoping to raise pledges / funds all October, $ we really need in advance of our more official 2-week yearly marathon in March 2016. And yeah, we're running out of October, with the program holding @ 50% toward its *very modest* fundraising goal of $900 for the month.

This month-long "fun-raiser" is low impact; that said, our building needs all kinds of urgent, ridiculous repairs, we have two new t-shirt designs we're offering for your pledge, and you can enter a photo of your pet in our Mascot Contest v.2 when you pledge.

See the white, rectangular, "WOOF-MOO" Flash pledge widget above to make a donation, or go to my playlist-archive page @ http://wfmu.org/playlists/WB

For more information, or to donate to WFMU at large (or another WFMU program) see here.

Hails and thanks to those who have pledged already, those who will pledge, and those who are unable to donate but just listen and engage My Castle of Quiet with enthusiasm! I'm eternally grateful for your support!!

Essence indeed.

The inherent value of doing a radio show based solely around the 7" format is many-fold—to herald the labels that continue(d) to champion the format, in a non-hit-based musical underground, in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, as well as those post-2000 vinyl fiends, who continue to produce and purchase singles to this day. ...It's also damn hard for even the most mediocre of artists to make a BAD single. Almost everyone who at least attempts to make music has at least two good sides in them.

The format itself necessitates the immediate, strong statement, so WFMU naturally sounds different during Singles Going Steady week; each DJ is still doing their own, particular thing, but the listener gets more "booms" per set, in fact, it's almost all booms, which I guess is the idea. I should note that this is the first year I've participated in the annual, optional week-long fest, and I'm sorry for all the years that I stuck firm to my standard weekly plan, rather than diving in with zeal, as I did last night.

Castleheads spiked to selections by Drunks With Guns | Wretched Worst | Skullflower | Royal Trux | Scritti Politti | Haare | Atrax Morgue | Necrovulva ... and I'm surprised that no one asked about our atypical playlist image—not a movie screen capture, obviously. I received this picture of a ripe young gal, axe in hand, provocative glare in eyes, by way of a unsolicited phishing email, a "romance scam" if you like, and for some reason I saved it, and thought it had visual entrancement properties, and was somehow appropriate for this show; accompaniment for the program title Pitiful Portable Picnic Player, a phrase I often think of when I think of singles, A Clockwork Orange at this point encoded into my DNA.

Join us again next week for live music from Mortífera, a rare and special black-metal event not to be missed. Please also remember that WFMU is "silently" fundraising this month, and we're swiftly running out of October; My Castle of Quiet now @ 50% toward its modest goal. Huge thanks to those who have already pledged!

make me cry!

Paper towels, tear with ease at the perforation...or F E E L  M Y  W R A T H ! ! !

On occasion, My Castle of Quiet takes on spontaneous form, a swirlie of pre-planned and unplanned elements; such was last night's show, with engaging conversations forming a centerpiece, surrounded by mostly lovely, haunting music.

As I intentionally festooned the program around Rene Nunez' soulful and many-textured Horoscope performance, that lapsed into a chat, give or take as long as the set itself, rare for McoQ, but Rene and I fell in quite naturally, an extension of our off-air talk that preceded the program. The live set itself was rich with engaging and varied approaches to solo sound manipulation, using circular musical figures and compelling spoken extracts, and I'd imagine Horoscope's available and soon-to-be available recordings reflect that same singularity and heart.

A bracing chat ensued as well with music writer and Castle friend Mike Rowell, mostly about the SF Fabio Frizzi concert, some other brief music and film tangents as well. Mike's reports from the left-coast field will likely become a recurring segment.

Castleheads loved "Demon Loaf," from the new cassette and digital album Chuck by former McoQ live guests The Gate, as well as selections in our opening set by David Bowie (from Low), Vond, and the supreme new double LP by Kawabata Makoto on vhf.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT WFMU IS FUN-RAISING ALL THIS MONTH! Find out more about the drive, new t-shirt designs and mascot contest here. To contribute directly to support My Castle of Quiet, please see the white dog-and-cow pledge widget above this post.

Next week, my singles, going steady (or at least liking you as a friend), live music from Mortífera the week after. Click on the gloppy, green mummy from Charles Band's Petrified, above, to reach the playlist and archived audio for this week's horrorcast™.

Needs more Gutterals.

WOULD YOU RATHER...? Be Father Merrin, or Father Karras?

A few more questions: Where is my Women of The Huff Post calendar? ...and if, from my receiving end, that request seems to minimize women, why then do I feel so aroused every time I watch a Huff Post Live report by Logan Tittle, Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani, or Alyona Mink? It certainly can't be the content; the way they belabor those important issues, yammering on and on with "experts," through shaky Skype connections? Someone there at HuffPost is up to something, and I am merely the libidinous male having my brain and hormonal surges tinkered with.

Also... Why can't the U.S. and Russia team up to defeat ISIS, the way Goku and Vegeta aligned against the more-powerful Frieza? We'll deal with Assad later, and besides, we've supported plenty of ultra-shitty Mideast dictators in the past. MAKE MY LIFE INTO A HAWKISH ANIME PLOT! PLEASE!

Can't say enough good things about Throaat, our live guests on last night's horrorcast™. What I expected and got was raw black metal; what I didn't expect was a lesson in great songwriting and classic metal chops. It was a real exercise in intensely controlled chaos; a well-heeled, but also wild presentation by a band in their prime. Just great metal music.

Also garnering appreciation in our first, pre-Throaat set were Royal Trux (the topic of a recent behind-the-scenes difference of opinion involving myself and several of my radio colleagues, so I've naturally been revisiting their catalog) with one of my most-fondly recalled songs of theirs (and I come down very much on the "YES" side, having long appreciated Neil Hagerty's angular, avant-Stones approach to making music); and Heavydeath, from their latest full-length...so much love for a first-set doom track, that hopefully the ripple leads to Caligari Records selling a few tapes—whup—"5 remaining"—better jump on that.

Also among the noteworthy last night were: Voqkrre | Grausamkeit | Rid | Orodruin | great new Drew McDowall LP | Black Leather Jesus | new GX Jupitter-Larsen with The New Blockaders LP

Yes, we (My Castle of Quiet and WFMU) are FUN-RAISING for the month of October (see the white, rectangular WFMU logo-widget above this post) and we here at MCoQ appreciate deeply your generous donations toward achieving our very-modest program pledge total for the month. Those not thanked on-air this week will be thanked next week, where we'll have more live music; this time a real-time set by Horoscope (music embeds in that post from Italian noisey; Horoscope on Facebook) .