Lucy in Disguise - Drip (Slowed Mix)

Chime

Given the title of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's latest, it's tempting to organise the changes in perspective that Mutsuo Yoshioka's cooking teacher, Matsuoka, experiences around the strange, shrill notes that assert themselves on the film's soundtrack. An attentive audience might scour the short film's sound design, in search of the specific note or reverberation that triggers the changes we are privy to. Is there, as one of  Matsuoka's students believes, a Chime of activation that turns off certain parts of the brain in those that can hear it? Of course Kurosawa's film is packed with all manner of surging, overlapping uproar: waves that travel far beyond their source, just waiting to be deposited inside the heads of those unlucky enough to be attuned to them. Viewed with headphones, this din is oppressive and inescapable, a bubble that batters the viewer from the left and right stereo channels. 

The clatter of empty cans, as they leave plastic bin bags bound for recycling drop-offs, is transformed from series of light, musical clinks into a thunderous, all-consuming cacophony; a white-noise waterfall of unwanted physical contact. Similarly, passing train carriages blast dimmed classrooms with dancing light and rumbling, screeching racket. In Chime all the ambient, receding tones have been cranked up, taking on an aggressive shape and demanding alertness or attention. Following the disastrous demonstration of an invasive thought by the student who swears he can hear uncanny music, the amount of people attending Matsuoka's lessons shrinks dramatically. All that remains is Hana Amano's Akemi, another unhinged young person who rabbits on about perceived or invented slights; broadcasting relentlessly to her seemingly passive lecturer. Unfortunately for her, Matsuoka has recently discovered that the sight of a kitchen knife slowly disappearing into the base of teenager's skull wasn't something that he found particularly alarming.

Adieu Aru - Analogue

Carpenter Brut - Eyes Without a Face (feat. Kristoffer Rygg)

AKI Outift 3 by Quasimodox

Foewidemos - Fizzy Beat

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Three

The present phase of the DC animated universe limps to its own, reality collapsing conclusion with Jeff Wamester's Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Three, a flat finale that is presented to us, almost exclusively, through crowd shots and cameo appearances. Notionally a victory lap for a recent spate of direct-to-streaming releases that have very much failed to capture any past glories, Part Three of this multiverse-spanning saga has to delve deeper into the pre-history of the so-called Tomorrowverse to arrive at any genuine pathos. Before every major character is compelled to willingly have their identity crushed into a gestalt, 'prime' version of their super-persona, Crisis on Infinite Earths visits Earth-12, the home of the heroes who began their adventures with Fox Kids' Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series on Kids' WB before burning out brightly with Justice League and Justice League Unlimited on Cartoon Network. 

This belated appeal to one of the deepest veins of branded nostalgia that the DC animated stable has to offer is (despite any associated cynicism at either end of the exchange) comfortably Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Three's highlight. Although the dark deco establishing shot used to introduce this brief sequence lacks the pearlescent pow of the original opening title image, the short punch up that follows is, compared to the static posturing that surrounds it, actually quite thrilling. The brawl, between Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski's take on The Joker and The Caped Crusader, beautifully describes how a Clown Prince of Crime might stumble on his feet following some sizable and sustained head trauma. Animated flourishes aside, this clip also contains the late Kevin Conroy's final line reading for his signature role. Hissing through his teeth, the voice actor reaffirms his inextricable connection to the Batman character. It's a performance that spanned multiple decades and creative teams but remained so perfect and singular that Conroy could, if heard at the right time in your life, capture your imagination forever.

Morrigan by Ratt

BVSMV - And Waves of Dreams

Moose Dawa - See Me

In a Violent Nature

Although obviously and intentionally indebted to the Friday the 13th films, writer-director Chris Nash's In a Violent Nature isn't content to mindlessly appropriate that series' premise of horny teenagers gathering at a rundown summer camp to be slaughtered. Nash's reconfiguration is much more granular than that, preferring to tune itself (almost completely) into the stoned, somnambulant rhythms present in the earlier, more ramshackle episodes while transforming the monster - in this instance Ry Barrett's hulking Johnny - into an adored, centre-frame subject. There's actually precedence for this kind of reversed perspective in Paramount's slasher serial. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives briefly toys with the idea of the peeping tom-style observation inherent to the Jason character being turned back against the creeper. In Tom McLoughlin's '86 slasher, the machete-wielding killer is caught in his equivalent of a private moment, mindlessly hacking away at some long dead victim. Nash's film goes far further than this brief, metatextual gag though. In a Violent Nature is consumed with its killer, the camera dutifully trailing in his wake as Johnny crashes through undergrowth, in search of a totemic locket. Outside viewpoints and performances are, for a majority of the film, pointedly irrelevant then. The anonymous victims who invade Johnny's space are contextualised using his point of view: they are therefore flat and one-note, nothing more than badly essayed irritants who demand to be silenced in increasingly ingenious ways. The time and energy usually apportioned to a more human frame of reference has been drained away here, leaving only the strange tranquillity of an untiring monster methodically battering through the woods, that used to be his prison, in search of something to silence the buzzing inside his skull. 

Techno Westerns - Lover Boy

Sting by Ramon Villalobos

Kupla - Sunflower

Bob Dylan - Knockin' on Heaven's Door

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1988 Turner Preview Version)

Scored with unhurried, percussive sketches by Bob Dylan and arriving in 1973, director Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid seemed well positioned to evoke plaintive pangs for the old, American west and the rascally outlaws that enlivened it. Peckinpah and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer's film proves much meaner than that though. It's a period piece balanced precariously on the cusp of the twentieth century and shot through with a palpable bitterness. Its subjects are lousy with the tetchiness of thwarted ambition; an all-consuming regret seems to roll off the screen and into the audience. James Coburn's Pat Garrett and Kris Kristofferson's Billy the Kid are former friends who have, in the fullness of time, found themselves on opposite sides of the law. Garrett, the older of the two, has sided with the money men who are slowly dividing up this formerly unconquerable expanse. Garrett, newly elected to the office of Sheriff for Lincoln County, immediately endeavours to prove his usefulness to the emerging system by assassinating Billy and sundry hangers-on. 

The Kid, on the other hand, has refused any opportunity to transform himself. He deliberately dawdles in conspicuous hide-outs, seemingly inviting the challenge his former ally represents. Although the pair squat at opposing ends of society, in Peckinpah's film both men foretell ruin for those unlucky enough to find themselves in their orbit. Again and again, this separated pair brush up against figures from their earlier lives, men who have diverted and digressed, putting down roots or raising families, all in an attempt to draw a line under their past misdeeds. The outcome for these old accomplices is never favourable. Tension hangs in the air - every time - as evasive, sometimes incomprehensible chatter winds its way towards an inevitable flash of anger. Even this violence, when it finally manifests, avoids the out-and-out titillation suggested by pirouetting bodies packed with squibs. Always, these participants are trapped and damned, forced to comply with the whims of madmen who just so happen to be incredibly good at extinguishing life. In Kristofferson, comfortably a decade too old to be playing Billy the Kid, Peckinpah has found a smiling sociopath whose every action tells you that he has long worn out his welcome. 

Bystanders to Billy's carnage regard him with the shock and awe associated with celebrity. As bodies lie cooking in the midday sun, shredded by shrapnel, crowds gather round to make themselves party to the legend. To pick and poke at the blasted, bleeding bodies and get a closer look at what Billy is up to next. The stunning lack of empathy for the victims, or self-preservation when peering at an armed crook, reflective either of the everyday numbness experienced by these downtrodden people or the sheer gravitational pull of Billy. Either way, townsfolk gather again and again to observe this criminal. In this context the unbeatable bandit apparently fulfils the function of a slumming superstar who has deigned to mingle with the little people. A flash of excitement before the drudgery of the everyday resumes. Even Kid's compatriots are cowed and obliging in Billy's presence, presumably for fear that his lethal attentions may soon fall on them. Coburn's Garrett is even worse still, a Judas who has betrayed his former associates in return for the steady income and status offered by the expanding criminal enterprises, such as the Santa Fe Ring, that weave themselves into government then call themselves legitimate. 

Coburn's Garrett is a creature of pure, consumptive excess. Although the sheriff refuses food every time it is offered to him these are not the actions of an ascetic. Garrett instead prefers to extract his calories from the whisky in his hipflask or the sherries he sips with conspiring governors. Garrett then rarely seen not nipping at some pungent, brown liquor. Seated and coiled, Garrett is able to disguise the tremors that bottle after bottle have enacted upon his body. He can bully people from a stationary position in his chair, turning his cold, hard gaze upon them or, if that fails, his pistol. When he flees from these situations, Peckinpah allows us to see just how unsteady he has made himself: the wobbles, the grasping for balance as the world beneath him tremors treacherously. Garrett's appetites are not limited to alcohol either. When staying at a saloon, where he hopes to learn the whereabouts of his quarry, Garrett has half a dozen women sent to his room for entertainment. Billy, for all his faults, enjoys a string of semi-romantic couplings with partners who either bashfully or hungrily receive him. Garrett picks and prods at his gaggle, demanding to be treated like a king among courtesans. When he finally staggers from away from this orgy to pursue a lead on Billy's whereabouts, Coburn, by clattering down a flight of stairs like a stiffened corpse, is playing Garrett as completely empty. A man who has purged every finer, human quality he ever had in pursuit of pure, unadulterated greed. 

Bob Dylan - Main Title Theme (Billy)

Messmer the Impaler by Jan and Vlad (Artwins)

Khruangbin - May Ninth

Inside Out 2

Amy Poehler, and hardly anybody else from the original cast, return for Kelsey Mann's Inside Out 2, another Pixar adventure set amongst the personified emotions that rule the interior landscape of an adolescent girl named Riley. Whereas before the action focused on a depressive episode for the child, one made possible thanks to disruption caused by the absence of Poehler's Joy and Phyllis Smith's Sadness to oversee a cross-country move from somewhere in Minnesota to San Francisco, Inside Out 2 revolves around a coup d'état engineered by new, invading emotions led by Maya Hawke's Anxiety. Explosively energetic and teeming with schemes, Anxiety initially seems better placed to traverse the creep of puberty, and the interpersonal complications that come with it, than the comparatively one-note Joy. This sequel, something of a star vehicle for Poehler and the fusspot persona she cultivated on television's Parks and Recreation, organises the little yellow sprite as the foundational tenant of Riley. 

Joy is the aspect that rules all the other emotions and holds sway in times of crisis, vanquishing negative thoughts and feelings to the darkened rear of Riley's mind. Whereas the central clash between Joy and Anxiety would seem to suggest that a more unified, complementary approach might result in the most complete being, Inside Out 2 still ends with Joy ruling the roost. This despite Anxiety being equally able to conjure up an incandescent flower that pulses with Riley's (wavering) inner monologue. Really the only real challenge to Joy's continued governance is the inner turbulence suggested by a brief meltdown in which the emotion reveals a self-awareness that seems to indicate that she herself is being piloted by competing senses of self. Unfortunately, Inside Out 2 isn't particularly interested in pursuing these kind of farcical, metatextual concepts, preferring instead to treat a prolonged hockey try out with the paralysing solemnity being experienced by a youngster taking their first steps into a wider world. 

Valmont - Un Carré

Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme) by Hungry Clicker

Fontaines DC - Favourite

Ga-ga: Glory to the Heroes

In the far flung future of the twenty first century, space-faring has lost its appeal. With everyone on Earth living comfortably and content, mapping the cosmos has fallen to the armies of criminals being tugged about in space freighters so massive that their interiors can believably take on the demeanour of sunken, Soviet infrastructure. Director Piotr Szulkin's Ga-ga: Glory to the Heroes follows one such expedition, undertaken by Daniel Olbrychski's Scope, a prisoner with very little interest in committing crimes who, when pushed to detail his preferred mania, describes himself only as recalcitrant. Packed into a malfunctioning spacecraft and fired off into the void, this political dissident lands, seemingly by design, on a dark, snow-tracked planet called Australia 458. This Antipodean satellite, that Scope is instructed to claim for mankind, has not only already been visited by humanity but so long colonised that the people stranded there have fallen into the mouldering destitution of a dependent state. 

There are signs that money was spent here at one point: the hotel Scope stays in has high ceilings and a certain amount of ornamentation but such ostentation has long been defeated by sodden cigarettes and taps that dribble sewage. As well as coalescing around a wintery, one-horse town, Australia 458's inhabitants have become obsessed with rotting digits as a delicacy and televised, ceremonial execution. Scope is intended to figure into the latter, one-third of a trio of ritual sacrifices with obvious, Christian overtones. Scope is selected to pay the part of one of the thieves crucified at Christ's side; encouraged to indulge in any and every crime; and issued with a teenage sex worker to help him on his way. Rather than lower himself (like the impenitent thief racing around 458 fucking and shooting everybody he sets eyes on), Scope prefers to bend the rules in an attempt to work a variety of gimcrack miracles. It's not that Scope is particularly Godly then - he spends the majority of the film chasing after Katarzyna Figura's pointedly underage escort - but Glory to the Heroes does make a point about societies that are too busy re-enacting the pageantry of a barbaric past to notice when a potential candidate has wandered into their midst. 

Romy - Always Forever (Live)

LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends (Live)

Janelle Monáe - Lipstick Lover (Live)

Lizzie Esau - Bleak Sublime (Live)

Barry Can't Swim - Kimbara (Live)

The Devil

Freed from a filthy jail, one that sits beneath a nunnery packed with bleeding soldiers, Leszek Teleszyński's delirious Jakub is pulled hither and thither by Wojciech Pszoniak's Stranger, a grinning maniac wrapped in a swirling, black cloak. Despite spiriting Jakub away from a variety of massing dangers, this mysterious meddler still doesn't strike the viewer as being particularly altruistic. Although the specifics of his interest in Jakub aren't immediately apparent, it is clear that this Stranger is unusually focused on the opportunities this newfound freedom represents. He delights in the moral and spiritual decline experienced by Jakub, urging the hapless wanderer towards further and greater indignity. Thomas, a uniformed ally who has kept his wits and is seen sharing Jakub's cell, is instantly blasted with a flintlock pistol by the Stranger, presumably on the suspicion that he may prove to be a leavening influence outside these walls. As the injured upstairs are ran through with Prussian bayonets, Jakub is packed onto a horse with a catatonic nun, played by Monika Niemczyk, then directed towards the remains of his life. 

Structurally, writer-director Andrzej Żuławski's The Devil could be categorised as a mutant strain of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol: a supernatural tale in which a disgraced or despondent man is instructed in the ripple effect created by his actions. Whereas Dickens, and later Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, dealt with the stability and goodness (intended or otherwise) generated by the individual, Żuławski's tour is one concerned with terrifying societal upheaval, human savagery then, finally, madness. An increasingly shell-shocked Jakub is, when visiting his former haunts, treated as inexplicable: either a restless ghost who has returned to frustrate those that have prospered in his absence or a figure who inspires a strange kind of sexual idolatry. Repeatedly set-upon, regardless of his relationship to the initiator, it is as if everyone Jakub comes across recognises that he has somehow become unstuck in the natural order and has, therefore, become something transcendent. Every response to Jakub then is premised on making him submit, be that a tongue on his throat or a lash at his back. Possessed of a genuine mania, Żuławski's film is teeming with these violent energies, all firing in every direction. The figures onscreen wrestle and cavort, tearing at each other's clothes; they communicate in shrieks and barks, all while cinematographer Maciej Kijowski's galloping camera struggles to keep pace. 

Justice - Neverender (Live)

Kim Gordon - BYE BYE (Live)

Orbital - Belfast (Live)

Arooj Aftab - Raat Ki Rani (Live)