Showing posts with label Poet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poet. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

The Ghost Of Hope - The Residents


Never fear The Residents are here!!!

Following their long tradition of projects based on narrative themes, The Residents are pleased to announce the release of The Ghost of Hope, a historically accurate album based on train wrecks from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

After discovering a series of vintage news articles highlighting the dangers of train travel in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and inspired by the era's graceful language, the group contrast that eloquence against the sheer horror of these devastating events. In their own unique style, the band has constructed a highly original series of tone poems quite unlike the music of anyone else - except, of course, The Residents. The album features guest collaborator Eric Drew Feldman - who has worked with everybody cool, so he's already in your record collection.

If there's a primary metaphor within this collection it is certainly found in that humble word 'hope.' When powerful men of the world build political campaigns around this simple four-letter word and fail, one wonders what life might become without it. Regardless, whether it be historical and literal, symbolic and metaphorical or simply nonsense, The Residents remain mum.
 
THE GHOST OF HOPE
 
"My heart is warm with the friends I make and better friends, I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, no matter where it's going."
                                                                                      -Edna St Vincent Millay
The Proverbial Train Wreck
The Residents
While the great poet's romantic relationship with train travel was undoubtedly heartfelt, she was definitely not traveling by rail as the 19th century neared its end.  The dangers posed by increasingly fast trains, coupled with heavier and heavier cargo loads, moving across an aging rail system, made derailment a common occurrence.  

In addition, the primitive communications and safety mechanism of the era often resulted in either head-on collisions or, conversely, "telescoping," which occurred when a stationary or slow-moving train was hit from the rear by another train on the same tracks.  When this happened, especially in winter when the cars were heated by coal-burning stoves and illuminated by kerosene lamps, the wooden passenger cars were quickly engulfed in flames, resulting in a quick and unpleasant death for those surviving the initial impact.  In retrospect, a simple fact was obvious: this revolutionary technology was progressing faster than society could regulate or control it. 

Utilizing various techniques, including music, sound effects and text from actual newspaper accounts from the era, The Ghost of Hope purports to recreate several of these horrific incidents.  While the dangers described in these factual events are now largely confined to the past, humanity perseveres, valiantly thundering ahead into the uncharted realms of digital technology, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence and the attempt to spread our seed throughout the cosmos.  Meanwhile, have we learned from the past or are we doomed to repeat our mistakes on an ever grander scale?
 
Tracklist:
Horrors Of The Night
The Crash At Crush
Death Harvest
Shroud Of Flames
The Great Circus Train Wreck of 1918
Train vs Elephant
Killed At A Crossing

The CD and Vinyl can be ordered at the MVD Shop or on Amazon

Saturday, August 13, 2016

The Horror: Francesca



Once upon a time there was a little ghoul named Francesca...


FRANCESCA is a new giallo film from Argentinian brothers Luciano and Nicolás Onetti (Sonno Profondo, 2013). The film, which made its world premiere at SITGES Film Festival in October 2015, is now coming to home video courtesy of Unearthed Films and MVD Entertainment Group.

It's been 15 years since the disappearance of little Francesca, daughter of the renowned poet and playwright, Vittorio Visconti. The community is stalked by a psychopath bent on cleaning the city of "impure and damned souls". Moretti and Succo are the detectives in charge of finding the killer of these "Dantesque" crimes. Francesca has returned, but she is not be the same girl they once knew.

FRANCESCA has won several film festival awards including Best Director at Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre 2015, Best Production Design at Tabloid Witch Awards - Hollywood Investigator 2015, Weird Visions Award at Ravenna Nightmare 2015, Best Giallo Film at Crypticon Kansas City 2016, and Special Mention at Horrorant 2016 in Greece.


FRANCESCA can be ordered now at the  MVD Shop or on Amazon