NEWS: Tartarus Press release 'The Sanctuary And Other Strange Stories' by R.B. Russell

Out now from the folks at Tartarus Press is a stunning new collection of 28 short stories from co-publisher R.B. Russell, 'The Sanctuary And Other Strange Stories'.

From the release notes...

Gathering together lost souls on the Sussex Downs, houses demolished and rediscovered, and half-remembered dreams, The Sanctuary and Other Strange Stories collects uncanny fiction written by R.B. Russell over two decades. Many stories are rooted in moments of real life, but are transformed into something disquieting, from the enigmatic commune of ‘The Sanctuary’ to the ex libris of a lost artist, these stories drift between memory, history and imagination.

Inspired by writers as varied as Mark Valentine and Ian Fleming, Robert Aickman, and Reggie Oliver, and shaped by influences, from forgotten cults and stamp collecting, Russell’s tales explore the boundaries between the ordinary and the otherworldly. Love, death, music and off-beat literary researches intertwine, giving rise to stories that feel both intimate and unsettling.

I was lucky enough to get an early look at this and, a few stories in, am loving it. As it says in the press release, there are shades of Mark Valentine, Robert Aickman, and Reggie Oliver, but Ray's own voice shines through and this combination makes for graceful and compulsive excursion into the uncanny.

Released in Tartarus' signature, beautifully crafted hardback edition and limited to 350 signed copies it's available from the publisher at...

http://tartaruspress.com/russell-the-sanctuary.html

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NEWS: Boards of Canada announce new album, 'Inferno'

Hauntological pioneers, Boards of Canada, brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin, have announced their new album, 'Inferno', will be released on 29th May on Warp Records.  

Following a teasing, month long, campaign involving anonymous VHS tapes, enigmatic posters and, last week, an actual new piece of music, 'Tape 05', today, the band released a short video announcement of their first album release since 'Tomorrow's Harvest', 13 years ago.

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NEWS: Tartarus Press invite you to 'Tea and Gargoyles' with Mark Valentine

Newly announced by Tartarus Press and shipping this week is the new collection of essays from Mark Valentine, 'Tea and Gargoyles'.

These collections are always fascinating and always manage to be the cause of much consternation with my bank account as Mark lifts the lid on more strange delights.

From the Tartarus Press website...

In Tea and Gargoyles, Mark Valentine explores fiction that seems to hover on the edge of the uncanny, including work by Robert Aickman, Elizabeth Bowen, Gladys Mitchell and Walter de la Mare. He also discusses the more unusual and obscure metaphysical thrillers of the mid twentieth century.

Another essay looks at books that are rarer still: the imaginary titles conjured up in fiction which often, however, seem strangely familiar. His enjoyment of the recondite continues with a delight in a forgotten Edwardian nonsense poet and a shadowy relic of the 1890s, in old board games, and in the esoteric music and journals of the 1970s.

Valentine also celebrates the menagerie of seventeenth-century book-sellers’ signs, an old book about a town populated by bears which has a bookshop open all night, and the book¬shop detectives who uncover even more places to find books. The collection concludes with joyful accounts of book-browsing expeditions in the Marcher country.

'Tea and Gargoyles' is published in a 350 limited edition run of Tartarus Press' beautiful hardbacks and is available now from the publisher here...

http://www.tartaruspress.com/valentine-tea-gargoyles.html

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NEWS: A Year in the Country publish 'Ghost Signals: The Shadowlands of British Analogue Television 1968-1995'.

Our fellow explorer in wyrd territories Stephen Prince of the 'A Year in the Country' blog has another of his fascinating collections available as of today, 'Ghost Signals: The Shadowlands of British Analogue Television 1968-1995', an examination of pre-digital wyrd TV. 

From the release blurb...
Before the ubiquity of streaming, British television was a landscape with room for strange experiments, folk-horror nightmares, and “wyrd” transmissions. Today, many of these programmes have vanished from official channels, leaving behind only “ghost signals“: a shadowland of terrestrial TV hidden in plain sight across the unmediated and unmarketed corners of the internet.

GHOST SIGNALS maps this territory from 1968 – the foundational “wyrd” year of acid folk and iconic folk horror – to 1995, the dawn of the digital revolution. The book delves into a unique era where public funding met social experimentation, creating a “broad diet” of television that was often as challenging as it was chilling.

This landscape invited viewers to encounter the seasonal hauntings of A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS, the suburban occult of SCORPION TALES: GREAT ALBERT, and the layered mythologies of THE MOON STALLION. It was a time that embraced the edgeland quiet horror of UNNATURAL CAUSES: LOST PROPERTY, the prescient virtual worlds of PLAY FOR TOMORROW: SHADES, and the metatextual timeslip satire of SCREENPLAY: THE BLACK AND BLUE LAMP. From the paranormal pathways of LEAP IN THE DARK: JACK BE NIMBLE to the non-horror folk horror of PLAY FOR TODAY: THE LONELY MAN’S LOVER, these broadcasts pushed the boundaries of the terrestrial signal.

The book is available in paperback and ebook from:
ayearinthecountry.co.uk/ghost-signals-the-shadowlands-of-british-analogue-television-1968-1995-paperback-and-ebook/

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NEWS: Two lost Doctor Who episodes have been found.

Two of the missing Doctor Who episodes, 'The Nightmare Begins' and 'Devil’s Planet', from the Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner scripted, First Doctor (William Hartnell) serial 'The Daleks’ Master Plan', have been found by the amazing folk at Film is Fabulous! - "a charitable trust run by film collectors, cinema lovers and vintage television enthusiasts. It has a primary objective, to advance, educate, and encourage public interest in film as a medium, and its role within British culture."

At 12 episodes, 'The Daleks’ Master Plan' is one of the longest Doctor Who serials and with most of the episodes still missing you have to hope more are still out there, somewhere. 

The episodes will be added to the BBC iPlayer Doctor Who library this Easter.

More info here...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g7kwq1k11o

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NEWS: Tartarus Press publish new edition of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

Available now from Tartarus Press is a new comprehensive edition of Oscar Wilde’s decadent classic, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.

From the publisher's website...

 

This new edition of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is the perfect excuse to rediscover a masterpiece of Gothic Decadence, written with the author’s characteristic razor-sharp wit.

This new edition presents Wilde’s singular blend of elegance and menace with renewed clarity, reinstating text that the author and his editors removed from various drafts, for fear of offending contemporary readers.

First-time readers, and long-time admirers, now have the best possible opportunity to engage with the novel’s enduring questions about beauty, influence, and the price of living without a conscience. [...] This new edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray reaffirms Wilde’s place as one of literature’s most brilliant and subversive voices.

 Available now from...

http://tartaruspress.com/wilde-dorian-gray.html

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NEWS: Sarob Press publish 'Votive Offerings'

Coming in January from Sarob Press is a new 4 author collection called 'Votive Offerings'

From the mail out...

Four ‘all new’ long stories (or novelettes) imbued with the mystery and otherworldliness of place and of landscape – strange, secret, mystical and ancient.

In “Roman Masks” by Mark Valentine art college teachers and their students in north west England invoke, through strange ritual, ancient gods and terrible dark forces at a coastal temple ruin.

John Howard’s weirdly enigmatic “Desire Path” takes the unwary reader along pathways long forgotten and thought lost ~ but what if you could walk along ways that no longer exist?

“Figures in a Landscape” by Peter Bell finds its heroine seeking a lost (or possibly mythic) Welsh hill figure and discovering the seemingly harmless to be anything but.

Colin Insole’s “The April Rainers” is a tale of the re-emergence of something old, powerful and malevolent, and the story of the centuries-old fellowship pledged to protect the land and keep it safe from the terror.

Published as a limited edition hardback.

Info on how to order can be found here...

https://sarobpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/new-title-news-votive-offerings.html?m=1

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NEWS: Tartarus Press publish Mark Valentine's 'The Uncertainty of All Earthly Things'

Originally published in 2018, by Zagava 'The Uncertainty of All Earthly Things' is a collection of short stories by Wyrd Britain favourite, Mark Valentine. On December 1st, Tartarus Press are re-publishing this long out of print collection with the addition of nine stories or vignettes written at the same time but omitting the selection of journal entries.

From the Tartarus Press release notes...

All the stories were originally selected for anthologies or journals. ‘Vain Shadows Flee’ was included in Best British Short Stories 2016 edited by Nicholas Royle (Salt Publishing), and ‘Yes, I Knew the Venusian Commodore’ was translated into Spanish by María Pilar San Roman in an award-winning anthology.

And from Mark's post on his Wormwoodiana blog...

The artwork depicts the mysterious Three Headed King motif from the ancient church at Sancreed in the far west of Cornwall, which appears in the title story. Other stories are about the ancient mysteries of Palmyra and Jerusalem, the music of Stonehenge and of the fabulously rare record Goat Songs, the uncanny in performances of Milton’s Comus and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, and the wondrous influences of a toy cockatrice.

I was privileged to receive a copy of the original edition about which I wrote that this book finds Mark "exploring ephemeral landscapes of the unknowable and the inimitable.  He tells stories of the borderlands, of the thin places where glimpses are caught of the otherwheres, where the truly (un)lucky get to tread on soil unused to human feet.  Stories of those liminal places where a travellers only map would be the tales told of them."

And, that he takes us on, "journeys both sinister and beautiful (often simultaneously) to places terrifying and beguiling (often simultaneously) in the company of the lost, the curious, the brave and the foolish and in each we can see ourselves as they react to the outrageous in deeply human ways."

This new edition of 'The Uncertainty of All Earthly Things' is available as a 350 copy limited edition hardback and is sure to sell out fast.  Order now at...

http://tartaruspress.com/valentine-uncertainty.html

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NEWS: Buried Treasure Records release 'The Shout' OST

"The Shout is one of the great films about sound." - Suzy Mangion

Adapted in 1978 from a Robert Graves short story, director Jerzy Skolimowski's 'The Shout' is a stunning exploration of avarice, obsession, lust, and cruelty as the quiet, idyllic lives of Anthony and Rachel Fielding (John Hurt & Susannah York) are subsumed by the machinations of an interloper, Crossley (Alan Bates).

It is sound though that is very much the focus of the film; from Anthony's sonic experimentation to Crossley's mortiferous shout, and the two short progish pieces by Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks of Genesis but it's the score by Rupert Hine married to the sound design by Alan Bell that is the shining jewel at the heart of the movie.

From the press release...

"The film’s score and audio effects were almost entirely created by the songwriter and record producer Rupert Hine (Thinkman, Quantum Jump, Rush, Stevie Nicks, Kevin Ayers, Nico, Howard Jones, Underworld, Tina Turner & more). Rupert recorded reels of ideas and experiments for the film between 1977 and 1978 using an EMS VCS3, Yamaha CS80, Eventide Harmoniser and Roland Space Echo. He also created Crossley‘s terrifying shout and other foley effects such as the musique concrète for John Hurt’s home studio scenes.

Listen closely and you’ll hear Rupert's sounds scattered throughout the film, discreetly mixed by award-winning sound editor Alan Bell (The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Bounty) and Tony Jackson who use them to establish the film’s creeping dread. At other times Rupert’s effects are used to startling effect, violently jolting viewers as the occult drama unfolds." 

Released on 5th December by Buried Treasure Records, with pre-orders available from the 28th of November on their Bandcamp page at

https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/the-shout

'The Shout' is a testimony to the creativity of Rupert Hine, who sadly passed before the completion of this long overdue release.

A neglected milestone in the history of electronic music, a perfect companion piece to the work of those beavering away in the Dark depths of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and an essential item for devotees of both.

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NEWS: Buried Treasure to release Tim Hill's 'Leviathan Whispers'

On the 14th of November, Buried Treasure will be releasing, 'Leviathan Whispers' the deeply spiritual and majestically folkloric new album from Tim Hill.

From the press release:

Leviathan Whispers is an album of longings, laments, deleriums, and drones, both savage and sublime. Brass and woodwind instruments sing over and through autumnal netherlands, heralding ancient spirits and mysterious creatures. There are breaths, hums, and bone songs for shadows and flames to dance to.

Tim Hill is an inspirational figure within the UK arts, jazz, noise, and improv world. Since the 1980's he's operated as a shapeshitfing maverik, fearlessly exploring Britain's diverse musical traditions, from rough music to industrial folk, free jazz to dub, post-punk to avant-rock, incorporating electronics, hymn, noise and drone.

I've got to admit that, despite his formidable pedigree, Hill is new to me, but on the evidence of what I hear here, I need to rectify that.  

The music, built using saxophones, tape loops, synths, woodwind and reed instruments, and with the assistance of Nurse With Wound's Colin Potter and drone maestro Jonathan Coleclough, maintains a deeply esoteric quality that exists in both the spiritual jazz realms of the likes of Pharoah Sanders or, more recently. Shabaka Hutchings and the mystical sidereality of the Blakeian Albion of the imagination expressed by the likes of Coil or Cyclobe.  It's a fascinating combination, a uniquely British interpretation of spiritual jazz that's born from the hedgerows and holloways, and from standing stones and stories told, and it rewards deep, immersive listening that slowly reveal its more hermetical dimensions.

'Leviathan Whispers' will be released on "recycled and randomly coloured vinyl" and is available in stores from Friday 14th November.

Alternatively, preorders are currently being taken on the Buried Treasure Bandcamp here...

https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/leviathan-whispers

Additionally, to celebrate the launch, there will be a live performance and talk by Tim Hill on Sat, 15th Nov in the Victorian chapel beneath Royal Berks Hospital, Reading. 

email - info@thedelawareroad.com - for details.

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NEWS: Eerie Eryri - 50th Anniversary Screening of First Welsh Language Horror Film

For those of you in or around Bangor, North Wales, this Saturday 25th October, the folks behind the beautifully named Abertoir Horror Festival (it's based in Aberystwyth) are hosting an event at Pontio, Bangor University’s arts and innovation centre, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the first Welsh language horror film 'Gwaed ar y Sêr' (Blood on the Stars).

From the website:
"To celebrate 50 years since Shadrach and the youngsters of Gruglon caused chaos in rural Wales, Storiel, in partnership with Pontio and Abertoir Horror Festival, presents a special evening with filmmaker Wil Aaron, a key figure in launching the Welsh Film Board."

The talk will be in Welsh with English translation provided.

Following the talk there will be a showing of 'Gwaed ar y Sêr' along with Aaron's later film 'O’r Ddaear Hen' (From the Old Earth).

More details and tickets can be found here... 

https://www.pontio.co.uk/cy/digwyddiadur/eryri-arswydus-eerie-eryri

And info on this year's Abertoir festival which is happening from the 12th to the 16th of November can be found here...

https://abertoir.co.uk/

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NEWS: Buried Treasure release 'They Came From Beyond Space' OST

On Friday 3rd October, Buried Treasure Records will be releasing the James Stevens score to the 1967 Amicus science fiction movie, 'They Came From Beyond Space', on 10' vinyl.

The soundtrack will be available via the label's Bandcsmp page at...

https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/music

For those unfamiliar 'They Came From Beyond Space' was Amicus boss Milton Subotsky's attempt to resurrect the alien invasion movies of the 1950s.  Made using sets left over from the Doctor Who movie 'Dalek's Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.' it tells the story of mind controlling moon rocks come to Earth to recruit slaves to help them rebuild their crashed rocket.  It's a gloriously terrible movie - read the Wyrd Britain review here - with little to recommend it beyond it's awfulness and it's music.

Buried Treasure are doing the Wyrd God's work recently, having only last month released the soundtrack to 'Sky'  and still have the soundtrack of 'The Shout' to come.

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NEWS: Swan River Press publish Brian Catling collection, 'A Mystery of Remnant and Other Absences'.

Following warm on the heels of their 2020 publication of the very excellent Brian Catling  novella, 'Munky', Swan River Press, have just announced the publication of a collection of Catling's short stories.

Limited to 500 copies and selling fast this is an unexpected chance to revisit, perhaps for the last time, the imagination of this singular and sadly missed artist and author.

From the website...

“The death itself was not a bodily thing.”

A ghost is an absence defined by its presence, or else a presence defined by its absence. The work of Brian Catling is filled with such visions, intrusions on the threshold of our world and the next. The stories collected within are fragments of a singular imagination, portals into worlds populated by dog-headed giants and reanimated bog bodies, spirits both beastly and mundane. These are tales about visionaries and mystics, about the need to venture into blurry territories of sight in which angels, ghosts and memories merge and reform. Together they showcase the distinctive voice underlying the very best of Catling’s work.

Includes three postcards with photos by Iain Sinclair and texts by Alan Moore.

Order details can be found here - 

https://swanriverpress.ie/srp-title/a-mystery-of-remnant/

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NEWS: Tartarus Press to publish 'T. Lobsang Rampa And Other Characters of Questionable Faith' by R.B. Russell

The ever wonderful Tartarus Press have just announced the publication of a new set of essays by publisher Ray Russell on the topics of Cyril Henry Hoskin, a surgical fitter from Devon who claimed to be a reincarnated Buddhist monk named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, Millenarian church, the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, the Scientology cult and Genesis P-Orridge and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.

From the website...

T. Lobsang Rampa’s autobiography, The Third Eye was an international bestseller in 1956, but the author had to face some awkward questions from critics. There were two possibilities; either he really was a Tibetan lama whose third eye had been physically opened (and who could reveal secrets of levitation, invisibility, gilded extraterrestrials, giant temple cats, etc), or he was really the eccentric son of a plumber from Plympton in Devon.

Rampa would explain himself by discussing transmigration, and over the next quarter of a century (and in another eighteen books) he would reveal the secrets of the human aura, astral travel, UFOs, life on Venus, and the hollow Earth (and hollow Moon), among many other alternative, New Age ideas. For Rampa, there was no wild, left-field belief that was not true.

R.B. Russell has written the first definitive biography of Rampa (also known as Cyril Henry Hoskin). The identity of Rampa may have been conclusively debunked by anybody who knew anything about Tibet, Buddhism, or basic scientific principles, but he would always claim that everything he wrote was true, and until his death in 1980 he doesn’t ever seem to have come out of character.

Russell’s biography of Rampa is accompanied in this volume by three further studies of alternative belief systems that have fascinated him over the years.

Following the biography of Rampa, Russell writes about the Millenarian church, the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, who believed their leader was Christ and immortal, and that the world would end in 2000. (Spoiler alert: we are still here, and nobody has seen the leader for several years.)

A further essay is a brief look at one of the Church of Scientology’s techniques for recruiting members, the Oxford Capacity Analysis test. Russell argues that the test is based on a series of small, apparently innocuous lies, but he shows that they are indicative of Scientology’s complete disregard for honesty or integrity.

The final essay looks at the Temple of Psychic Youth, the knowing attempt by Genesis P-Orridge to create a modern cult. Was it exploitative and manipulative, or simply an ironic experiment? And how did it backfire when the 1980s tabloids created the Satanic Panic?

You can order the book from the website here - http://tartaruspress.com/russell-rampa.html

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NEWS: A Year In The Country publish new collection, 'Other Worlds'

Our friend Stephen Prince over at the fabulous 'A Year In The Country' has just announced the latest of his collections.  

Stephen's books are always a fascinating read and are heartily recommended.

Here's the blurb...

A Year In The Country: Other Worlds

Searching For Far Off Lands Via Witchcraft Battles, Spectral Streets, Faded Visions Of the Future And The Secrets Of The Stones

A Year In The Country: Other Worlds intertwines and cross pollinates the A Year In The Country project’s core exploration of wyrd and hauntological culture with journeys to far off lands and seeks out hidden links in the cultural undergrowth.

Amongst other wyrd and far off lands it wanders to the Winter of Discontent witchcraft battles of the 1979 television adaptation of M.R. James’ Casting the Runes and the timeslip folk horror Cold War dread of Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense’s And The Wall Came Tumbling Down…

Takes a trip into the surreal dreamscape pop fantasia of Nancy Sinatra’s Movin’ With Nancy television special and spends a night in the triple bill genre melding wonderworld of the Scala cinema…

Visits the ghosts of city streets via The Sandbaggers, The Gentle Touch and Adam Scovell’s Local Haunts and opens the time capsules of faded history in The Likely Lads and the modernist’s photozines…

Steps into the shadows of the 1980s secret state cycle of British film and television via Menace Unseen and Bird of Prey and crosses over the thresholds of Kate Bush and Suzanne Cianni’s boundary breaking worlds…

Unearths the hidden histories of The Profumo Affair, Mitch Glazer’s Magic city and Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn and explores the frontier-like autonomous zones of Walter Hill’s The Driver, Ryan Andrew Hooper’s The Toll and John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard…

Enters the endless “wilderness of mirrors” espionage games of Andrew Williams’ Witchfinder and conjures the lost visions of the future that are buried inside Karyn Kusama’s Aeon Flux and Robert Longo and William Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic.

The book reflects and records a wide ranging personal cultural journey through the byways, highways, darkened alleys and edgelands of culture and variously visits, revisits and at times brings to the surface the sometimes subterranean themes and culture that have inspired and underpin A Year In The Country’s journeys amongst the wyrd spectral tales of culture.

More details and ordering info can be found here...

https://ayearinthecountry.co.uk/a-year-in-the-country-other-worlds-book-released/

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NEWS: Egaeus Press reissue 'Soliloquy for Pan'.

This is a real one that got away moment for me as i was skint when this was originally published and still skint when it reprinted so I'm really happy to be able to say that there's a brand new 10th anniversary edition of 'Soliloquy of Pan' available now from Egaeus Press limited to an edition of 300 copies.

From the website...

HARK! HE HAS RETURNED.

One of Egaeus Press's most sought-after publications, SOLILOQUY FOR PAN has returned in a new edition, on this, the tenth anniversary of its original publication. Featuring a mammoth array of fiction, essays and poetry along with lesser-known archive material, in praise, in awe, in fear of the goat god, this new edition features all of the original contents, along with different endpapers, several new illustrations, AND a brand new, specially written story by the great BENJAMIN TWEDDELL.

The full contents are as follows...

• A Magical Invocation of Pan by Dion Fortune
• The Rebirthing of Pan by Adrian Eckersley
• Panic by R.B. Russell
• The Maze at Huntsmere by Reggie Oliver
• The Secret Woods by Lynda E. Rucker
• Faun and Flora: A Garden for the Goat-God Pan by Sheryl Humphrey
• The Game of the Great God Pan by Benjamin Tweddell
• Pan With Us by Robert Frost
• A Song Out of Reach by John Howard
• Lithe Tenant by Stephen J. Clark
• Pan by A.C. Benson (from an epitaph in The Greek Anthology)
• A New Pheidippioes by Henry Woodd Nevinson
• Goskin Woods by Charles Schneider
• Pan's Pipes by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The House of Pan by John Gale
• The Company of the Lake by Jonathan Wood
• The Role of Pan in Ritual, Magic & Poetry by Diane Champigny
• Leaf-Foot, Petal-Mouth by Bethany van Rijswijk
• The Rose-White Water by Colin Insole
• The Death of Pan by Lord Dunsany
• Meadow Saffron by Martin Jones
• The Lady in the Yard by Rosanne Rabinowitz
• An Old God Almost Dead: Pan in the 1940s by Nick Freeman
• A Puzzling Affair by Ivar Campbell
• South-West 13 by Nina Antonia
• In Cypress Shades by Mark Valentine
• Honey Moon by D.P. Watt
• Summer Enchantment by Harry Fitzgerald

Edited by Mark Beech

Order here: https://www.egaeuspress.com/Soliloquy_for_Pan.html

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NEWS: 'A1 Deadline' to launch in July

So, this looks like it might be worth watching out for.  

'A1' and 'Deadline' were British anthology comics of the late 80s and early 90s - the latter being by far the more famous thanks mostly to the presence of cultural icon to be 'Tank Girl'.

'Deadline' arrived in 1988 alongside a host of comics - 'Crisis', 'Revolver', 'Toxic!' - aimed at older readers who had grown up reading '2000 AD' but who were in need of something new.  Created by artists Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon, it adopted a magazine format that mixed comics, both new ('Tank Girl', 'Johnny Nemo') and reprinted ('Love & Rockets', 'Milk and Cheese), with articles on indie music, championing the rise of what was to be 'Britpop'.

'A1', created in 1989 by Dave Elliott & Garry Leach and published - initially- via their own Atomeka Press acted, like 'Deadline', both as a vehicle for introducing UK audiences to strips and characters like Mr. X, Concrete and The Flaming Carrot whilst and as home to original stories by the likes of Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell, Ted McKeever, Neil Gaiman, Brian Bolland and a host of others.

The new title with it's clunkily combined name was announced recently by Dave Elliott and will launch via Kickstarter in July.  Contributing to the new title so far include, Steve Pugh, Kevin Eastman, Mark Nelson, Shaky Kane, Bill Sienkiewicz, Rhoald Marcellius, Ron Marz, Rufus Dayglo and Simon Bisley and you can sign up for their mailing list here...

https://mailchi.mp/8703ca1e35a9/sign-up

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NEWS: First UK showing of 'The Human Centipede (Complete Sequence)' plus meet and greet with Laurence R Harvey.

From the late 80s through the early 90s I worked in a comic shop in Cardiff. It was a good time for comics with lots of cool stuff being published and lots of fun people reading them and as such the shop became a bit of a hub.  One of the group of friends who used to congregate in the shop was a student at Cardiff Uni called Laurence Harvey.

After we all went our separate ways in about 93  it was fun to occasionally see Laurence appear unexpectedly on TV, as the little green man on Saturday morning TV show 'Live & Kicking' or as a trainspotter on an advert for something or other, but nothing prepared me for the joy of being told to watch the trailer for 'The Human Centipede 2' and seeing my old friend front and centre and soon to be assaulting sensitive sensibilities across the globe.

Anyway, this Thursday - 19th June at Cultplex, Manchester, M4 4HF Interference Films are hosting a screening of the newly edited together four and a half hour cut of 'The Human Centipede (Complete Sequence) with a meet and greet beforehand with Laurence.

From their Facebook page:

INTERFERENCE FILMS PRESENTS: THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (COMPLETE SEQUENCE)

For the first time in the UK, Interference Films is proud to present The Human Centipede Trilogy on the big screen, back to back (to back, to back, to back....)

We will be screening the 'Complete Sequence', which is all three films stitched together to create one four and a half hour cut! Director Tom Six has stated that the 'Complete Sequence' aka 'The Movie Centipede' is the definitive version to watch and who are we to argue? Uncut and with extra scenes, this is a truly special event and one that will not be repeated!  

Intetference Films is super excited to announce that the legend that is  LAURENCE R HARVEY, will be making a guest appearance at our screening of The Human Centipede 'Complete Sequence'! Laurence will be available to meet and greet prior to the screening (autographs £20) and is also going to be introducing the film!  

TICKETS & FURTHER INFO AT: 

https://cultplex.co.uk/Cultplex.dll/WhatsOn?f=519112

If you go, say hi from me.

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

NEWS: Object Z on Blu-ray

I got a heads up recently - thank you, W. - that the BFI is issuing the first series of  the Quatermass inspired 1960s sci fi, 'Object Z'.  

"A mysterious mass – known only as Object Z – is discovered by Professor Ramsay (Ralph Nossek) as it hurtles through space, threatening earth with destruction. As society erupts into a riotous state of panic and extremist political factions attempt to snatch control, the world’s nations must unite to find a solution - in the face of potential Armageddon. Scientists June Challis (Margaret Neale) and Robert Duncan (Denys Peek) alongside television producer Peter Barry (Trevor Bannister) become embroiled in the race to find answers - but time is running out."

I've never seen the series and the place where I first read about it, 'The Hill and Beyond: Children's Television Drama - An Encyclodepia' - ironically, also published by the BFI - completely spoilered the ending but it's got a solid reputation amongst those who have and hopefully the second series will follow.  

The Blu-ray is released in September - more info here - but if you want to get a taster, you can watch the first episode is below...

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

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NEWS: Pre-Order Telepathic Fish: Trawling The Early 90s Ambient Underground

Fundamental Frequencies are now taking pre-orders for 'Telepathic Fish: Trawling The Early 90s Ambient Underground' a retrospctive of favorite tunes played at the early 90s 'Telepathic Fish' chill-out afterparties.

From the press release:

Documenting the sights and sounds of South London’s seminal Telepathic Fish ambient parties. Hosted by Chantal Passamonte (aka Mira Calix - RIP), David Vallade, Mario Aguera and Kevin Foakes (aka DJ Food) - collectively named Openmind. With the help of Mixmaster Morris (The Irresistible Force) and Matt Black (Coldcut), they put on some of the earliest chill out events in London. 

The selections featured here are all personal favourites that were played at the Telepathic Fish parties during the 90s. Picked and arranged by Mario, David and Kevin who combed their collections for key pieces they associate with the time and Chantal’s music tastes. Over a hundred tracks were selected, totalling nearly 11 hours of playing time, before being whittled down to the essentials by the trio, forming a snapshot of their world back in the day.  

The album is released digitally on August 25th with the double vinyl following on September 5th.

Taster tunes and pre-orders can be found at the Bandcamp page here - 'Telepathic Fish: Trawling The Early 90s Ambient Underground'

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.