Artoffact Records will release recently-discovered Rational Youth live recordings from 1983 containing complete shows from Winnipeg and Ottawa. Included in the material are live versions of tracks which were never recorded or released. The recordings were found, along with other rare demos, out-takes, and remixes, in a band member's basement, and over three hours of rare material will be released as part of a Rational Youth live + archives collection.

Rational Youth was as Montreal-based New Wave and Synth-pop artist whose Cold War Night Life was one of the most cherished releases of the 80s and one of Canada's best-selling albums when it was released on YUL Records in 1982. The group needs no introduction for fans of New Wave, especially the unique brand of New Wave that came out of Canada in the early-80s. Indeed, culture magazine The Walrus recently called Dancing on the Berlin Wall one of "the ten greatest Canadian synth-pop songs of all time."

In the mid-80s, bootleg tapes of RY's Winnipeg and Ottawa performances began circulating, and even found their way across the Atlantic where they were considered collector's items. Lost for many decades, the original recordings were recently discovered, cleaned, and remastered, and now Artoffact Records presents the definitive Rational Youth 80s live experience thirty years later. This is RY in their truest, rawest form, fresh off international success, young, eager, and unique, and playing to college audiences that ate it up. The collection features all the RY hits and includes several tracks that were never recorded by the band.

As part of the promotion for Live 1983, Rational Youth has reformed as a 5-piece live act and have already confirmed two shows in Sweden in 2014. Reunion shows in Toronto, Montreal, as well as in Norway and Germany are also in the works. Rational Youth members Tracy Howe and Kevin Komoda also recently played NXNE with their re-formed punk band, The Normals.

Rational Youth will release Live 1983 + Magic Box as a 3CD set on Artoffact Records on November 5th.

Arrow Video is thrilled to announce the highly anticipated UK Blu-ray release of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The deluxe Blu-ray set will be available to own in the UK in a limited edition SteelBook™ showcasing the original poster artwork as well as a standard edition case with newly illustrated artwork. Both editions will be available on 18th November and come loaded with a selection of classic interviews, featurettes and newly created never-before-seen special features as well as an in-depth 52-page collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film and archives interviews with director Philip Kaufman and screenwriter W. D. Richter and more.

On the new set, Arrow Video’s Blu-ray producer, Francesco Simeoni says “It was a great pleasure and great privilege to produce the UK Blu-ray of this wonderful film, one that has grown in my esteem since working on it (can it be better than the original? Yes, quite possibly.) We were very fortunate to be working from a lovely new restoration carried out by MGM. We were very pleased to be able to release the film in HD for the first time in the UK but on closer inspection further pleased to restore the original audio for the first time anywhere on Blu-ray (the scene in which Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams are being driven by Don Siegel’s taxi driver had audio missing which is very important since it’s eventually quite clear that the radio announcer is a pod person adding a subtle creepiness to the scene!) Finally the film can be seen in glorious HD and heard as it was meant to be in both stereo and 5.1 surround sound!”

Synopsis

When health official Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) notices that her lover has become strangely distant, this sets in train a series of shocking discoveries that sees both her and colleague Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) fleeing for their lives to the sound of ear-piercing alien screams.

Remakes of great films are usually on a hiding to nothing, but Philip Kaufman’s brilliant update of the 1956 classic is a rare and memorable exception. Transposing the action to the heart of San Francisco allows Kaufman to retain all the suspense of Jack Finney’s original story while adding caustic social commentary about the selfishness of the 1970s “me generation” that remains all too relevant today.

But it’s a paranoid thriller first and foremost, based on one of the most psychologically terrifying of all premises – what happens when you can no longer trust not just the authorities but even your nearest and dearest?

Special Features

· High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the film

· Original uncompressed Stereo 2.0 audio / 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

· Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

· Audio commentary with director Philip Kaufman

· Discussing the Pod: A new panel conversation about ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ and invasion cinema featuring critic Kim Newman and filmmakers Ben Wheatley and Norman J. Warren

· Dissecting the Pod: A new interview with Kaufman biographer Annette Insdorf

· Writing the Pod: A new interview with Jack Seabrook, author of ‘Stealing through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney’ about Finney’s original novel ‘The Body Snatchers’

· Re-Visitors from Outer Space: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pod – a documentary on the making of the film featuring Philip Kaufman, Donald Sutherland, writer W.D. Richter and more

· The Man Behind the Scream: The Sound Effects Pod – a look at the film’s pioneering sound effects

· The Invasion Will Be Televised: The Cinematography Pod – cinematographer Michael Chapman (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) discusses the look of and influences on the visual style of the film

· Practical Magic: The Special Effect Pod – A look at the creation of the special effects from the opening space sequence

· Original Theatrical Trailer

· Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Nathanael Marsh [Amaray version only]

· 52-page collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic David Cairns, as well as re-prints of classic articles including contemporary interviews with Philip Kaufman and W.D. Richter, illustrated with original archive stills and posters

Being a Belgian-based site, we always like to present you some new talent from over here. This time we present you CTON.

When asked one of the members what CTON stands for, this is what founding member Zana said : The Belgian band CTON started out as a trio called ‘Sinaas’ in 2003, but with the coming of the fourth member, they wisely decided to adopt a name that counts just as many letters.

In keeping with this logic, all musicians happen to have four-letter names - Aska, Daaf, Maax, Zana – a discovery made during an inspiring trip to Moscow. Moreover, each name consists of two vowels (AA) and two consonants, though this may be a fact of less importance, however fortunate.

In 2005 CTON recorded their first album of instrumental marvels Say Goodbye to the Ground. The next few years the band were forced to move a few times, until late 2011 they ended up in a pink mansion in a piddling village. Here the so called CTON Archives are stored, a miscellaneous collection of enchanting drawings and (art) objects, fascinating newspaper bits, special brooms etc. This year saw CTON’s second release: Interstellar Nose, which will be made available on vinyl in the near future.

Big words which can checked out by yourself. On this page you can find some free tunes.

Sweden’s captains of thundering postpunk, noisy psychadelica and dreamy goth-gaze are back in the same pitchblack waters as before. As follow up to the self titled debut, the quartet now presents Then Comes Silence II. The fascination for doom, darkness, death and the ghastly and terrible is intact and the band navigate a steady course towards the same destination.

The debut album from 2012 attracted attention widely and was praised for its apocalyptic message and dystopian soundscape. That same year, Then Comes Silence were requested to be the opening act for A Place to Bury Strangers for their Stockholm visit, the first live-appearance for the Stockholm quartet. This was followed by a performance at the prestigious Roskilde Festival in Denmark. All in all an eventful journey in less than one year.

The work on the sequel began as the debut was still hot off the presses. In a short time span, the band had to undergo some serious changes as two members left the group. After this alteration and intense sessions, the result is on the horizon. As before, the singer and bassist Alex Svenson (Sad Days for Puppets, Radio LXMBRG) is the main composer. This time Svenson has achieved something even more black and gritty than the debut album. Anna Eklund (Sad Days for Puppets) also returns in the duet and single "She Lies in Wait".

 

Seven years after the highly acclaimed ARMAGEDDON GIGOLO, Simone Salavatori and Stefano Puri once again find their paths crossing. BLACK HEARTS IN BLACK SUITS is the result of three years of work, composed by Stefano Puri specifically for SPIRITUAL FRONT, with Simone Salvatori lending his voice and interpretation (as intense and charismatic as ever) to the composer’s music. The poems of Reiner Werner Fassbinder are given new light as they materialize into musical form as Stefano Puri sits at the piano and joins Simone Salvatori on a voyage of no return. The SYMPOSIUM ENSEMBLE and the BLACK HEARTS CHOIR round out the endeavor.

The composer’s writing – in one moment minimal and introspective, in the next dark and theatrical – follows ancestral pathways along which the singers voice moves between intimacy and majesty, between heavy chords and light harmonies, between airy string passages and obscure choral harmonies. A concept album more akin to an opera than to the traditional LP, BLACK HEARTS IN BLACK SUITS is a fascinating symphonic journey that takes us through the darkest nihilistic sides of both the composer and the icon of “Suicide Pop”.

From Franz Schubert to Nick Cave, Michael Nyman to David Tibet, from Arvo Pärt to Marc Almond…with no way back.