Avant-pop four-piece Our Future burst out of the dizzying chaos that is New York City with their debut EP 'Perennial Construct', rising above the static of the myriads of indie bands, electronic-scene-martyrs, and over-saturated hip-hop of the moment they are clearly trying for something new, different, and permanently original while reflecting on the present and reaching to a more recent past of No-Wave, Noise, Pop, and Art fueled NYC of the 1980s.

Three startling disparate tracks tied together by vocalist Brian Hill's woozy drawl, from the industrial-flecked post-blog pop of 'On Surface', to the musique-concrète like collage of '21cm TTH' – a smear of glitchy noise and guitar drone and Delia Derbyshire-esque synths - the EP takes a surprising detour off to Wales with finale 'Hiraeth'; a noise obscured folk song about longing for your homeland which may have never even been there in the first place, done up to throbbing techno-ish undertones and buzzsaw synths. Watch the live video for 'On Surface' below, filmed at 7 Dunham Gallery in New York...

The scope of Robert Beatty's hydra-headed art practice has grown into an extreme articulation of unconfined creativity across multiple disciplines. A founding member of 2000's noise outfit Hair Police, as well as visionary illustrator and album-art designer for many of this era's most celebrated underground artists, Robert Beatty records his solo work under the name Three Legged Race. Come May 27th, 2014, Three Legged Race will release the first volume of Rope Commercial, a planned series of EPs premiering through the label Underwater Peoples.

Rope Commercial Vol. 1 will be the first Three Legged Race record since 2012's acclaimed Persuasive Barrier (Spectrum Spools / Editions Mego) and Beatty's follow up to last year's video score collection, Soundtracks for Takeshi Murata (Glistening Examples, 2013). Where those records take charge in a paradigm of collaged synth melodies, fragmented samples and twitching textures, Rope Commercial is more unsettling. Rope Commercial Vol. 1 delivers claustrophobic geometries, intensely disfigured narratives, and genre-free experimentation.

Beatty's recent celebrated performances as Three Legged Race abandoned prior synthesizer-dependent set-ups in favor of an intentionally dematerialized approach, employing just a sequencer program in an iPhone, and a lone tape machine. Conceptually, Beatty was defiantly shrugging off the fetishized hardware-oriented model so rampant in current electronic music discourse, and this became the inspiration to create Rope Commercial. Beatty stepped even further in recording Rope Commercial Vol. 1 however, adding acoustic instruments, (dulcimer and piano), and thoroughly processing sampled elements to warp the whole into un-recognizable dimensions.

Importantly, Rope Commercial Vol. 1 will be outfitted in a picture-disc of a classic Beatty vision. In a creamy neon-green urban landscape, the face of a humanoid figure is merged with a screen of a smartphone, its consciousness fused to the glass. Dangling from the phone is one leg outfitted in a woman's heel, presumably its sole means of transport. These kind of pathetic cyborg figures in states of physical flux frequently appear in Beatty's art. They function neatly as windows into Beatty's music as well, with its electronically marred voices and barren sonic spaces. These figures are Beatty's torpid avatars, in his music and art both, their humanism is strained by a confounding digital synergy.

Aptly, the picture-disc is a perfect setting for Beatty's airbrush work, his favored rendering tool, and the general modus operandi of Beatty's electronic music as Three Legged Race. In all, Beatty renews obsolete materials discarded from a voracious commercial culture, and employs them in strangely poignant contexts. In Rope Commercial Vol. 1, such found samples are diced and strewn into uneasy chapters. There is the dizzying, terse "All Ajax Dial", the interplanetary gale of "Aside From Each Other and Together Overnight", the faintly whirring "New Government", the white noise of "The Humidity Mascot" and perhaps Beatty's motif-to-be "Rope Commercial." In this title track alone, something of the whole EP is condensed: intentionally un-heroic melodies plod out over a darkly redundant groove and voices are haltered in the instance of utterance. Its electronic music most overtly, but defrocked of its sheen, with any conceivable hallmark of commercialism littered on the gravel. 

soundcloud.com/underwaterpeoples/three-legged-race-all-ajax/s-bX5Qq

Arrow Video is excited to announce the UK Dual Format Blu-ray + DVD release of the Teruo Ishii’s 1970 Japanese cult classic Blind Woman’s Curse which will be available to own in the UK from 31st March. This deluxe edition, which represents the first time the film will be released on any home video format within the UK, features packaging that showcases stunning newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx and a new high-definition digital transfer of the film prepared by Nikkatsu Studios, the famed studio behind many pinky violence and genre classics, and home to filmmakers such as Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill).

Starring the cult actress Meiko Kaji, of Lady Snowblood fame (whose singing from that film was borrowed by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill), is seen here in her first major role. As her star would rise she would go on to the classic girl gang series Stray Cat Rock, which will be released by Arrow Video later in 2014 and Lady Snowblood is available now.

Featuring a full length audio commentary by author and Japanese cinema expert (and recent curator of a Nikkatsu cinema programme at the British Film Institute) Jasper Sharp, newly-translated and English-subtitles, trailers for four of the films in the Meiko Kaji-starring Stray Cat Rock series (made at the same studio as Blind Woman’s Curse), a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Japanese cinema expert Tom Mes, illustrated with original archive stills. 

Synopsis

From “The King of Cult” Teruo Ishii, Blind Woman’s Curse (also known as Black Cat’s Revenge) is a thrilling yakuza film featuring eye-popping visuals, sensational fight sequences and the gorgeous Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood, Stray Cat Rock) in her first major role.

Akemi (Kaji) is a dragon-tattooed leader of the Tachibana yakuza clan. In a duel with a rival gang Akemi slashes the eyes of an opponent and a black cat appears, to lap the blood from the gushing wound. The cat along with the eye-victim go on to pursue Akemi’s gang in revenge, leaving a trail of dead yakuza girls, their dragon-tattoos skinned from their bodies.

A bizarre blend of the female yakuza film and traditional Japanese ghost story, with a strong dash of grotesque-erotica (the same movement was a sensibility of Edogawa Rampo whose works were adapted by Ishii in Horrors of Malformed Men), Blind Woman’s Curse is a delirious mash-up of classic genre tropes, of which Ishii was no stranger, having directed everything from Super Giant films to biker movies!

Special Features

· New high definition digital transfer of the film prepared by Nikkatsu Studios

· Presented in High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD

· Uncompressed mono PCM audio

· Newly translated English subtitles

· Audio commentary by Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp

· Original Trailer

· Trailers for four of the films in the Meiko Kaji-starring Stray Cat Rock series, made at the same studio as Blind Woman’s Curse

· Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx

· Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Japanese cinema expert Tom Mes, illustrated with original archive stills.

SPECTRE follows the band’s widely acclaimed conceptual album VOLK (2006) – where Laibach interpreted national anthems of historically imperialistic nations – and the release of the side projects LAIBACHKUNSTDERFUGE (2008) and IRON SKY: The Original Film Soundtrack (2012).

Laibach has once again ‘re-invented’ itself in a newly born, yet polished and solid, formation. And, as is now customary, Laibach calls into question all the rigid and cemented interpretations (and prejudices) about itself, about its music, intentions, philosophy and ideology. Laibach are masters of escape, true escape artists. And yet, despite everything, SPECTRE resonates as a real and full-blooded Laibachian work and nothing else.

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, an inspiring story with a special cinematography from actor and director Ben Stiller. This extra ordinary movie which is a remake from the Danny Kaye-classic will be released at 30^th April on Blu-ray and DVD by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Director: Ben Stiller

Stars: Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Jon Daly

Synopsis :

A day-dreamer escapes his anonymous life by disappearing into a world of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. When his job along with that of his co-worker are threatened, he takes action in the real world embarking on a global journey that turns into an adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.

Watch below the trailer.