Stockholm-based VALHALL is the creative outlet for two secretive electronic musicians who prefer to leave their identities unrevealed. The duo composes haunting, epic pieces with broad brush-strokes, influenced by witch house, neofolk, and industrial. Formed in 2012, the project was quickly tapped by Finland's Kuudes Aisti festival, where VALHALL shared the bill with The Haxan Cloak, Lydia Lunch, Light Asylum and many others, before taking the stage at 3 AM to a stunned crowd.
The debut CD for Artoffact Records, Leaning on Shadows, takes the project to new places. It is at once haunting and ominous, but also shines with an unexpected whiteness. It is in fact, a thing of beauty.
The limited fan version available exclusively from Storming the Base comes with a bonus cassette, entitled simply Shadows. The cassette contains two long semi-ambient pieces which rework elements of the album, as well as lyrics, poetry, and conversations related to the music on Leaning on Shadows. It is in many way a musical Shadow of the more complete work.
Series 4 of Downton Abbey consisted of eight episodes and a Christmas Special with the opening and closing episodes again being feature length. Series four continued the story of the Crawley family and their servants in the early 1920s and premiered on the 22nd September, 2013 on ITV in the UK and on the 5th January, 2014 on PBS in the US. The story is set nearly six months after the end of the 2012 Christmas Special, and covers February 1922 into the spring/summer of 1923
It is nearly six months after the death of Matthew Crawley and Mary is adjusting to her new life and attempting to move on without the man she loved and raise her son, George. She has two new suitors: Anthony, Lord Gillingham - who has known her since childhood but hasn't seen her since - and aristocrat Charles Blake.Tom Branson is taking on a larger role within the family, having become Robert's right-hand-man. He also meets a new friend in schoolteacher, Sarah Bunting. Tom and Mary spend more time together and their friendship continues to develop as Mary begins to get involved in the running of the estate. There is some excitement in the nursery involving Nanny West. Edith's relationship with Michael Gregson flourishes. John and Anna Bates' relationship continues as strong as ever, but not without some ups and downs. Cora's new maid Baxter has a past with Thomas Barrow who has some sort of power over her.
Release Blu-ray: 14/05/2014
Release DVD complete season: 17/09/2014
Distributor: Universal Pictures Benelux
Length: 350′
Extra’s:
Making of
Downton Diaries
Meet the New Cast
DUTCH VERSION
Het vierde seizoen van Downton Abbey speelt zich af in 1922, zes maanden na de tragische dood van Matthew. Zijn verlies heeft diepe sporen nagelaten bij onze vertrouwde en geliefde personages: de Crawleys én het personeel waarmee ze zo nauw verbonden zijn. Daarnaast zijn er ook tal van nieuwe uitdagingen. Mary kijkt de toekomst somber tegemoet als alleenstaande moeder en wordt door de familie aangemoedigd om de scherven van haar gebroken leven te lijmen. Ze aanvaardt een nieuwe functie op het somptueuze landgoed en moet, als weduwe, een stoet huwelijkskandidaten de revue laten passeren. Buiten de beschermde cocon van Downton zijn de roaring twenties intussen volop losgebroken. Rose voelt zich onweerstaanbaar aangetrokken tot het bruisende Londense nachtleven en dat voorspelt niet veel goeds voor de Crawleys. De ontluikende relatie tussen Edith en Gregson wordt bedreigd door gebeurtenissen die ze niet zelf in de hand heeft. Intussen laaien ook beneden de passies hoog op. Er zullen jonge harten gebroken worden…
Release Blu-ray: 14/05/2014
Release DVD volledig seizoen: 17/09/2014
Distributeur: Universal Pictures Benelux
Studio: Universal Television
Downton Abbey S4 – BLU-RAY
Speelduur: 350′
3 BRD
8 afleveringen + Kerstspecial 2013
Engels Dolby Digital 2.0
Ondertiteling: Engels voor doven en slechthorenden, Nederlands
Extra’s:
Making of
Downton Diaries
Meet the New Cast
And I know: each new moment, each new dream is bound to change you. All that you have to do is live your life.“ With their new album „Alles was ich bin“ (= all that I am), Staubkind are seamlessly continuing the journey they embarked upon with the successful (German Top 40) self-titled predecessor. The hand reaches out... we only need to grab it and let ourselves drift in a sea of melodies and emotions. Staubkind and their charismatic mastermind Louis Manke are celebrating their tenth anniversary with 13 new songs on an album that could not have a more fitting title. „Alles was ich bin“ (all that I am) is Staubkind in a nutshell, translating the entire bandwidth of Louis' work into words, melodies and honest German-language songs with severe hit-potential more effectively than ever before.
Yet again graced with a massive production from Unheilig-producer Henning Verlage, the Berlin-based group manages to walk the tightrope between cinematic Rock anthems and fragile ballads in a sincerely touching way that no other act in their home country can match at the moment. The main motto is: don't be afraid to live your emotions. In an honest and direct fashion, with both legs firmly planted on the ground, Louis opens up his innermost feelings and takes us along for the ride. As is fitting for a tenth anniversary release, “Alles was ich bin” will also be released as a deluxe double CD containing a bonus disc with fragile unplugged interpretations of a selection of the new songs.
There will also be a strictly limited fan box which contains the double CD version of the album, an exclusive photo book containing a myriad of heretofore unseen glimpses behind the scenes of 10 years of band history, plus a CD containing an audio commentary on the book's content narrated by Louis Manke himself and an exclusive maxi-CD with re-recordings of the first Staubkind recordings (including a gripping duet with Ulrike Goldmann from the high-charting group Blutengel.)
On this release, Staubkind are giving us all that they are. It is seldom that German-language Rock music has ever been so deeply heartfelt and real. From the soul straight to your heart!
Dutch Film Works releases on 29th August 2014 the classic drama Hotel Adion.
It's where commerce and politics meet money and glamour, and where sin can count on discretion – the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, one of the grandest of the world's grand hotels. This is the story of a vision made reality, a family saga inspired by the events that marked the first 90 years of Germany's most extraordinary hotel. It begins with the birth of Sonja, whose life will be inextricably bound up with the Adlon's fate. The tragedies to come are heralded by the dark secret surrounding Sonja's origins. Financial problems soon plague the hotel, and the Kaiser ends his patronage after abdicating. Louis Adlon and his father Lorenz continue to prize their independence, and Louis' new wife Hedda proves to have an uncanny business sense, organizing spectacular balls and other lucrative events in the Roaring Twenties. It is in the lobby of the hotel that has become her home that Sonja meets Julian, a Jewish musician, and falls in love with him. But it is now the late 1930s, and Julian must flee, with their little daughter. A new period of sorrow and suffering begins, as Sonja steadfastly guides the Adlon through the war and postwar years, while burning to know what has happened to Julian and her daughter...
DUTCH VERSION
Op 29 augustus 2014 verschijnt op Dutch Film Works het klassiek drama Hotel Adion.
Dramaserie over het meest luxueuze hotel van Berlijn. De familiesaga van de Adlons, vol tragiek, romantiek en geheimen, is al even meeslepend en fascinerend als de historie van het hotel. Geld en glamour, intrige en verdorvenheid: dat zijn de ingrediënten van Hotel Adlon! Winnaar van een Golden Camera Award en de Magnolia Award voor Beste TV-serie. Met o.a. Heino Ferch, Marie Bäumer, Tom Schilling en Josefine Preuß.
After the recent, quite ‘different’ release ‘Spasms’ on Infinite Fog, here now finally the NEW ‘regular’ ATARAXIA album – their first regular album since Llyr (Prikosnovenie, 2010)!!! ‘Wind at Mount Elo’ is another Modern Classical/Neofolk masterpiece by the Italian project, active, successful and highly respected worldwide since their first appearance in 1990.
Ataraxia in their own words on ‘Wind at Mount Elo’: “On a day of Winter 2012, Springtime came. At Mount Elo. With the Wind. Warm. Powerful. Radical. When the wind of change comes and we are at the right moment in the right place, we strip down to the bones in a breath and rise like a perfume detaching from things. Abruptly, our stomach is relieved so that we can feel like a part of the horizon. The new album is called Wind at Mount Elo and when it's out, bringing its breath out of us, we will be free! It's two years and a half of our intimate life, the thick one inside each of us. It's an album made of blood, nerves and liver, come down to the underworld and come up again stuck to our flesh. Lucid beginning of change. We celebrate this moment to the fullest. As a primogenial act. Music is born from the wild motion of the wind!”
