20jazzfunkgreats Towers

Crow’s Nest Hill No.13

Arkham, MA.

Dear friend,

Receive heartfelt apologies for my sluggishness in replying to your last communication, my comrades and me have been rather busy: Estuardo had to visit the lands of Wales to finish some business with the Little People who dwell in recondite summits, while Stevonius has been duly engaged moving to a new house with a larger cellar better suited to the conduction of his experiments. I have had to visit that sprawling cancerous temple to Mammon and Khali which some call London to attend a summit with fellow sorcerers, and only about managed to escape the evil spells cast by ghoulish warlocks from the heights of their unholy spires.

You will find enclosed within this letter two wax cylinders which I recommend you play in your gramophone, I have received them from the Troubleman Unlimited imprint, which as you well know is located in the city of New Jersey beyond the seas. The man behind this operation, one Mr. Simonetti, is also responsible for the Italians Do It Better label, which has, of late, sent us into intense paroxysms of pleasure with the seductive incantations of Glass Candy and Chromatics, now that is music that can raise the dead and send them wondering yonder into the hallowed underground spaces of the discotheque where humans shake compulsively as mostly inadvertent participants of secret sex magick rituals, if they only knew, the fools.

But let us keep to the business at hand, time is always scarce and I need to feed the hungry beast in the basement lest it break through the seals of power again, I should not think the constabulary in the neighbourhood would be happy if there were to occur another massacre in this area. As I was saying, I expect these two morsels of dark music will encourage you to undertake further investigations into the arcane zones of the beyond where potent secrets await for the right seekers. I must warn you these researches shall surely end with your soul burning in the fires of the Pit until the day of the Reckoning., but the experience will have been worth it.

First come mysterious emanations from the aptly named Religious Knives, who have made their enigmatic record ‘It’s After Dark’ with ethereal threads severed from the mist with a consecrated silver blade held deftly on the midnight of Candlemas, the intermitent glare of a streetlamp and a piece of concrete in which the ghost of a deranged child scribbled words of wisdom with a broken piece of chalk.

The effect of this powerful magick is not dissimilar from the one exercised by the aforementioned Chromatics, perhaps in their previous incarnation as industrial fiends, only if they had belonged to one of those strange religious covenants we know so much about, or perhaps that strange Deerhunter group floating at their atmospheric eeriest. Their will o’ the wisps brought to my mind fearful memories of the oft-missed Genders also, and for this I am indeed grateful.

Religious Knives- The Streets

Blank Dogs’ proposition does also contain a great deal of the otherworldly, I think you shall find the way in which they resonate uncertain and hazy like transmissions coming from the other side most appealing, like reliable messengers delivering a lost love letter across impossible distances with a fierce passion which reminds me of that most excellent Sir John Maus. Blank Dogs seem to have studied in the cadaverous school of German minimalism where thaumaturgs such as Grauzone excelled, but covered some of the piercing angles with the flesh and blood of the new wave that these Islands did bear, particularly Joy Division and even Young Marble Giants at certain moments of trembling melodic beauty. All laced with that distorted barbed wire one finds in so many promising new acts from the other side of the pond. Formidable material, I am sure you will agree, do purchase their album ‘On Two Sides’ when it is made available and you shan’t be disappointed.

Blank Dogs- Around the Room

I hope that life is treating you kindly, that the spells whose formulae I included in my last missive were successfully executed, and that they functioned as expected, Kandarian flesh eaters can be unruly brutes, and if you want them to behave as desired you must ensure all the necessary ingredients are administered in the right proportions, and at the precise time. Otherwise, I should expect the outcomes to be rather ghastly. I do pray that, by the time this letter arrives to your hands, you have indeed hands to pick it up, and eyes to read it, and an intact brain with which to understand the words therein contained, and finally, that your foes in the village have been definitely vanquished with the use of those darken arts of which I am master, and you, promising disciple.

Alas, as my Grandmother used to say, it’s no use crying over spilled blood, and even if the worse has come to pass, I am sure we can still undertake profitable negotiations over the black waters of River Styx, I will wait for your revenant to manifest itself in my dreams before carrying out a summoning ritual, it is rather hard to come across cheap babies these days.

Yours fauthfully,

J.

Post-scriptum- I have decided to include in this letter, as a final gift, another wax cylinder which contains a song that was played in one of the Witches Sabbath’s celebrated in the thick forests outside of this Town some weeks ago, the scene looked like something out of a hideously enthralling film called Possession that Master Nixon played us some time ago. It was originally performed by an act from the olden days called The Last Dance and I am rather sure that you’ll find a suitable use for the furious coiling and trashing of their Gothic industrial steam organ-powered malevolent sexual energy, I should think that if played at the right time, it would intensify the effectiveness of that Evil Eye of the Thousand Cuts from a Thousand Cats spell you seem to be so fond of.

The Last Dance- Malignant Love

Carmilla told me she came across this particular piece of nasty craft in that wireless program ‘Art for Spastics’, a treasure trove of delights which would make Von Juntz proud, I recommend it to you with all the strength of my wicked heart.

Epilogue -
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