Piranha 3D is a throwback flick, not just because it’s a remake of a movie that came out in 1978. It’s a throwback piece because its the kind of tit centric B-movie that the internet killed off. Back in the day a million movies like this were cranked out to hit video and shows like USA’s Up All Night with Rhonda Shear. Movies that allowed you to see half naked chicks skinny dip and then get chased/killed by some kinda monster. The type of movie that has giant plot holes, bad acting and questionable writing… but, lots of tits. Unfortunately, now that tits of all sorts are available anytime via the internet there’s no longer a reason to make these movie. And, that’s kinda fucked up because sometimes the world needs ridiculous and base flicks like Piranha 3D. Sometimes you need a shoestring of a plot with your titties to put everything in perspective.

I could describe the plot of this movie, but that misses the point of the movie. You don’t go to a strip club and talk about the quality of the buffet. You don’t want to know about the character development, how the story arc is resolved or the cinematography. So, let me tell you what you do want to know. This movie runs on over the top from the get go. When most other movies do 3D they say “we’re not going to be throwing stuff at the screen”, to let you know it’ll be a classy 3D experience. Piranha 3D has 3D vomit. That’s what you need to know about the kind of experience your in line for.

Ya boy Jerry O’Connell is also in this movie as what I’d imagine is a pretty on point version of the dude who owns Girls Gone Wild. He plays him as coked up and tit obsessed to the end. I’m pretty sure this is his best performance since Sliders Season 2. This movie also has Adam Scott (from the recently canceled Party Down) on a jet ski with a shotgun, shooting into crowded water. At fish. Dude is shooting fish in a lake with a motherfucking shotgun from a jet ski. Oh and Christopher Lloyd as your resident Piranha expert.

There’s a ton of half naked and fully naked girls, occasionally in three dimensions. I’ve not been a fan of the 3D movement at all so far and surprisingly adding breast to the mix has not changed my opinion. Maybe because in order for breast to really be 3D they’d have to be really far away from the body, and for that to happen you’d have to have some incredible monster titties jammed in a weird corset to get the proper distance. Physics of 3D breasts aside, if it’s slight titillation of the Maxim variety you’re looking for you’ll be covered. Elisabeth Shue though will not be the source of your titillation, she’s looking kind of old in the face. Fear not though, careful observers will be able to pick out porn star Gianna Michaels making a cameo as a chick para-sailing. If, you’re that dude who has always watched her “work” and thought “hey, you know what’d make this hotter? Her being dismembered by shiftily CGI’d fish” then this will be you movie.

About two thirds of the way through the movie is when all hell breaks lose and everyone turns into piranha bait, but what’s kinda interesting is how gory the whole thing gets. There’s about 15 minutes of pure blood and severed limbs that reminds you that Piranha 3D is an actual horror movie.  In this barrage of mangled bodies, the influence of Eli Roth (who makes a cameo as a wet T-shirt contest host) really shows on director Alexandre Aja (High Tension and the excellent The Hills Have Eyes remake). The scenes of swimmers trying to escape from the killer fish, looked a lot like some kind of zombie apocalypse. But, an apocalypse that’s immediately preceded by lots and lots of nakedness. If the apocalypse has to come, that’s how I want it.*

*The reason I want it that way is because I know I’m going to be safe. See,my blackness will not allow me to be frolicking in the water when killer fish bring about the rapture. I can’t swim, so I’ll be chilling on the beach while everyone else is getting nibbled to death, rocking ever so gently to a slowed down version of “Margaritaville.”

Fairly rarely do I put guitar-rock-pop type acts in a mix, but I managed to slip a couple mickies onto Ballet, which is fully ’80s and a fairly urban, summer’s-end affair for subway surfers and taxi-takers.

That said, there are some world music moments to meet eclectic standards. Ballet fun fact – three tunes on here feature Phil Collins as a liner-note contributor. Know which ones? It’s not Kajagoogoo… Tracklist after the jump.

Ballet by A Silent Flute

Download A Silent Flute’s Ballet from Sound Cloud

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ARP - The Soft Wave (2010) [Smalltown Supersound] // Grade: B

The Soft Wave is music that hovers in the twilight, a transition of a thing, one stage to the next. Arp mastermind Alexis Georgopolous once described his ambient electro as “summer ending and autumn beginning”, but this second release recalls even more: black night to dawn, inland to coast, teenagerdom to whatever comes next. Not simply a series of opposites, but the literal stasis between Points A and B.

It’s a wistful thing, that stasis. And The Soft Wave is a wistful album, if for no other reason than the chords strike that chord, you know, the difficult-to-pinpoint emotional clusterfuck of nostalgia and hope-filled ambition all at once. We’ve learned it from the movies; we’ve know it from TV. When incidental music goes like this—a minor suddenly finding a major, warm and analogue moments like white-tipped waves—we’re trained to suspect the end of something.

And in that sense, this album is equal to Arp’s 2007 debut. Maybe even better, if emotional brilliance outpaces technical—and the experience of non-stop work outpaces that. Georgopolous has, after all, accomplished loads in the interim: scored the modern-dance Replica and Doug Aitken’s film Migration, remixed Lindstrom, released some stuff with other band The Alps. He also moved from San Francisco to New York, which makes one wonder: is this man’s life anything but transition? Whatever tendency he gets out of his system, however, whenever, isn’t he constantly shuffling from this thing to the next?

Well, yeah. Hence the album’s affection for minimalism, an affection stronger than even In Light‘s most stripped moments. Clean white rooms, a paring down; this one song about this one melody and nothing else. “Alfa” and its psych guitar. The shock of milky vocals on “From A Balcony Overlooking The Sea”. The “High Life” implication of steel drum, how it suggests all these vacationy elements without actually using them. If the preset-reminiscent beats feel exhausted by the end—the one bit that’s a nagging constant—it’s only because your focus is meant to be elsewhere. I just spent so much time as a kid playing with the built-in Casio accompaniment, it’s tough to hear much else. Ignore me. The intention is pure. And so are the jams, these creamy and organic things evocative enough to conjure a weepy eyed mess. The Soft Wave is Arp at its most bone-bare: the reality of nostalgia and our so-wistful stasis, soundtracked.

Myspace has really shot itself in the foot by rolling out their regressive re-styling for their band profiles; I mean that was the last point of the site wasn’t it, a place to aggregate a bands info and content without having to learn how to make a website? BLΛCK RΛ!NB0VVs profile has already fallen foul of the change but thankfully their music still speaks for itself.

BLΛCK RΛ!NB0VV are firmly in the Witch House camp making a sound that draws influences from Pictureplane, ℑ⊇≥◊≤⊆ℜ’s Zombie Raves and incorporates all the elements of drag remixing, occultist imagery and re-edited pop culture. As always it’s hard to establish conclusively where BLΛCK RΛ!NB0VV are from or even how many people make up the band (their Myspace and Facebook list †ØÖM!, GLi†Z and MjU as members), but based on the info on their 30 minute DJ mix of witch house and dark dance music called VVΞ HΛVΞ PΛЯ†Y @ HΛUN†ΞD PLΛCΞS, I’m making an informed guess that they are from Belgium. That mix by the way, is available to download along with all of their mixes, remixes and original tracks for free from their Soundcloud profile.

For a band that seems to have only formed about four months ago they, like a lot of their Witch House peers, BLΛCK RΛ!NB0VV have been busy. Remixing electro clash deviants and recent Witch House converts Crossover (who are now on Disaro), as well as Euro electro Dj duo Villa and The Present Moment who I wrote about a few weeks ago.

They also have a pretty nice visual side to the band with a Tumblr full of great artwork, photos and general witch house ephemera.

BLΛCK RΛ!NB0VV /// R!60R M0Я†!S by BLΛCK RΛ!NB0VV

0H C!ΛRΛ by BLΛCK RΛ!NB0VV

BLΛCK RΛ!NB0VVs sound is Witch House for the dancefloor. Its doom laden and dynami, no drones here. It’s broken glow sticks painting the outlines of inverted crosses, dirty howling keys and club nights held in pyramids. It gleefully slow grinds through valleys piled with skulls, lasers throbbing out of their eyes and ends up raving in a church yard at dawn covered in black glitter. Disco R&B for the modern Goth raver!

Won’t lie: This month’s column was, initially, doomed to be phoned in. Jams just weren’t hitting me. All these arguably important releases flew lazily round my head, and what did I do? Spin 90s rave and commercial house. Exclusively. And let me tell you, once you’ve spent 30 days holed up with Technotronic and loads of jungle, it becomes markedly more difficult to get stoked about Conrad Schnitzler on the new m=minimal. I mean, you get stoked, it’s seriously good. I just wasn’t in that place.

But then a fire-shock of lightning. Tell me: how do these things happen? I stumble onto Redlight—way later, months later, than I should have—and here we are. This Bristol producer, formerly known as Clipz, is working with some of the raddest girls around, dropping grime and dubstep and jungle and 90s rhythms whatever other mish-mash in the most neon-sick and irresistible way.

I can’t remember the last time I was so unequivocally excited about a bunch of songs; they defy description. Words just sully them. Check it.

Mz. Bratt (Produced by Redlight) – Selecta

Redlight (feat. Ms. Dynamite) – What You Talking About?

Redlight (feat. Roses Gabor) – Stupid

Redlight (feat. Redskin, Zaniah & Dread MC) – Feel So Good

And just because…

Technotronic – Pump Up the Jam

This Australian magazine I never heard of put my pally, Ryan Keely, on the cover along with her pally, Justine Joli. The photos were taken by everyone’s favorite smutster, Ellen Stagg.

Ellen looks and is named like a tall, beautiful elf.  She is so blonde and tall and light skinned and has a totally slammin’ elf bod.  Also she is good at things. Ellen, let’s go on a date.

This dude showed up with Starter sneakers. I didn’t even know these things existed.

The Vidiot found this awesome pin with ice cream on it on the way to the party. I haven’t been served a heaping mound of ice cream in a dish like that in years.

“What’s that?  You like my ice cream button?  Tee hee hee!” The Vidiot has the personality of a Japanese tween girl.

Dita Von Teese was there serving drinks. I never forgave her for breaking Marilyn Manson’s heart.

This hot piece of chicken was there showing off her love of worms. There’s a movie in this, I think.  ”Must Love Worms.”

These guys. I like these guys.

This guy, I like him too. It’s Benjamin Marra, maker of so many good comics including Gangsta Rap Posse and Night Business. He also did the album art for Lil B recently and some other rap album covers. Dude rules and is not a pussy, which is refreshing in the comics world.

It was cool to find out that he was also in this magazine. He’s getting hit up by every rapper to do the art for their damn mixtapes. If you want Marra to do your art then you have to be prepared to pay.

Ryan’s got a huge fucking tongue. She’s like Gene Simmons but way creepier.

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On one of the hottest days ever, we were treated to a random visit by cartoonist and writer Bryan Lee O’Malley who had just come back to Los Angeles from the London premiere of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Bryan’s the guy who created Scott Pilgrim and wrote and drew the comic that Edgar Wright turned into one of this year’s best movies. So it was a real treat (and kind of weird) to have Bryan randomly drop by for some new polo shirts since for the past two weeks I’ve been talking to anyone who’d listen about how they should absolutely see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Creeeeeeepy, yet cool!

If you’re one of those people still slow in getting on board with this film, just go see it tonight. I swear, you won’t be disappointed. And then when you’re done go buy all six volumes of the original Scott Pilgrim comic and start eagerly awaiting the Scott Pilgrim video game! You can read me gushing on and on some more about the film here.

In the meantime why don’t you enjoy this cartoon (done in O’Malley’s original comic style) that Adult Swim produced to promote the film. I really hope Adult Swim considers turning this into a full fledged show.

Мишка LA
1547 Echo Park Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90026
213-536-4234

Some fuzzed out-out indie pop to with your morning coffee. This brand new video clip from Jersey’s Big Trouble. “Modern Intimacy” off their debut LP, Worry, which will be available on  vinyl soon from Olde English Spelling Bee.

In the meantime you can stream the entire album in the player below! A Nice little wake-me-up to go along with the chilling weather.

On Monday, August 30th Disaro records and Chronic Youth will be presenting an intimate performance by Seattle’s King Dude at our shop. King Dude is the solo Apocalyptic Folk project from T.J. Cowgill. Cowgill  is a former member of Teen Cthulu but is probably best known as the vocalist for Pacific Northwest Black Metal behemoths, Book of Black Earth along with being the mastermind behind clothing line Actual Pain.

With his newest creative outlet Cowgill strips down to his voice and acoustic guitar and channels some dark and haunting neo-folk with a heavy focus on knowledge and faith. Luciferian light and spirituality beyond the confines of a strict monotheistic reasoning are just some of the heady topics.

Cowgill describes King Dude by saying “My music is the music of the world, of nature, of the devil, of love and destruction. I think it speaks to everyone equally no matter who they are because the light bringer is in us all, awake or waiting to be awakened.” Truly dark and beautiful compositions that fans of bands like Death In June, Sol Invictus and Current 93 will instantly fall in love with.

King Dude’s past releases include a limited cassette entitled My Beloved Ghost on Bathetic Records. A 7″ entitled “The Black Triangle” on Clan Destine Records and his just released debut CD-R for Disaro entitled Tonight’s Special Death.

The show will run from 7-8pm and we ask that you arrive on time as space is limited. If you’d like to attend, please RSVP to rsvp@mishkanyc.com. Please note that entry will work on a first come first served basis via the RSVP list. We also welcome you to take pictures, shoot video and/or record the show for your blogs/sites. We simply ask that you inform one of our employees that you will be doing such before hand.

We look forward to seeing you and hail the black triangle!

Monday August 30th, 7pm-8pm
Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725

J/M/Z to Marcy Ave
G to Broadway
L to Lorimer