I’m down with witch house, even though its not particularly witchy or housey, but Salem have always struck me as being the most unlikely of the genre’s superstars in that they’re not really that good. Their records to these ears much resemble their public persona- lazy, fucked up, and disinterested. Which is not even to mention their contributions to the mystifying trend of rape ballads. Then again, I was never one for their most prominent antecedent, DJ Screw. So, I wait in anticipation for the tipping point of this obsessive record-screwing (this decade’s substitute for the mashup), even if there have been some quality results of the drag phenomena (the 800x slower Justin Bieber track, AIDS-3D’s mixes). 

With that said, I’m as baffled as you are that it this latest Screwed version of Britney Spears’s single “Til the World Ends” is actually quite good. Even better is this video, which draws out the apocalyptic potential of the lines “keep on dancin’ ‘til the world ends” along with night vision footage of anonymous bombing activity in a desert region. Even the simple addition of SFX scream in the mix adds great leverage to the footage. Thanks to Kek-W for the tip-off on this one.

In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique, The Wages of Fear) began shooting a film with a simple concept. A husband (Serge Reggiani) is so pathologically jealous of his wife (Romy Schneider) that the black-and-white footage of their lives becomes expressively distorted with his color fantasies. Clouzot was going to use all kinds of wiggy avant-garde techniques (including the soundtrack), for which a lot of test footage was shot. When he received backing for an unlimited budget from Columbia Pictures, any chance of shooting the film quickly on a tight schedule seems to have gone out the window as Clouzot slowed down shooting and prolonged the experiments. Reggiani left the project and Clouzot had a heart attack, shutting down production after three weeks.

Later Claude Chabrol shot his own version of the script, L’Enfer (1994), a straightforward bore. On the evidence of the footage revealed in Serge Bromberg’s documentary, if Clouzot’s film had used half the wild techniques and tour-de-force photography on display, the film would have been a psychedelic benchmark on a level with 2001: A Space Odyssey. The shots of Schneider alone, whether “plain” or fantastically fetishized, are uncanny goddess material. Bromberg’s fascinating film relies on Clouzot’s footage and interviews with a several participants, plus a few enacted dialogues from the script.

Vice just premiered Bill Callahan‘s new video for “Riding for the Feeling” off the ominously titled new alnum, Apocalypse. Earlier this month, PopMatters’ Corey Beasley praised the album: “Apocalypse is a restless record, one concerned with the difficulties of staying put. In that way, it also keeps itself at arm’s length. Callahan’s stripped away a good degree of the hooks present on Eagle, and in the process he’s made a more serious (and, sure, self-serious) album. He’s a talent prodigious enough to warrant a lateral move, and Apocalypse will find its rightful place in his 20-odd-years-long canon. It’s hard to think of an album more thoroughly transportive, even if the places it takes you won’t always be pleasant.” Callahan is also on tour at present, full details below.

We live in an age in which franchises long thought dead rise from the grave, their shambling corpses draped with the finery of modern popular culture to create the illusion of vitality. Some artistic sorcerers do manage to breathe life into the sleeping characters of our youth, reminding us of times past and refreshing our longing for their familiar faces. What magic brings us successful reboots and restorations like Batman Begins, and what devilry haunts us with abominations like The Smurfs? (That’s right. I’m calling it.). Not all franchise face lifts are the same. By taking a look at film and television, we may stumble upon a taxonomy of reboots and help future videogame necromancers invigorate the forgotten.

To briefly define my terms, I will liberally use the term “reboot” to encompass resurrecting franchises as well as deviations from the norm, be they forays into different genres or aesthetic re-branding projects. For example, I would include Kirby’s Dream Course in my definition of a “rebooted” or “refreshed” franchise because the creators were trying to maintain certain elements of the puff-ball’s appeal while simultaneously moving the character into a different genre context. The important feature unifying game “reboots” is the attempt by designers to maintain marketable familiarity during a time of significant transition.

Native Californian Melissa Ann Sweat now makes picturesque Savannah, Georgia her home and, it’s from these literary climes that she works on her wide-ranging artistic interests. The poet, writer and artist goes under the moniker of Lady Lazarus for her musical endeavors, which only really began early in 2008 when she started teaching herself to play music and began writing songs. Her debut release, Mantic drew accolades from Pitchfork and One Thirty BPM, while she’s been been on the road supporting the project. Lady Lazarus is currently working on material for a new album, as well as videos like the one we present you with today, “Took in My Diamond Heart”.