Music
Dir En Grey Release Trailer For Upcoming Live Blu/DVD
Japanese alt-metal band Dir En Grey have released a trailer for their upcoming live Blu/DVD Tour13 Ghoul. This will be the band’s 4th live concert DVD and will be released April 23.
The description reads, It has been 15 years since Dir En Grey made their spectacular debut, and they are still continuing to progress. Dir En Grey has just announced their fourth video documentary, TOUR13 GHOUL, with footage that documents Dir En Grey face to face with reality, will be released on April 23, 2014. It features their domestic headlining tour beginning at Yokohama Blitz on September 18, 2013, where Kyo revealed his self-created, skull-like make-up that gave him the appearance of a ghoul starved for human flesh. The tour’s stage production invited audiences into the world of Dir En Grey, while the band followed their instincts and laid themselves bare for the crowds. The documentary also includes their month-long American tour, from the fatal shooting at LAX on November 1 for which Dir En Grey were present, to the looming possibility of cancelling shows due to a tour bus breakdown. The three months of filming captures on video anxiety about their new challenges, unimaginable realities, and a ray of hope at the end of hardship. Why take the stage? – This is the film that documents the five members who repeatedly ponder this unanswerable question and fight their way through difficulty. Don’t miss their words and feelings from the inside.
I’m a fan of this band and really enjoyed their last album, Dum Spiro Spero, so I’ll be keep on checking this out. You can watch the trailer below.
Synthwave outfit GUNSHIP has released a new official music video this morning for their cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” featured on the soundtrack to Corin Hardy’s (The Nun, The Hallow) supernatural horror film Whistle.
To bring it full circle, Corin Hardy directs the music video himself, incorporating previously unseen footage from Whistle. More specifically, the new music video features an extended sequence from the film.
This collaboration builds on GUNSHIP’s longstanding relationship with Hardy, who previously contributed vocals to the band’s track “Cthulhu.”
“Working with Corin is a total dream,” said GUNSHIP. “He’s an old friend who we bonded with over our love for cinema and music, and we were honored to have our song featured in the film. After the Whistle premiere, we were chatting over a pint, and he told us about a beautiful pseudo ‘one shot’ sequence he was heartbroken to lose in the final film. We suggested resurrecting it and using it as a music video. Corin got it immediately, and the result is perfect. It’s heartbreaking, haunting and pure 80s noir soaked.”
Corin Hardy added: “I wanted Whistle to feel like a horror movie I might have watched around the late 1980s, alongside films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Lost Boys, and The Breakfast Club. Films steeped in teen-angst and heightened feelings. Music was such a huge part of creating the romance of those cinematic worlds. Gunship’s synth-drenched cover of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’ was always top of my list. Their unique heart-on-your-sleeve sound was the perfect choice for a key moment in the movie. To come together post-release and create this extended music video is simply the cherry on top. Dan, Al & Al (Gunship) have provided the film a real companion piece in the world of Whistle… it makes me want my MTV again!”
It’s a fitting collaboration, as music serves a narrative purpose in Whistle. Music, the director told Bloody Disgusting, was a means of immersing viewers in this world and its characters’ perspectives. Hardy even touched on this particular track: “So in a way, the music you’ll listen to is effectively what Chrys is listening to, which is her dad’s record collection. Then there are other songs like the Gunship track, which is a Cyndi Lauper cover, which is more like Rel’s [Sky Yang] music. It comes in when we have a sequence in Rel’s romantic heartbreak moment. So yeah, I made a character list of who might be listening to what.”
Whistle sees a misfit group of unwitting high school students confronted with mortality when they blow a cursed Aztec Death Whistle, setting a terrifying chain of events in motion.
Dafne Keen (Logan, “The Acolyte“), Sophie Nélisse (“Yellowjackets”), Sky Yang (Rebel Moon), Jhaleil Swaby (“Supergirl”), Ali Skovbye (Grizzly Night, “Firefly Lane”), Percy Hynes White (“Wednesday”), Michelle Fairley (“Game of Thrones”), and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead).
The supernatural teen horror movie is available to stream on Shudder now.