The Witzard

La Donna Che Toccò Il Diavolo by I Griz "The Devil Smiles Back [Il Diavolo Ricambia Il Sorriso] (1969) follows Father Ezra, a Catholic priest in 1920's Milan, who is haunted by the re-appearance of his long-thought-dead first love, Francesca. Upon her re-appearance, Francesca seeks to rekindle her relationship with Ezra and sway him from his vows, but the priest is preoccupied by a series of mysterious and grisly killings, which have plagued the diocese. Taking it upon himself to investigate, after the local authorities have all but abandoned the case, Ezra stumbles upon evidence that the murders are at the work of a den of vampires living within the cathedral's sunken catacombs. As he digs deeper, he discovers that The Bishop and his deacons are in league with the unholy night-dwellers, leaving him with no choice but to exterminate the vampire epidemic single-handely with fists, stakes, and silver bullets. After the bloody and brutal rampage, the final pieces fit toge...

Lost Remixes by Algorhythms Justin Boland & Kyle Tierce were the co-founders of beloved and now-defunct Indie/Underground Hip-Hop label and collective, World Around Records . Thanks to Zilla Rocca , we ran a sort of label send-off/track-by-track breakdown for their final comp. before permanently closing up shop, 2017's We Are World Around, Vol. 6 . Tierce frequently records and releases "dusty, sample-heavy beats inspired by the Psychedelic music of the late 1960's" as Dr. Quandary , according to Discogs . Aside from his solo output, Quandary recently released an album of fictional Italian "film scores" as MASSIMO E MASSIMO with Dakota Crane and produced the entirety of one-time label mate Louis Mackey 's 2017 effort, AVGVSTVS . Boland, on the other hand, has recorded and released music under a revolving door of musical nom de plumes, over the years, including, but not limited to Thirtyseven , Humpasaur Jones, Hump Jones , FDR with Godforbid...

"I first met Zilla, barely out of college, downing bottles of malt liquor and idiotically, drunkenly throwing them into darkened stairwells at his old Catholic high school in South Philly. He was aligned his former crew then, one half of a Rap group called Clean Guns , attempting to start a fledgling label in an underground climate that seemed inhospitable and rebarbative to anyone trying to figure out what Boom-Bap would sound like 20 years in the future. Zilla could always rap and produce, but he hadn't found a voice or character that allowed him to channel what eventually reached its (27-inch) zenith on Future Former Rapper—believe it! Starting with the 5 O'Clock Shadowboxers project, he's refined an aesthetic akin to Raymond Chandler raised on Raekwon, splitting the difference between James Ellroy and Guru sneering at rivals that they're paranoid because they're sons like Elroy. One of the reasons why I started POW was to offer a wayward station for the ...

Aside from our aptly-named ongoing The Witzard Interview(s) series, 3 Fee High & Rising new artist featurette, and producer-selected playlist Beat-maker Bedrock , we really don't have a lot of recurring columns here at The Witzard. Partly because my fiance and I just moved into our first home together within the last month or so and also because there's just an influx of solid independent releases before year's end, I thought it might be a good time to start up a new recurring weekly wrap-up column tentatively titled, The Witzard's Take 5: Five Independent/Self-released Albums & EP's Worth Checking Out This Week. So, without further ado, here's The Witzard's Top 5 albums/EP's for the "week of" 10/27-11/3—a slightly expanded "weekly" edition to include a couple releases from last week, as well—in no particular order or ranking. Now, a few of these artists should be quite familiar to The Witzard regulars, while some might be e...