Alive in the Forest of Odd arrives in a nice little fold-out cardboard wallet, with - importantly - a big enough space that the CD slides in and out easily, even with its accompanying plastic wallet! This might sound superficial, but the amount of times I’ve had to fight to get a CD out of one of these things… The wallet has some suitably arboreal imagery, and liner notes guiding you through the album by Theo May. May describes the influence of European folk-jazz, and specifically Bulgarian folk music, and makes clear his desire to blend classical and jazz musicians, and idioms. The album has ten tracks, with the shortest just over five minutes, and the longest just shy of eight minutes.

Leather Jackets And Diesel Smoke is the next in the seemingly unending 'Lux and Ivy' series of compilations from Righteous. The two-disc CD set finds respected music journalist Dave Henderson compiling together groovy, crude, and bizarre 45s from between the 1950s and 1960s. This time around it’s another suitable varied ride.

The Sex Machine (Aka Conviene Far Bene L'Amore) is a mid-70s Italian sex comedy Sci-fi set in a future where the Oil Supply has run out, with the world sent back to the Middle Ages with horse-drawn transport. But a plucky professor has an idea to create power by natural human sexual friction.  It’s a film that blends comedy, sci-fi, satire & farce- for an entertaining, amusing, and at points rather thought-provoking venture.  Here from Cheezy Movies is a region-free DVD release of the picture.

The Cat And The Canary is a late 1920s Universal horror film, which helped define/ set the tropes for the old dark house genre. It’s a blend of mystery, light comedy, and creepy/cobweb-covered horror- with some moments of clever/ interventive flare. Here from Eureka’s Masters Of Cinema is a new Blu-Ray release of the film- taking in a 4k scan of the film, two commentary tracks, and a good selection of other extras.

According to Wikipedia, “drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece” – a definition that captures the very essence of Finnish noise musician Haare’s latest album, Submagic

Mysteries From Beyond Earth is a mid-70s UFO/ mystery documentary- with a fair bit of charm & quirkiness about it. Here from the resurrectors of lost/ forgotten films Cheezy Movies is a region-free/ bare-bones DVD release of the film.