Ashens and the Polybius Heist - Available 19th November 2020
Director: Riyad Barmania
Stars: Stuart Ashen, Daniel Hardcastle, Stuart Barter, Robert Llewellyn
We are excited to announce the forthcoming release of comedy heist film Ashens and the Polybius Heist, a hilarious thrill-ride centred around retrieving an infamous 80s arcade game that can supposedly control people’s minds.
The first teaser trailer garnered over 130,000 views in just one week, making it onto the YouTube trending page as a result. The film has already sparked an online frenzy and looks set to become one of the talking points of the winter.
Polybius Heist stars some of the most famous people you’ve probably never heard of, with Stuart Ashen (1.5 million online followers) featuring alongside Sunday Times best-selling author Daniel Hardcastle (2.5 million followers) and Stuart Barter (3.5 million followers) amongst many other huge names in the online world. They join forces with legendary actor Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf’s Kryten) and a slew of up and coming comedians to bring together a passion project seven years in the making. As lead actor and co-writer Stuart Ashen says, “filmmaking is bloody hard at the best of times, but completing a film this ambitious in the midst of lockdown has been the challenge of a lifetime. It has taken a herculean effort from the whole team to finish off this fun, feel-good story that’s the perfect tonic for the times we’re all living through.’’
Every gamer and sci-fi fan knows the Polybius legend, with rumours swirling of hallucinations and fatal side effects amongst its players until the game suddenly vanished from arcades in 1981, never to be seen again. Given the myth’s longevity, and the breakout success of 2013’s Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild, it is unsurprising Relentless Films were able to crowdfund £150,000 towards the film’s budget in 2018, demonstrating the huge interest in the project. As director Riyad Barmania says: “the fans’ passion for this film has been incredible. I’ve never worked on something with so much excitement and support from the audience, I can’t wait to share it with everyone.”
Shot on an Arri Alexa with post-production services from The Farm and Technicolor, Polybius Heist brings a big budget ethos to a home-made story. The film is a veritable love letter to geeks and anyone who has ever felt like an outsider: a film made by nerds, for nerds.
Gear up and synchronise watches, Ashens and the Polybius Heist premieres On Demand on 19th November 2020 via Relentless Films.
Collect Call unveil love letter to the difital age on new single Pretense!
Collect Call are delighted to announce the release of their dreamy new single, Pretense.
The brainchild of Joe Thorpe, Collect Call began as a full band but have developed into a solo project with Joe enlisting help from his musician friends from time to time. Creating whimsical, earnest segments of indie pop, Joe skillfully exhibits a nuanced fragility and openness through his lyrics.
Pretense is the perfect example of this. A simple, sampled beat plays out over subtle, strummed guitars as Joe’s fragile vocals flutter and float beautifully from the first note to the last. A poignant love letter within the digital age, Pretense implores us to step away from the echo chamber of the internet, instead encouraging us to care for the people who actually matter to us in life.
Pretense by Collect Call is out now via Murmuration.
Dine Alone Records to release original score of Jay Baurchel directed horror Random Acts of Violence!
Dine Alone Records is excited to announce the release of the original score for the Jay Baruchel directed horror, Random Acts of Violence by Wade MacNeil (Alexisonfire, Gallows) and Andrew “Ango” Macpherson (Goon: Last of the Enforcers, Dark Side of the Ring). A physical pre-order is available HERE, with a digital version to be released on streaming platforms 30th October which you can pre-save HERE.
Having lent their talents to the Far Cry video game series, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, and horror films like The Ranger (Shudder), MacNeil and Macpherson have created an ominous, yet understated and unsettling style of electronica. Characterised by its atmospheric soundscapes and a pulsating, hypnotic edge, the score perfectly echoes the themes depicted in an uncompromising, visually stunning film.
Says MacNeil, “When you’re scoring a film you are creating a soundtrack for a world that doesn’t exist. Finding the sounds and melodies for that bleak stretch of rust belt highway in ‘Random Acts’ was exhilarating. Making music to frighten people is such a unique way to spend your time in a studio. I love it.”
Based on the Image Comics graphic novel by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, Random Acts of Violence is an elevated slasher horror that will easily become a cult favourite; scratching the entertainment element of horror whilst searching for the deeper meaning behind the violence. The film explores the idea of legitimising cruelty, and the fact that monsters are not merely monsters, they are broken people. Stretching from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other, it holds a mirror up to art, society and violence.
Wade MacNeil is the founder and guitarist of Alexisonfire, and has also served as frontman of renowned punk band Gallows. In 2017, Wade composed additional music for Jay Baruchel’s comedy Goon: Last of the Enforcers, where he met Andrew.
Andrew "Ango" Macpherson is a producer, composer and filmmaker. He has produced music for the likes of Jacques Greene, Machinedrum, Tommy Genesis, Cadence Weapon, Jesse Boykins III, Lunice, Katy B, Syv de Blare and many more. Andrew has also recorded for UK label LuckyMe Records and produced tracks for labels such as Last Gang, eOne, Ninja Tune, 4AD, B4 Sounds, True Romance and 100%Silk. In 2015, Andrew wrote and produced on the Juno-nominated album Dirty Laundry by Ben Stevenson and he is an alum and studio team member of the Red Bull Music Academy.
A.S. Fanning shares poignant new single All Time!
Ahead of the release of his his idiosyncratic new album, multi-instrumentalist A.S. Fanning - aka Stephen Fanning - has shared his poignant new single All Time, out now via Proper Octopus Records.
Fanning’s impassioned baritone vocal soars effortlessly across the carefully crafted album, sounding instantly reminiscent of the likes of The National’s Matt Berninger or The Horrors’ Faris Badwin.
Talking about the single, Fanning explains, “‘All Time is a song about love and acceptance. Or maybe love and mercy, to borrow a line from Brian Wilson. I wrote it very quickly one night, it just sort of fell out fully formed, as sometimes happens. I was thinking about Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and the idea of being ‘unstuck in time’. And relating that to my own mental rifling through past incidents and projections of the future, which is obviously a waste of time and energy, but something I engage in quite frequently. I suppose the song is a sort of meditation, of trying to step back from all that and meet things from moment to moment, with some sense of permanence and acceptance.”
A.S Fanning's album You Should Go Mad is out on 13th November 2020 via Proper Octopus Records.
Bengal Lancers share euphoric indie-rock single Morning Light!
Bengal Lancers make a triumphant return as they share their latest single, Morning Light.
The single premiered on Clash Magazine who called the song "a real hymn to escapism that feels totally right for this dystopian year, 'Morning Light' is a synth-laden indie pop burst of energy."
A rolling, exhilarating indie-rock song, Morning Light is another example of a band evolving with each and every release. A follow up to single Resolutions, which the band released in May, Morning Light straddles the line between the stadium ready, euphoric indie-rock of Augustines and The National and the melodic indie pop of Teleman, and Dutch Uncles.
Describing the themes explored on the track, the band said: "Morning Light is nostalgia at its finest - harking back to those first nights of our early 20s, before Uber took over, when the only real concern was trying to find a night bus to get you home after a big night out. It’s about nights that you barely remember and some you’d probably want to forget. It’s that wonderful moment where you don’t have any real worries. It’s a fan favourite at our live shows and we’re happy to bring it to life in this recording."
Morning Light is out now.