Sergio

Castle Party Festival is several days of dark music concerts. The annual festival has been running for over 30 years in Poland. This year it's July 10-13.

• overview https://www.castleparty.com/
• history of the festival: https://www.castleparty.com/history,historia.html
• photos of bands performing from past years https://www.castleparty.com/gallery,galeria.html
• link to the video above of people dressed up, from last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfZkYmZ273Y

bands this year:
☥ CARPENTER BRUT (fr) - dark synth

☥ MYRKUR (dk) - folk metal

☥ ANJA HUWE & XMAL DEUTSCHLAND (de) - goth / post punk

☥ Aesthetic Perfection (us) - industrial pop

☥ Agnis (pl) - witch pop

☥ Ambassador21 (by) - industrial hardcore

☥ Aux animaux (se) - dark wave

☥ Antimatter (uk) - progressive rock

☥ Bornless Fire (us) - industrial / dark EBM (Dawn of Ashes frontman project)

☥ Corpus Delicti (fr) - gothic rock

☥ Darkways (es) - post punk

☥ Datûra (pl) - atmospheric post metal / trip metal

☥ Dead Lights (uk / nl) - industrial cyberfunk

☥ Dead Tahiti (pl) - post punk / cold wave

☥ Estetica Noir (it) - post punk / dark wave

☥ Frontal Boundary (us) - industrial dark electro (Dawn of Ashes drummer project)

☥ Gothminister (no) - gothic industrial metal

☥ Hell Boulevard (de) - goth'n'roll

☥ H.EXE (pl) - blackened electro

☥ Je T'aime (fr) - post punk

☥ Kryształ (pl) - cold wave

☥ Lovelorn Dolls (be) - gothic / synth rock

☥ Martyrmachine (pl) - electro industrial / ebm

☥ Moonstone (pl) - doom metal

☥ Morgenstern (ch) - neue deutsche härte / industrial metal

☥ Nobody's Wolf Child (uk) - alternative

☥ Opowieść (pl) - ritual noise

☥ The Sweet Kill (my) - post punk / dark wave

☥ Psyclon Nine (us) - dark electro

☥ Red Emprez (pl) - electro pop

☥ Rites of Fall (pl) - ambient / industrial

☥ Scream Silence (de) - dark gothic rock

☥ Shireen (nl) - witch rock

☥ Skinny (pl) - alternative

☥ Soror Dolorosa (fr) - gothic death rock / cold wave

☥ Spiral69 (it) - goth rock / new wave / dark wave

☥ Stygmatia (pl) - goth rock / dark post punk

☥ Swallow The Sun (fi) - doom metal

☥ Sylvaine (no) - atmospheric / folk / blackgaze

☥ Thanateros (de) - gothic folk rock

☥ The Awakening (rpa) - gothic dark wave

☥ The Last Decade (uk) - goth rock (members: Nosferatu, End of Green, The Mission, Love Like Blood, Seekers Are Lovers, Schwarzer Engel)

☥ Toń (pl) - doom / stoner / post metal / folk

☥ Ultra Sunn (be) - ebm

☥ Valkyria (pl) - goth electro pop

☥ Wandal (pl / no) - dark folk

Whitby Goth Weekend, abbreviated to WGW or nicknamed Whitby, is a twice-yearly music festival for the goth subculture, in Whitby, North Yorkshire, England, ...The term "Whitby Goth Weekend" is sometimes used as a generic term to describe events during the week in Whitby as a whole...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitby_Goth_Weekend

video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDOsEsyg6yE

It's got David Hasselhoff! It's got Christopher Plummer! Starcrash (1979) is the movie for this Sunday's "monsterdon" watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!

• Just start watching that movie this Sunday, June 22, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT which is 1am Monday UTC
• and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
• I usually open two web browser windows side-by-side on a computer. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.

How to watch the movie:

• tubi (availability varies by country): https://tubitv.com/movies/399606/starcrash
• youtube: (this is the second half of a "double feature" single video, the link should take you to the start of the right movie at 1:53:10) https://youtu.be/pARZWkeHnUk?t=6790
• youtube: (SPANISH VERSION - Choque de galaxias, en Castellano) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68XLVVlra7E
• ~~youtube (FRENCH VERSION - Le Choc des étoiles, version Française - warning, this one is 10 minutes shorter?):~~ oops this one is actually "Escape from Galaxy 3" which is sometimes known as "StarCrash 2" for re-using some of its scenes
• uBlock Origin adblocker on Firefox should work for those tubi and youtube links
• archive: https://archive.org/details/starcrash-1978_202403
• someone usually streams it on https://miru.miyaku.media/ at that time
• if you want to pay and/or watch ads, look here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/starcrash

Widely regarded as a "cash-in" on the unprecedented success of Star Wars,[9] the film was an international co-production between Italy and the United States.
...
In a contemporary review, Variety noted that the film had a "weak screenplay" and that Cozzi's direction "seemed to have no apparent plan".[7] Variety commented that "what is surprising for a picture of this genre, however, is the lacklustre photography by Paul Beeson and Roberto D'Ettorre and special effects by Armando Valcauda and German Natali", and that the "photography almost never convinces that this is actually taking place anywhere but on the movie screen and special effects seem little more than poor imitations of what's been done before".[7] The Monthly Film Bulletin noted the "mediocre special effects and a clumsily protracted finale", but stated that Starcrash "intermittently achieves a kind of lunatic appeal as it lurches pell-mell from one casually fabricated climax to the next".[8]

A retrospective review by Kurt Dahlke of DVD Talk said, "Starcrash is a masterpiece of unintentionally bad filmmaking. Pounded out in about 18 months seemingly as an answer to Star Wars, Luigi Cozzi's knock-off buzzes around with giddy brio, mixing ridiculous characters with questionably broad acting, an incredibly simple yet still nonsensical plot derivative to Star Wars, and budget special effects that transcend into the realm of real art. It's a completely ridiculous movie, that's great to watch with a few friends and a beer or two. And it still manages to make my jaw drop."[17] R. L. Shaffer of IGN gave the film a rating of 10 out of 10, declaring it the "single greatest sci-fi camp fest ever put on celluloid" and put it in a league with cult classics like Troll 2, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky and The Room.[18] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an aggregate score of 29% based on 2 positive and 5 negative critic reviews.[19]

In 2015, Starcrash was chosen by Rolling Stone as one of the 50 Best Sci-Fi Movies of the 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcrash

cyberpunk / industrial, 2025

The new release marks a natural progression and reflects the current state of the world. “This album is an unconscious reaction to the environment in which it was written,” Jones explains. “Watching society disintegrate through a computer screen over the past few years shaped what came out. When writing, I unconsciously metabolized the hyper-mediated atomization and violence of our current dystopia, but I didn’t want the album to ruin your weekend either, so it’s still fun. Things are bleak enough as it is."

https://www.thinkbreakrecords.com/nevadahardware

heard on https://www.twitch.tv/djalayt

track link: https://nevadahardware.bandcamp.com/track/in-the-dark

Industrial, 2022

https://electronicsubstanceabuse.com/biography/

track link: https://esangp.bandcamp.com/track/one-missed-call-album-vers

"Synth-Punk recalling the '80s minimal-wave melancholic vibes' with new school EBM/ Cyber-Punk noise cuts. The realistic mutation of the human body into a surreal and ascetic mind setting of an apocalyptic contemporary society."

not 100% sure what the second half of that means, but it sounds kinda interesting. heard on https://www.twitch.tv/djalayt

track link: https://shelostkontrolrecords.bandcamp.com/track/controllare-il-sistema

Bonus comic:

MaryDeath is a comic about life, death, and everything in between. The story follows a young girl named Mary who happens to have befriended Death. Why Death has chosen to take interest in Mary remains a mystery, but despite his ever dark presence Mary finds comfort in his companionship.

https://www.marydeathcomics.com/archives/comic/

MaryDeath Comics was created in the 2010s by Gwen Tarpley. The artist transitioned recently, but it seems they don’t mind their deadname being on their older comics (i.e. some of the recent posts still use it on their Cats Cafe comic, which is their main effort now.)

dark ambient / dungeon synth, 2023

track link: https://cloistershadows.bandcamp.com/album/whispers-from-the-crypt

Bog (1979) is the movie for this Sunday's "monsterdon" watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!

• Just start watching that movie this Sunday, June 15, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT which is 1am Monday UTC
• and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
• I usually open two web browser windows side-by-side on a computer. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.

How to watch the movie:

• tubi (availability varies by country): https://tubitv.com/movies/571857/bog
• youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4D2D8DMFe0
• uBlock Origin adblocker on Firefox should work for those tubi and youtube links
• archive: https://archive.org/details/bog_20220803
• someone usually streams it on https://miru.miyaku.media/ at that time
• if you want to pay and/or watch ads, look here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/bog

Dynamite fishing in a rural swamp revives a prehistoric gill monster that lives on the blood of human females.
...
Leonard Maltin awarded the film 1 star or BOMB, calling the film "Ultra-cheap" and "[an] ultra-bad time-killer".[4] In his book Horror Films of the 1970s, film critic and independent filmmaker John Kenneth Muir gave the film 1 out of a possible 4 stars. In his review, Muir wrote, "They don't make movies like Bog anymore and we can all be grateful for that. This is a monster film made by people with only the most rudimentary knowledge of how to assemble a film. It is poorly acted, shot, written, and edited. It also commits the cardinal sin of being boring."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_(film)

post-punk, 2025/2020

https://www.instagram.com/theshelsons/

heard on https://www.twitch.tv/djdeadparrot

track link: https://theshelsons.bandcamp.com/track/sadness-song-remastered-2025

dark ambient / noise, 2025

Brandkommando is a one-man-band from Warsaw, Poland. Its style is clearly harsh noise with a strong industrial influence and spoken words, speeches or modulated/distorted human voices. Lyrical themes are about social issues, politics, anti-racism, third world, anti-war, etc. ...

https://www.discogs.com/artist/379430-Brandkommando

heard on https://www.twitch.tv/djalayt

track link: https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/track/logic-of-existence

electro-industrial, 1992 (1994)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_DVA

track link: https://heavenlyvoicesrecords.bandcamp.com/track/bitstream-teledildonic-version