Happy Friday, my friend! Today I have a very special post in the Indie Recommends Indie series! As you can probably guess from the title, we will be learning about some indie movies and music! Author B. R. Russell wanted to highlight some indie works apart from books and I was all for it. You may remember B. from her earlier indie post that covered indie books. Let’s welcome her again!
Bethany, it’s great to host you on the blog again! For the new readers who have joined us, can you please them about yourself?
Hi Kriti, thanks for having me back!
I’m a new author who released their first sci-fi novel in June of 2022 and the second book in the series came out Wednesday! I’m from Ireland but moved a lot and now live on the US west coast. This left me with a mixed bag of accents, slang, and colloquialisms that infuses my writing and dialogue. When I’m not working, I’m usually listening to a book on a bike ride or playing video games.
Tell me about your love for indie books and movie. How do you find them?
I love indie movies and music because the small budgets and niche audiences allow for more experimentation and specificity. Want a band that plays death-metal with bagpipes? I don’t know why you do, but that exists. The variety and niche-ness of indies makes them feel tailored for you when you find them, and that’s a great feeling. I discover indie movies by trawling Rotten Tomatoes once a month, searching their ‘Recently Released at Home’ section. I’ll also check film festival’s on Wikipedia to see their lists of winners. For music, Bandcamp is my go-to. They have a “This Artist recommends” at the bottom of the band page, which almost always hits.
Indie Movie Recommendations
The History of Time Travel | Rotten Tomatoes | IMDB
Genre: Science Fiction, Faux-Documentary, Drama
Year: 2014
Synopsis: A fictional documentary about the creation of the world’s first time machine, those who created it, and the unintended ramifications it has on world events
Thoughts:
One of my favourite things with indie movies is how the filmmakers use budgetary constraints to their advantage in the project. The History of Time Travel does this by being a perfect replica of the made-for-TV documentaries from the 90s to 2000s. Focusing on the invention of a time machine, it has pitch-perfect ‘interviews’ with faux-scientists and ‘reenactments’ of what happened with the inventors of the machine. The style doesn’t feel cheap, it feels lived in and real. I’m trying hard to not spoil anything, as time-travel fiction always has twists and turns, but this movie is riveting. They manage to make completely fake interviews over muffins in front of a Starbucks come across as world-changing as the invention of time travel would be. Finally, the documentary style fits the time-travel tropes so well, allowing the movie to (in some cases literally) put the timeline on the screen and ensuring the viewer is still on board and not lost.
Recommended for: Any fan of sci-fi and time-travel movies will love this one. Also, people who watched way too many Discovery Channel, National Geographics, and PBS documentaries growing up will find a ton of easter eggs as the writer/director emulated that structure perfectly.
Watch it on Amazon.
The Guest | Rotten Tomatoes | IMDB
Genre: Action/Thriller/Suspense and Sci-fi (kinda)
Year: 2014
Synopsis: A string of mysterious deaths leads a teenager to become suspicious of a soldier who showed up on her family’s doorstep and claimed to be a friend of her dead brother.
Thoughts:
I love books, movies, comics, you name it, where the beginning seems like one genre, and by the end you realise it’s another genre all-together but the breadcrumbs were there the whole time. The Guest crushes this, at the start you think it’s creepy, maybe a weird home-invasion movie, and you don’t trust the titular Guest. Then you’re told you’re wrong, that everything’s OK, but weird… and then it hits the gas and you were correct in the beginning, but for all the wrong reasons. The build up and tonal switches this movie does are great. Dan Stevens plays against his Downton Abbey character, something that works so well for the viewer as you keep wanting to trust him. Malika Monroe nails it as the small town girl hoping to go to college and not trusting the Guest. The visuals are super 80s (made pre-Stranger Things too), with numerous callbacks Terminator, Aliens, and various John Carpenter movies. The synthwave soundtrack (as you’ll see below) hits all the right notes. This movie sat on my “to-be-watched” list for a while as the synopsis doesn’t do it justice, trust me, this movie is great and worth every second. Can’t recommend it enough.
Also, as a bonus, there’s an interview with the writer about this movie on Red Letter Media, which I recommend listening to after watching the movie.
Recommended for: Fans of dark thrillers with twists and turns, action movies set in small towns, in a weird way fans of 80s horror movies, and fans of Downton Abbey who want to see Matthew Crawley being a badass.
Find the movie here. It is not currently free on US platforms. But is available through Youtube, Apple, Amazon, etc.
Get Duked! | Rotten Tomatoes | IMDB
Genre: Comedy/Thriller
Year: 2020
Synopsis: A camping trip in the Scottish Highlands turns into a fight for survival when four teens become the target of vicious hunters.
Thoughts:
Get Duked! is a mixed-genre movie where characters from a comedy movie are thrown into a horror plot, and it works at every turn. It never forgets it’s a comedy, making the horror elements absurd and funny. The characters are lovable misfits, shout out to DJ Beetroot, and their plight and reactions are hilarious. It starts fast and amps up the craziness the entire way through, featuring masked hunters, a serial bread thief wreaking small town havoc, and a super satisfying conclusion of all the plot lines. The movie also does something I love, which is when characters take drugs the movie’s visuals warp, distort, or otherwise become hallucinogenic—and while I don’t want to spoil the how or why, this movie does that with an awesome cinematographic trick for both a horror and comedy payoff. It’s amazing.
Also, as a random fact, The Simpsons’ writers liked it so much they did a shot-for-shot Bartification in one of the recent halloween episodes of the movie’s opener.
Recommended for: Fans of absurd comedy, people looking for comedy movies from horror premises, british comedy fans, and anyone looking for a fun, hidden gem.
Watch it on Amazon.
Indie Music Recommendations
Dance with the Dead
Genre: Dance, Electronic, Retrowave
Synopsis: Dance With The Dead is a synthwave duo, Justin Pointer and Tony Kim, who previously played in different metal bands. Their background comes across as a unique and killer blend of metal and synths inspired by John Carpenter horror.
Why I love this band: I’m a huge synthwave fan and could do an entire Indie Recommend Indie in the genre, but for this post, I want to focus on one of the premiere bands in this space, Dance with the Dead (DwtD). Their metal roots come across with great beats, melodies, and jamability for each song and album. This background gives them such a unique style in the Synthwave genre. A lot of dark synth has blaring or distorted electronic sounds, but DwtD doesn’t, using heavy guitar riffs instead which makes it way more listenable and just awesome. Their art-style is retro, horror-themed, and fun, but I find the music to be way more upbeat and diverse than the zombie-aesthetic album covers suggest (barring you think zombies are fun). I also love writing while listening to their work, each book in my cyberpunk series was heavily influenced by an album. Out of Body influenced The Last 0-Day, while Near Dark and The Shape influenced Adephon’s Rise. They even had a song (from the album The Shape) in the most recent season of Stranger Things!
Picking a favourite song’s hard, but here are three that tie into specific scenes within my cyberpunk series.
- Light Tone: Waves: https://dancewiththedead.bandcamp.com/track/waves
- Medium Tone: Her Ghost: https://dancewiththedead.bandcamp.com/track/her-ghost
- Heavy Tone: Scar: https://dancewiththedead.bandcamp.com/track/scar
Recommended for: Fans of synthwave, metal, dance, electronic, Stranger Things, John Carpenter, and people looking for no/reduced lyric music to write, read, exercise, or just rock out to.
Listen to it here.
RPWL (2000-Current)
Genre: Prog-Rock, Art-Rock, Rock
Recommend trying: The Gentle Art of Music (2010), a compilation album.
Synopsis: RPWL started as a Pink Floyd Cover band and after three years started writing their own music inspired by that era.
Why I love this band: RPWL plays across many genre-styles, instruments, and lyrical points, but it is a 10/10 for relaxing, chill, music. They started as a Pink Floyd cover band, which shows in tempo and aesthetic, but are more than that. They go more cosmic and introspective at the same time, think that feeling of when you stare at a starry sky and feel minuscule and connected to Earth. Also, many of us have listened to Pink Floyd a ton and RPWL will scratch that same itch while being novel and new. RPWL has a special place in my heart because I discovered them one winter on a trip from the frozen forests of rural Maine to a balmy San Diego. Finding a new band while travelling alone and just going through an entire discography was truly magical.
Also, any band that has a song where they make fun of themselves gets a listen from me.
The song that started me listening to them, Breathe In, Breath Out
Recommended for: Fans of Pink Floyd, Prog Rock, people who like diverse music/instruments coming from a singular band, and those looking for some relaxing music with lyrics.
Listen to it here.
Age of Aquarius by Villagers of an Ioannina City (2019)
Genre: Folk Rock/ Folk Prog Rock
Synopsis: Villagers of Ioannina City, one of the leading Greek heavy rock bands, comes from the mountains of Epirus. They are deeply influenced by Greek nature and cosmic phenomena and infuse their unique brand of heavy psychedelic rock with folk instruments such as bagpipes, flutes and, didgeridoo.
Why I love this album: I love folk rock and folk metal, something about the mix of old and new just slaps. This album takes me back to a moonlit night in an agora where I spilled wine on my toga and someone’s jamming on a bouzouki and an electric guitar for the polis. Intellectually, I understand that the music is modern and the replica instruments sound better than any ancient one could, but that doesn’t stop my brain from taking me back in time. Villager’s of an Ioannina City’s most recent album is a banger, taking every piece of their “influenced by greek nature and cosmic phenomena” logline and infusing it into the entire album. Like all awesome prog music, each song ties into the next, they’re long, and they take you on a journey. Some songs are chill and atmospheric, giving me real rainy night vibes. While other songs make you want to dance around a fire, screaming at the night sky. They also stay more on the path than most psychedelic rock, which is great. I can’t wait for their next album and am pumped that this one’s taking off.
Recommended for: Fans of TOOL, Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, and people looking for some jammable and soothing prog rock.
Listen here.
B.’s Book Spotlight
Adephon’s Rise
Cyberpunk, Published 2022
The Federation of Chinese City-States has known unrivalled peace and prosperity for generations. But as The Automated City of Chengdu goes dark, rumours swirl that the long peace is over.
Generals are always fighting the last war, and George Chen’s life is on the line because of it. Leading the tip-of-the-spear to Chengdu, George will need everything he has to survive a battle the world’s never seen before.
Nicholas Chen dives into the criminal underworld of Shanghai to decipher a software update that’s bricking everything with a microchip. Money and power beyond his wildest dreams are up for grabs—if he can fix the break and get out.
Zhifang Li works four jobs and her Vio Corp position is the worst. Conscripted into the Clover espionage unit, she’s in over her head. With the rumours of implanted people proving all too real, she’s to infiltrate a rival company’s most secure databank, or die trying.
Adephon’s Rise is an action-packed techno-thriller on cybernetics, war, and corporate espionage. It’s a cyberpunk Malazan Book of the Fallen.
In book two of the Banned Algorithm Library, the Clovers get upgraded, and Weaver’s cousin, Adephon, rears its head—changing the world forever.
Find the book on Amazon, Goodreads and IndieStoryGeek.
Readers who enjoy cyberpunk, military SF, dystopian settings, AI-characters, The Malazan Series, Stephen King’s prose, or Cloud Atlas, will like the book. If you like a good R-rated sci-fi action movie with snappy dialogue, you’ll love B.’s work.
This book is a follow up to The Last 0-Day and ties into many events in the first book, but can be read independently of the first one as it has new characters and takes place in China.
Bethany’s books are available on Amazon. You can learn more about her on her website and Twitter. If you would like review copies or wish to connect with her via email, her address is brrussell.media@gmail.com. Sign up for her mailing list here. The current bonus is a free copy of her heist-horror novel, Things Long Buried, and entry to win a free paperback of The Last 0-Day, Adephon’s Rise, or the audiobook version of The Last 0-Day. People on the mailing list also get early access and pre-order discounts on all future books.
Have you heard of the artists above? Share your indie recommendations in the comments or let me know if you wan to be featured.
If you are an indie or small press author who is an avid follower of indie works, be it books, music, art, anything, and wants to be featured, sign up using the form on the Indie Recommends Indie home page. This is a fantastic way to bring attention to fellow indie artists as well as your own book/work. 🙂
Banner Photo of library by Alfons Morales on Unsplash
Ooh, what fun to find film recommendations on your blog, Kriti. Love the sound of The Guest and I reckon my 17 y o horror fan will appreciate Get Duked! Thanks to B. And happy holidays to you.
I hope you and your 17 yo have fun watching these over the break. Happy holidays, Angela! 🙂