All Are Guests In The House Of The Lord
(Hospital - HOS201) CD $13.50
The first collaboration between Prurient and Kevin Drumm is one of the darker records in either artist’s discography. Prurient (Dominick Fernow) has toiled in the fields of noise for over a decade and has developed an increasingly dynamic output incorporating darkly arranged synths. Using source sounds of intense tonal drones supplied by Drumm, the two create a haunted atmosphere that is far removed from noise, exploring minimal junctures, using field recordings and clean, patient vocals to lead the way. Subtle electronic textures combine with near-cinematic arrangements.
Imperial Distortion
(Hospital - HOS134) 2xCD $16.75
Where 2002’s Sheer Hellish Miasma took noise to a new level of near-impenetrable exactitude, Imperial Distortion is an altogether different beast. Kevin Drumm comes face to face with minimal drone music and confronts the genre by providing one of its absolute pinnacles at the forefront: movement. Drone music at its most concentrated and ably performed has build and depth. From the shadowy layers of soundtrack to ominous bell tones, from the almost ballad-esque elegance of tone and frequency as melodic portals to nowhere to the tension suggestive of anxiety that never truly dies, from lullaby ease to severity that eclipses the light, this is a work that commands intellectual and emotional commitment on the levels of the greatest works to come from this genre.
Imperial Horizon
(Hospital - HOS251) CD $14.00
Imperial Horizon examines sustained tone in greater depth than Drumm's previous Hospital benchmark, Imperial Distortion, stretching out minimalism to unreached heights of serene ambience. Lulling electronic drones slowly transform over the course of the hour-plus piece, echoing both an existential terror and Zen calm. Mutations grow so quietly, only the body opens to identify this change while the mind closes. The ephemeral and seeming lightness of the tones hang with taut balance in contrast to the method in which they are overlapped and rotated with deadly weight. How wildly divergent emotions rise, hover, and fall using so little is a mystery only Drumm can solve.
Impish Tyrant
(Dagda Hammer - DAGDA001) CD $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Remastered CD reissue of this 2004 burner, the debut release on Drumm's own label. Absolutely gnarly rectified cut-ups, up there with Sheer Hellish Miasma as one of the lofty peaks during his harsh investigation of full-bore guitar / synth / computer tactics.
Kevin Drumm
(Thin Wrist - TWLA) 2xLP $25.00
The elusive, fragmented and subtle tabletop guitar experiments on Drumm’s eponymous debut (released on CD by Perdition Plastics in 1997 and reissued on CD by the same label in 2009) straddle analogue noise and fractured Erstwhile-esque minimalism. The first six tracks feel like a surgical operation, or a vivisection of Drumm's instrument, an isolating of each conceivable component, draining its every sonority and splaying it across forty minutes of clinical abstraction. After six tracks of shadowy activity, a final seventeen-minute piece brings the album to an intense, droning conclusion, laying down strips of noisy signal interference that buzz and crackle as a single, continuous surge. Thin Wrist’s expanded 180-gram vinyl edition adds an entire side of previously unreleased music recorded during the same time as the original album. Digital download card included.
Necro Acoustic
(Pica Disk - PICA017) 5xCD $37.50
Lights Out (new album recorded 2006-2008); Malaise (reissue of limited-edition double-cassette [Hospital Productions, 2009]); Decrepit (previously unreleased material from 1998-1999, plus tracks from split LP with 2673 [Kitty Play, 2005] and the LP on Dilemma, 2008); No Edit (new album of prepared guitar material recorded in 2009); and Organ (first-time release of the 55-minute version of this track [believed for years to have been lost, recently discovered] previously released in edited form on Comedy [Moikai, 2000]). Solid box with gold print, individual CD-wallets and 24-page booklet.
Untitled
(Nihilist - NIHIL63) LP $22.50 (Out-of-stock) (Out-of-print)
Mania-inducing, heavy waves of suffocating bass frequencies with ripping and tearing, hissing and speaker destroying hellstorm. Recorded in Chicago in 2005. Cover art by Alex Decarli.