Always Wrong
(Hospital - HOS245) CD $16.50
(Hospital - HOS245) LP $16.50 (Out-of-stock)
Always Wrong is a mantra of severity, coming forth from the piles of tape loops and effects, the bulk of tables reeling with electronics having been shed. This clarity does not sacrifice intensity. Wolf Eyes have crafted a statement with maturity that stands at the top of their mysterious discography. Young, Olson, and Connelly have been scouring audiences across the globe with acid-drenched industrial noise and dub terror psychedelia, establishing themselves as the trailblazers of a genre and pioneers of the long-form noise tour. This is the most organic of the full lengths, but also the harshest and most dissonant. “Cellar” immediately sets the pace of barraged edits and percussive electronics as startling vocals spit from the dry throat and remain unfiltered, breathing for the first time a clear litany of scorn. Throughout the album non-electronic beats created from live drums replace programming while colliding tape loops and junk metal bring the unstable rhythms of a house with eroding foundation. “Living Stone” shows a more natural state of acoustic composition, highlighting the despondent subtle plucking of controlled guitar improvisation that could come from nature’s ghost. Forge onward through “We All Hate You,” with its loud, tonal horns and architecturally placed electronics. “Broken Order” takes hold with shrill feedback fueling industrial cannon blasts of white hot noise that burn the body from the neck down. The closing track “Droll / Cut The Dog” is an eerie harmonica-driven death march straight out of Once Upon a Time in the West.
Beast
(Destijl - IND036) CD $12.75 (Out-of-stock)
Intergenerational discomfort rock performed together by two free-sound conglomerates -- the sprawling Portland, Oregon-based LAFMS progenitors Smegma, and the more compact Wolf Eyes. With cover art depicting crop circles, alien grave rubbings and cryptographs, and group portrait inside resembling a family reunion snapshot you might find at a thrift store, The Beast merges Richard Meltzer’s nasal meander, reptilian pulsations, exploratory tweakadelica, outsider improv, toys, devices, and electronic noises. Proof that old weird America is far from obsolete and more than capable of frying the fiendly skies.
FAILING LIGHTS / SPYKES / WOLF EYES / NATE YOUNG
Dead Hills
(Troubleman - TR0182) 2xLP $17.00 (Out-of-stock)
VInyl reissue of a double-cassette (Gods Of Tundra 2005). One solo side from each member of Wolf Eyes, plus one side by the band as a whole.
There Is A Part Of Me You Will Never Know
(Hospital - HOS209) LP $16.75
The first collaboration by these two legends is not haphazard but symbiotic; it reaches new places, this dark casket of scorched earth sounds, the remains of the cracks at the aftershock of discovery. Reminding us of the peaks in the artists’ catalogs, There Is A Part Of Me You Will Never Know processes the deepest sounds of four masters in haze of lone atmosphere and true noise. This is not not a terror shock, this is the end.
Wolf Eyes
(Bulb - BLB069) Used CD $8.00 (Out-of-stock)
An early Wolf Eyes artefact, from a pre-glam era when it was owned and operated by the duo of Aaron Dilloway and Nathan Young. Loved for its knowing glances to Throbbing Gristle, admired for its Suicide innuendo, revered for its sinister, stripped down, lo-fi atmospheres.