Spykes – The Deep End Test EP

Apart from putting the blog on hiatus for all this time, I also mainly abstained from looking at what other fine bloggers post, so I'm not sure if Bleak Bliss, who has been gracing us with the majority of American Tapes's catalog, has actually posted this - if they have, I'm sorry for stealing your thunder. In any case, here's John Olson doing his regular fried electronics. Track 4 is really cool evil noise. 2005 cdr on American Tapes.

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Stare Case – Two Moods For All Week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just one of the absolutely best Wolf Eyes-related release. Unrelenting cryptic noise/free jazz/ambient darkness. 2012 tape & 2 X cdr on American Tapes.

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Graveyards – Unmarked Graves

 

Too damn good to be true. John Olson on sax and noise, Ben Hall on drums, Hans Buetow on cello, free jazz/noise fuckery. 2010 cdr on Editions Brokenresearch.

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Wolf Eyes / Faceneck ‎– Split 10"

2010 10" on Faceneck.

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Demons ‎– Demons (Lathe 8")

2009 lathe cut 8" on Alt.Vinyl.

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Demons - Untitled loop tape

Years ago the blog Corrupted Delights (which seems not to be functioning, sadly) as well as Bleak Bliss had posted a untitled tape made by Demons (Nate Young/Wolf Eyes-Steve Kenney) which featured an endless loop repeating itself with various short durations. The sound of that loop was the most sinister and contaminated evil synth noise that someone could have ever vomited on this planet, and for a long time I used to play it to fall asleep. I played it when I was doing my army service sleeping a few hours between my guard duty, and I repeated it for many hours in the morning while I was writing my MA thesis, only to end up in the afternoon lying on the carpet feeling that my brain had become completely fried by studying and listening to this.

So, I decided to buy it for archive purposes as well as play it on my new ghettoblaster that I have in the kitchen, but I was slightly disappointed. Instead of that evil synth, there was a cool - on the one hand - but completely different loop - on the other. What I hear is a bass loop rising and falling, alternating with a weak pulsing throb. Yes, it's cool, sounds a little bit like sounds from Dawn of the Dead or Cannibal Holocaust in devouring scenes but it's not the demonic puke emitted from the bowels of Marvel's Blackheart (do you remember the epic arcade game Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter?). Contacting the seller, he said that he thinks that there must probably be different versions, which makes sense that I tested it on different tape decks to see if there was a problem with the one. I'm thinking of trying to buy another copy so that I might be lucky, but I guess I won't do so.

Therefore, I decided to post both versions, mine and the one posted by Corrupted Delights, for you to compare and tell me what you think has happened here.

2006 tape on AA Records.

My bass loop version

The Corrupted Delights synth horror version

Failing Lights / Demons / Graveyards ‎– Night Of The Lone Wolf Two

A 2007 live recording in Rochester and I love how these are three side-projects of the then-Wolf Eyes line-up (Nate Young-Demons, Mike Connely-Failing Lights, and John Olson-Graveyards) without Wolf Eyes performing. The highlights are the sinister noisebient of Demons and the dark-as-fuck free jazz/improv of Graveyards. 2007 tape on American Tapes.

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Demons - Opposition cdr

Another release for their Sick Llama tour, this contains more dense toxic psychedelic noise. 2010 cdr on AA Records.

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Demons ‎– In Between cdr

An awesome side project of Nate Young with Alivia Zivich and Steve Kenney playing psychedelic destroyed ambient/noise. This is cdr for their tour with Sick Llama and it contains five pieces of very deep space noise residing in the heads of zombies. 2010 cdr on AA Records.

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Ex-Graveyards ‎– 500 Echoes

John Olson's great free improv/minimal jazz project with Ben Hall and Hans Buetow under a slightly different moniker. Suffered reeds by Olson, drum/percussion caresses and chaos by Hall and double-bass drones by Buetow. 2007 cdr on Maim & Disfigure.

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Robert Turman & Aaron Dilloway - Split tape

This is like a precursor to their supreme collaboration on Blizzard. Turman's side is a cacophonous mix of inverted jazz and recorded speeches, while Dilloway performs a track of dictaphone splurge and gamelan-like dizziness. 2008 tape on Hanson.

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Wolf Eyes - Undertakers Part 1 tape

Shiiit this is dark and satanic. It sounds like they've been performing a ritual on fucked up drugs. 2003 tape on Since 1972.

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Universal Eyes (Universal Indians & Wolf Eyes) ‎– Four Variations On 'Artificial Society' cd

It was sad to hear that Jim Baljo is no longer a member of Wolf Eyes; his guitar terror was a great addition in recent Wolf Eyes albums; that said, Nate Young and John Olson still keep it real as a duo. In this new shit, they work together with Universal Indians, an early 90s group that featured John Olson, Aaron Dilloway and Gretchen Gonzales-Davidson, so in fact it's like Wolf Eyes together with Dilloway again plus an associate of theirs. Here they go even deeper into jazz territory, with Olson blasting awesome sax screams all over the place. Nate Young doesn't sing at all, but he is handling awesome terrifying electronics with Gonzales-Davidson, while Dilloway evokes some awesome heavy terror drones. Great improvisational music with a nice percussion touch and generous vibes of 1970s psychedelic kosmische music; as if you expected something less than awesome by these guys. 2018 cd on Lower Floor.

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John R. Olson - Solo Horn tape

No need to mention how talented and versatile as a musician John Olson is; this tape is just additional proof to that. Here he improvises on his wind instruments, doing raw recordings, sometimes in the outdoors (you can here children, birds etc.) and covering a range of moods from free jazz to solitary Middle-Eastern styles. Great stuff as always by Sound Holes, this time on tape in 2017.

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Nate Young - Regression cd

 

This should have been released in the late-1970s as a soundtrack to a horror movie. Unnerving and claustrophobic electronics made through mind-numbing loops and synths. What else could you expect by Nate Young, brothers and sisters? Originally released as a lathe laser disc in 2008, this is a cd rerelease by iDEAL Recordings.

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Robert Turman & Aaron Dilloway ‎– Blizzard

When Aaron Dilloway was stranded in Ohio during a snowstorm and couldn't get to Michigan, what more could he do than go to his neighbor Robert Turman's house and get down to record one of the most bleak records in recent times? I love listening to this when I wake up very early in the morning; it gives me a very good sense of misery before I go to work that actually calms me down and creates a sleepy effect that actually lifts up my mood. Totally evil and unemotional sounds of synth sub-bass along with unnerving lurking flutes coming out of the forest, this sounds like the perfect mix of Wolf Eyes and some sort of weird kosmische vibe, like Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh on some bad drugs, and also it wouldn't sound out of place as an alternative soundtrack to Twin Peaks. Originally released in 2009 by Dilloway's Hanson Records, this rip is from the 2016 Fabrica re-release.

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Wolf Eyes - Strange Days II 12"

After the incredibly bleak Undertow album this year, the Wolves return with this two-track vinyl that continues their descent into increasingly esoteric worlds. The first track is a combination of Throbbing Gristle-like electronic pulses and ritualistic swirling flutes. The second track is a duel between John Olson's sax and Jim Baljo's buzzsaw guitar that takes no prisoners. Perhaps the only thing missing from here is the lifeless vocals and unnerving lyrics that Nate Young has been offering us lately. 2017 12" on Lower Floor.

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Destroy Fascism - In Memory of Heather Heyer

 

In memory of Heather Heyer, the activist who was murdered by a worthless nazi worm in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the counterdemonstration against the white supremacist gathering, Wolf Eyes have brought out a free online release to support a funding campaign for Heather's family. Heather's death must serve as a reminder that as thousands and millions of militants and proletarians died in the fight to smash fascism and racism worldwide, apathy and individualism in the present society of indifference and consumerism are as dangerous as fascism itself, and that fascists will not be stopped by peaceful demonstrations and calls for political reform and parliamentary illusions that present one faction of imperialism (Democrats and their leaders) as progressive and democratic and Trump as the only problem, whereas the problem is capitalism and the exploitative system of labor and its political organization which is the nation-state. Fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia will be defeated only in the streets and only violently. Even though I live in another continent, I am in solidarity with all those people who go out to stem fascism and white supremacy from spreading in the US.

Smash fascists wherever you find them!

As this song says, "You must understand fascism profoundly, it will not die by itself - Smash it!"

Wolf Eyes' release is here

The funding campaign is here