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LP
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IDEAL 050LP
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Wolf Eyes' Nate Young's Regression series has provided some of the most compelling dread-electronics spewed out by the North American underground in years, with instalments released by Demdike Stare's DDS label and Aaron Dilloway's Hanson, as well as NNA Tapes and others. It all began back in 2009 with this first volume issued by Joachim Nordwall's Ideal label, an incredible set that's now being released on vinyl here for the first time ever. Young is one of those artists whose output is instantly recognizable, his take on primitive electronics is both innovative and unnerving, and in recent years has really dominated the stylistic direction pursued by Wolf Eyes. It's a kind of creaky, bare-boned deconstruction of classic horror scoring jolted by noise and industrial motifs, sounding somewhere between Demdike Stare's early work, John Carpenter, and Mica Levi's by-now-classic soundtrack to Under The Skin (2014). You could neither classify Regression as a noise record nor an ambient one, instead the synth dissections and tape treatments more closely reference early electronic music. "Trapped" offers little of the claustrophobia suggested by its title, although the continual woody knocking sounds and filthy oscillations do engender a sense of unease, while "Dread" brings to mind the Desmond Briscoe soundtrack to Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape (1972). "Under The Skin" returns to the more esoteric, intangible sound designs that characterized the album's opening, writhing around in a spluttering, tactile fashion that's at once sonically rather beautiful but deeply sinister, modulating through grisly synthesizer gestures while more textural, percussive sounds flood through dub-style tape delays. Young has an uncanny ability to make sonic extremes sound incredibly seductive, and this volume is perhaps the most engrossing exposition of that unique ability. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering. Edition of 500.
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2LP
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DDS 007LP
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Avowed Nate Young fiends Demdike Stare have trapped the Wolf Eyes lynchpin's stunning third Regression volume for a necessary vinyl edition on their eponymous label. Other Days represents Young's most labyrinthine incursion into the nether zone between waking life and nightmarish, cryptographic noise. The recordings stem from an exhibition of lathe-cut etchings and paintings by Young and his wife, Alivia Zivich, installed at Tokyo's Haus Gallery. The process involved designing original images for 22 8" x 8" pieces of acrylic, which in turn inspired 22 audio compositions which were then lathe-cut into the acrylic. The process of lathe-cutting transformed the audio itself, and vice-versa with the original images, resulting in a constant mutation between sound and image with no end in sight. The process ended abruptly, with Young and Zivich surrendering to rest or sleep. In key with the rest of the series, Regression Vol. 3 (Other Days) irreversibly ruptures or at least corrupts the liminal boundaries of its infected victims with Lynch-ian aptitude. Dragged down to Young's beta pitch we become petrified, sleep-paralyzed witnesses to possessed hallucinations. His drums and tape-stretched drones land in time-dilating polymetric patterns, again uncannily recalling the timbre of vintage Photek drums -- struck objects, metallic gongs and loose-skinned bass -- only strung-out like the sounds of morphine-dosed poltergeist and caterwauling harpies. We could say the secret lies in his sense of deferred anticipation, but then it wouldn't be a secret, yet there's something so ill and unquantifiable about his sense of timing that's just dangerously affective. Last copies...
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LP
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NNA 059LP
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"Over the past few years, iconic noise artist Nate Young has been carefully crafting his own signature solo sound, as evidenced through his progressive recordings and performances with American experimental music staples such as Wolf Eyes, Stare Case, Demons, and Moon Pool & Dead Band. Regression 'Blinding Confusion' enters a new era, retaining the techniques and studies from his previous work and raising them to new levels. Intense compositional building and structure seep through each track, traversing new ground melodically while still upholding Nate's patented over-bearing weight of dread and slow-burning darkness at all the right moments. Deep, percussive brutality and pulsing neurosis mesh with somber burial hymns, held together by Young's technical prowess and mastery of his chosen gear. Each frequency is given its own unique role and characteristic voice, deeply chilled by the arid space of decay via tape manipulation/disintegration, howling its way through the grooves of the record like a cold wind of dead space that billows throughout, unrelenting. Atonal, morphing, and modulating bass lines pulse and plod their way through, like the unseen presence of the undead ascending a creaking stairway, leading upwards toward a nebulous void. This establishes a truly horrific atmosphere while honoring primitive technology, refined with a thick dose of originality." Includes digital download code.
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