Always Wrong
(Hospital - HOS245) CD $16.50 (Out-of-stock)
(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.
Black Dice / Wolf Eyes
(Fusetron) Used LP $8.00 (Out-of-stock)
A collaborative album from these two WMD specialists, recorded with fury, revenge, lust, and danger in their blackened hearts. An EQ-jacked rocket blast of dude-fueled, beer-drenched, and smoke-choked volumania for fans of total onslaught everywhere.
Dog Jaw
(Heresee) LP $15.00 (Out-of-stock)
A vinyl reissue of the limited CDR recorded before Aaron Dilloway left the band, mixed by Twig Harper of Nautical Almanac at the WE studio. One side plays at 33, the other at 45. Packaged in screen printed sleeves and pressed in an edition of 600 copies.
No Answer : Lower Floors
(Destijl - IND164) CD $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
(Destijl - IND164) LP $18.00 (Out-of-stock)
There is no denying the homemade nuclear war Wolf Eyes has declared on music. Birthed in the shadows of late-’90s Michigan by Nate Young, Aaron Dilloway and John Olson, they’ve grown beyond a band into a collective mutant ensemble, an art abstraction unit: musicians, print makers, photographers and more, all sharing a primal vision of decoding the wilderness of the humanoid soul using their deep audio arsenals. No Answer : Lower Floors covers all bases: tough to toughest to tangled. The vocals, delays, primitive electronics, woodwinds and raw guitar of newest member James Baljo create a new destroyed space to crawl through. The usually two-dimensional flatness of the drums and electronics creeps with new brightness-life within the hollow echo acoustics of the sacred space’s cinder prisons, their underworld of odd melodies and mangled harmonics. Within their system-based economic compositions, there remains zero room for wasted space. The whole record is less internal misery and more colorful, if of a “could be life on Mars” zone more than rainbows and daisies. With former members Aaron Dilloway and Mike Connelly.
Slicer
(Hanson - HN100) CD $11.00
(Orion Read) Used LP $10.00 (Out-of-stock)
Deep stuttering bass, high streams of electronics, rugged tape manipulation, horns, glass — just an enormous spectrum of sound. The calm intensity of John Olson, Nate Young and Aaron Dilloway’s wildly bizarre sonic experiments and masterful compositional moves contain some of the most minimal programming in their catalog while the editing and mastering are nothing short of inspired.
FAILING LIGHTS / SPYKES / WOLF EYES / NATE YOUNG
Solo
(Troubleman - TR0182) Used 2xLP $17.00
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. Sealed.
There Is A Part Of Me You Will Never Know
(Hospital - HOS209) LP $16.75 (Out-of-stock)
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.