Saturday, January 31, 2015

A WORD ABOUT PAYMENTS VIA STORENVY

PLEASE do NOT send payments to me via Stripe.  I do not have a Stripe account, and I am never going to have one.  If you send funds via Stripe, I will never receive them, and you will never receive your items.  I ONLY accept payment through Paypal.  That is it.  NO STRIPE.
Also, since I am in school again and working as well, I have very little free time-packages will now go out once a week, on Saturdays (it's the only free day I have!)  My apologies.

-Cory

BLUE VELVET: SHE WALKS CROOKED (AOW 216L)

She Walks Crooked's contribution to the "Blue Velvet" series sees the project working in its usual bass-driven, deep-texture HNW mode, adding in a bit of high-end psychedelic screech and sample manipulation to craft two 20 minute pieces of pure audio holocaust.  Super dense, overdriven, blown-out and hyper-destructive, this is an immersive and engulfing set that finds beauty in the caustic.  Scott is a huge Lynch fan, and this release shows it: dark as fuck and hypnotically punishing, bathed in beauty and the uncanny.
Packaged in a fold-over cover in a clear plastic bag, in a limited edition of 10 hand-numbered copies.  $7 ppd. in the United States, $20 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

BLUE VELVET: (A)SEX (AOW216K)

(A)Sex's contribution to the series is perhaps the most psychedelic and insane of the bunch thus far, 30 minutes of incredibly severe constantly changing distortion tones and textures that reflect Frank's fractured state of mind.  I can't really even describe the flow of the pieces, because they're so demarcated and deconstructed-but rest assured, they're noisey as fuck, massively intense, and epically destructive.  This is the sort of rapid fire HNW/noise that I absolutely love, definitely in touch with old masters (Merzbow, Masonna, etc.)  A high point in the series, for sure!
Packaged in a fold-over cover in a clear plastic bag, in a limited edition of 10 hand-numbered copies.  $7 ppd. in the United States, $20 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

BLUE VELVET: SEGMENT AURA (AOW 216J)

Segment Aura's contribution to the "Blue Velvet" series is a serious audio destroyer, crafted from samples of the film's audio and built into three towering compositions of crumbling, incredibly bass-heavy death static.  The tones used throughout the three pieces are incredibly disorienting; at times the intensity of them makes it feel like your brain is in a vice, getting squeezed out through your ears (in the best possible way.)  Seriously deep, cavernous, horrific HNW, the film's incredible psychic violence writ into audio.  Just fucking massive!
Packaged in a fold-over cover in a clear plastic bag, in a limited edition of 10 hand-numbered copies.  $7 ppd. in the United States, $20 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com 

BLUE VELVET: LETHE (AOW 216I)

My infrequent project Lethe offers up two dark, anxious swathes of ambience created from the piece "Frank Returns," highlighting the film's overarching sense of menace and dread, the threat of violence and deviancy hidden beneath the veneer of normalcy.  If my own contribution to the series was a celebration of beauty, then this release is its evil twin, a descent into the nightmarish void of Lumberton's underbelly.  Glacial uberdrone for severely uneasy listening.
Packaged in a fold-over cover in a clear plastic bag, in a limited edition of 10 hand-numbered copies.  $7 ppd. in the United States, $20 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

BLUE VELVET: CORY STRAND (AOW 216H)

My own contribution to the "Blue Velvet" series finds me reworking the epic song "Mysteries Of Love" into three different ambient compositions.  I didn't want to take away from any of the song's beauty, so the reworks traffic heavily in deep, Tim Hecker-style ambient effluvium, a gorgeous and yearning slow motion dredge through Jeffrey's growing fascination with Dorothy and the consuming obsession of sexual desire.  Just under an hour of sonorous, strained emotion and heavy bass textures.  These three pieces wash over you like an ocean of sorrow.
Packaged in a fold-over cover in a clear plastic bag, in a limited edition of 10 hand-numbered copies.  $7 ppd. in the United States, $20 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

BLUE VELVET: WET DREAM ASPHYXIATION (AOW 216G)

Wet Dream Asphyxiation's contribution to the "Blue Velvet" series is an extremely disturbing 20 minute excursion into the dark heart of the film, utilizing heavily manipulated samples of the film's audio and transforming them into a sweeping expanse of overblown, seething, ultra-creepy ANW-style severity.  Lots of different tones and textures here, plenty of detail to get lost in, and a healthy dose of the Lynchian atmosphere.  Another great release from the mighty WDA.
Packaged in a fold-over cover in clear plastic bags, in a limited edition of 10 hand-numbered copies.  $7 ppd. in the United States, $20 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

Thursday, January 15, 2015

CORY STRAND "INSOMNIA 1997 (ALTERNATE VERSION - TOTALITY)" DVD-R (AOW 266)

One of two companion pieces to my rework of Christopher Nolan's film Insomnia; this album takes the full audio of Erik Skjoldbaerg's original 1997 film and transforms it into a nebulous piece of ANW lurch.  Long a favorite film of mine since I first saw it back in 1998, Skjoldbaerg's Insomnia is a psychologically dense but physically empty study of the meeting palce between authority and cruelty, the enjoyment of punishment, the allure of psychopathy.  It is an extremely troubling and dark film, one that illuminates humankind's more provocative obsessional fantasies and propensity for brutal violence.
This second rework heads in a more nuanced and "ambient" noise direction.  Much of the distortion of the first version has been here stripped away, leaving a chorus of rumbles and echoes that mostly hum along but occasionally burble out into small-flare eruptions of bassy, dense textures.  More ANW than HNW, but still very much a "noise" album.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $15 ppd. in the United States, $28 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "INSOMNIA 1997 (TOTALITY)" DVD-R (AOW 265)

One of two companion pieces to my rework of Christopher Nolan's film Insomnia; this album takes the full audio of Erik Skjoldbaerg's original 1997 film and transforms it into a blistering onslaught of HNW severity.  Long a favorite film of mine since I first saw it back in 1998, Skjoldbaerg's Insomnia is a psychologically dense but physically empty study of the meeting palce between authority and cruelty, the enjoyment of punishment, the allure of psychopathy.  It is an extremely troubling and dark film, one that illuminates humankind's more provocative obsessional fantasies and propensity for brutal violence.
The rework of the audio of this first version heads in that direction: all rage, all anger, with a few moments of blurry respite and disorientation.  This is very hopefully an audio illustration of seething, brooding rage and self-doubt.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $15 ppd. in the United States, $28 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "INSOMNIA 2002 (TOTALITY)" DVD-R (AOW 264)

HNW rework of the full audio of what is easily Christopher Nolan's "misstep" film, his 2002 remake of Erik Skjoldbaerg's masterful 1997 feature Insomnia.  Skjoldbaerg's original film has long been one of my very favorites; Nolan's version removes all of the psychological complexity in favor of a morally reductive tale of simple right and wrong.  Gone are the shades of grey and the nuanced moments, instead replaced with Al Pacino's extremely hammy yet tired performance and Hilary Swank's marginalized voice of moral reason/outrage.  Robin Williams provides one of the film's worthwhile elements with his excellent and troubling performance; cinematographer Wally Pfister provides the other, imbuing Nolan's film with gigantic, achingly beautiful and dark landscapes that elevate the film to a level of majesty the narrative simply lacks.
In working with the audio here, I've sought to retain that feeling of immersion, in both an endless sort of darkness and within the spacious confines of a land that seems at once minute and infinite.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $15 ppd. in the United States, $28 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "THE PRESTIGE (TOTALITY)" DVD-R (AOW 263)

Psychedelic and labyrinthine HNW rework of the full audio of what is perhaps Christopher's Nolan's finest film, The Prestige.  A film that considers the philosophical implications beneath the meeting of magick, technology, and human emotion and fallibility, The Prestige finds beauty in cold precision and deft, manipulative illusion.
In working with the audio of the film, I have tried to retain the dynamics; the resulting piece is one that moves relentlessly, violently forward but occasionally gives way to moments of deep sludgy drone melodiousness.  A dark and complex piece of audio manipulation, one which will hopefully blur the line between the mundane and the transcendent.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $15 ppd. in the United States, $28 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "FOLLOWING (TOTALITY)" CDr (AOW 262)

HNW rework of the full audio of Christopher Nolan's debut feature, the noir-inflected paranoid double cross nightmare Following.  The film is a small masterpiece study of obsession, isolation, and loneliness, and the lengths to which a person will go to alleviate it.
In working with the audio I've gone for all out destruction (as I usually do on full film reworks); the result is a lean 70 minute deeply textured noise piece that goes through a wealth of tonal permutations and harmonic extremes, hopefully capturing the physical and emotional violence that forms the film's core.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $10 ppd. in the United States, $23 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

Friday, January 9, 2015

CORY STRAND "THE DARK KNIGHT: A REINTERPRETATION" 10CDr + DVDr (AOW 260)

Uberdense and thick deep drone rework of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's absolutely majestic score for Christopher Nolan's superb existential and moral inquiry, The Dark Knight.  I doubt I need to tell anyone how brilliant Nolan's second Batman film is; I doubt I need to tell anyone  Hans Zimmer writes scores that can really only be described as EPIC.  Just know that I have done my best to honor both the score and the film with this collection, a towering drone statement made for focused listening, through headphones, in isolation.
This is the second time I've worked with a Zimmer score (the first being The Thin Red Line, a personal favorite amongst my own works); since Zimmer's compositions have so much inherent emotion, I attempted to draw out their intensity and create drone pieces that reflect the film's epistemological and moral concerns.  This is very much music for personal contemplation: just as the film goes well beyond being a mere entertainment, instead becoming a jumping-off point for thoughts on modernity, free will, chance and randomness, violence, and culpability, so too does my rework of the score.  Some of these drones are almost impenetrably thick and extremely dark, others have melodies intact, albeit in a ghostly and disconnected sort of manner  They will hopefully take you deep into the film and beyond it - these drones are fucking oceanic.
Packaged as a triple volume set, with the first two volumes being the film's score reworked in drone mode, and the last volume being a DVD-R of the full audio of the film proper reworked into a massive slab of HNW/ANW/Power Ambient sludge (similar to the other "Totality" reworks I've done: Mulholland Drive, Dune, The Shining).  What's most interesting is how quiet Nolan's film is, furthering the idea that it's not about sturm und drang hyperkinetic wanton destruction as much as it is about existential thoughtfulness and consideration.  The "Totality" rework of the film audio reflects that, with lots of weird start/stops, softer ANW sections and faraway sounding gentle noise drones, and crushing surges of distorted sludge.  Really a very dynamic piece!
Released in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $85 ppd. in the United States, $98 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

Thursday, January 1, 2015

CORY STRAND "NOISE INTRUSION" CDr (AOW 259)

Companion volume to "Drone Intrusion."  This version eschews drone entirely and goes straight towards the HNW horizon-three towering pieces that seem unchanging and unrelenting in their violence.  More along the lines of my "Embryonic Death" release-this is all terror and rage and slicing Slayer logos into your arms and back with a knife.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $10 ppd. in the United States, $23 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "DRONE INTRUSION" CDr (AOW 258)

Deep and empty drones created out of Slayer's "Serenity In Murder" single, referencing the previous work I did with Slayer material in honor of Jeff Hanneman's passing.  I never really get tired of Slayer; they are the one band that has never let me down, and it's challenging to work with their music and interpret it in a different way.
"Drone Intrusion" is close to my "Reign In Drone" set from last year, in that it focuses on drawing out stagnancy and darkness from material that is incredibly hyperactive and extremely visceral in its rage.  Three massive pieces here, a meditation for the night.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $10 ppd. in the United States, $23 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "DUNE: A REINTERPRETATION" 10CDr + DVDr (AOW 257)

Massive and murky rework of Toto's (!!!) score for David Lynch's much-maligned film version of Frank Herbert's epic philosophical novel Dune.  I find Lynch's vision of the novel to be uniquely awesome and darkly fantastical, even taking into account the film's inherent inscrutability and narrative confusion.  Lynch's 12 hour preferred cut is a thing of Hollywood legend, right up there with von Stroheim's cut of Greed and Welles' original The Magnificent Andersons; as it stands, Lynch's Dune is very much one of those flawed masterpieces that makes you wonder (and hope that someday the original cut will be located and released!)
In working with Toto's score for the film (which dispenses entirely with their "pop" sound and instead focuses on synth drones and chilly atmospheres), I tried to preserve Lynch's darkness without sacrificing the score's more melodic and "romantic" moments.  Much of this material is incredibly frigid and empty, but buried beneath all the glacial murk are my usual assemblage of swirling melodies and yearning tones.
This set consists of the reworked score on 10 CDrs, plus a DVD-R of the entire audio of the film rendered out and manipulated into a towering suite of psychedelic HNW outer space operatic horror (for the rework of the film audio, I used the theatrical cut of the film as opposed to the slightly longer "extended" version for ease of manipulation-the big files get very taxing to work with!)  It's still a nearly 2 1/2 hour noise sojourn into the darker reaches.
Packaged as a triple volume DVD case set, with each of the three having their own unique artwork.  Released in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $85 ppd. in the United States, $98 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

BLATTELLA/WILLOWBROOK "SPLIT" CDr (AOW 231)

A short but extremely savage and textured double blast of noise from Blattella (Justin Manson, of Skjelver) and Willowbrook (Kenneth Parker, of GRST, Earthenwomb, etc.), united in anger on this uncompromising dose of focused severity.  Each project serves up an intense transmission of audio destruction, with Blattella's piece veering more towards the screeching, high-end psychedelic side of noise, while Willowbrook's piece tends more towards experimental atmospheres and shrieking feedback.  Neither piece is properly categorized as "wall" but both are incredibly punishing and demand attention.  Scathing shit, for sure.
Packaged in a DVD case and released in a limited edition of 15 hand-numbered copies.  $10 ppd. in the United States, $23 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com