Thursday, August 29, 2013

HORRIBLE MESS "CONCRETE AND CLAY" CDr (AOW 127)

Numbingly dense and churning new recording from HNW iconoclast Horrible Mess, a deeply mesmerizing suite of pieces that veers close to the "immobile stagnancy" aesthetics of ANW without sacrificing any of the expected severity and anguish.  Naturalistic and unfettered, completely unadorned with the standard theatricality and violent posturing of a lot of current HNW, "Concrete and Clay" stands as an incredibly focused and intellectual work from one of the genre's quiet masters.  The five pieces here show off an enormous range in shades of grey, brown, and black, a construct composed of layer after layer of pummeled sediment and compacted aggression.  For me the point here isn't so much abrasiveness and pointless electric intensity as it is a subdued invitation to recede and meld, to dissolve oneself into the physical being of the earth, to begin to realize the utter insignificance of your presence here when weighed against the infinity of nature.  Horrible Mess have achieved a remarkable meditative state throughout this record, one that will awaken you and pull you deeper into an oceanic lull, a gentle expanse that destroys by eclipse.
Altar Of Waste is pleased to present this catalogue of rust and nullification, a truly massive and suffocating work.  If drowning is indeed the most peaceful and dreamlike delivery unto death, then this record is a lake of inky black water, its waves growing ever more tidal, beckoning you out to where the shore meets the sky.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 20 hand-numbered copies.  $10 ppd. in the United States, $22 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

NIGHTTIME IN THE ABYSS "PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ABOMINATIONS" CDr (AOW 129)

An unnerving new recording from Satanic nether-entity Nighttime In The Abyss, a horrific grand guignol that treads all manner of sonic ground from death ambient to blackened drone, from scathing PE entropy to heavenly choirlike ululations offered up to a bitter and empty sky.  Nighttime In The Abyss is rapidly becoming one of my favorite projects, ultimately uncategorizable and beholden to no particular noise subsection but instead incredibly well-versed in a multitude of genres and ambitious enough to marry them in consistently unholy and ritualistic cacophonies.  NITA orchestrator Alocer Christus is a master at blending and layering sounds while infecting them with raw emotion, and "People For the Ethical Treatment of Abominations" stands as testament to his increasing reach and vision within the standard confines of noise.  Crackling electronics and tormented drones insinuate themselves into a mixture of voice recordings and samples, creating something both strangely beautiful and sickeningly eerie, a sort of Lynchian approach to the minimal work of Arvo Part or a more ragged version of Hermann Nitsch.  Incredibly impressive soundscaping from a project that just keeps surpassing itself.
Altar Of Waste is honored to send out another missive from the endless growing black, a transmission from the ghostly void and the voices choking beneath the dirt.  Rot and decay, ascension and transcendence.  The work continues.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 15 hand-numbered copies.  $10 ppd. in the United States, $22 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

CORY STRAND/LETHE "THEY ONLY SEE THIS ONE SIDE" CDr (NO CATALOGUE NUMBER/UNOFFICIAL RELEASE)

A collection of recordings I was preparing for the album that ultimately became "Three Pieces For Lindsay" (recently released on Occult Supremacy Productions), "They Only See This One Side" serves as sort of an unrealized proto-version of what that album might have been had I decided to stay with the chosen source material (Lindsay's song "Rumors") rather than create my own, as I ended up doing.  This release falls pretty squarely in the noise category, although it does have its prettier and more desolate moments as well (though even those have a sort of ANW feel to them.)  The Lethe piece was created especially for this release as a sort of comment on the work I've done with Miss Lohan as well as an indication of the direction I'm proceeding in with Lethe, a massive empty drone crafted out of one of Lindsay's statements before a judge regarding her missed rehab appointments.  All in all, 73 minutes of alternate universe starlet obsession.
In keeping with the "experimental" nature of this particular recording I have opted not to release it on AOW but present it instead as its own entity, packaged quite differently than usual.  Released in an edition of 5 copies, unnumbered, in a handmade digipack with paste-on covers and artwork.  $8 ppd. in the United States, $20 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

Monday, August 19, 2013

CORY STRAND "THE BLING RING: A REINTERPRETATION" 6CDr SET (WITH BONUS CD AND LIMITED ART PRINTS) (AOW 125)

Sofia Coppola is one of my very favorite directors and I've long wanted to work with one of her films.  Few filmmakers have so perfectly diagnosed and illustrated the utter vacuousness, banality, and tired sadnesses permeating the heart of modernity.  The Bling Ring may be her best work in this regard, an absolutely amazing depiction of youth culture and celebrity obsession existing at the very end of self-consciousness, where definition becomes a matter of the shit you've stolen and the fantasy clothing you wrap yourself in.  Alternating between nights of pointless, empty partying and self-aggrandizing and late-night parades through the homes and closets of celebrities too remote to lock the doors to their vast expanses of material possessions, Coppola maps out a philosophy of entitlement and consumerism that betrays the growing disaffection of young people as we stagger towards the end of culture.
In working with the soundtrack I have tried to mirror the film's pacing, with the first three discs being the more aggressive and flashy of the set.  Massive psychedelic walls of screaming noise combine with washed out club bangers and crushing percussion loops, creating a numbing repetitive sort of "dance noise" that crumbles and glitters simultaneously.  The last three discs retreat into psychic oblivion, with frigid washes of empty graying ambient mirrored by caustic HNW of the emptiest sort, all struggling to eradicate a sort of sickly sweet loveliness stinking of illusory nostalgiah and connection.  I feel i have done a successful job in interpreting Coppola's thematics and this set stands as a personal favorite amongst my works, reveling in a mass of new sounds and techniques while existing well within the defined confines of my projects.
For this release my girlfriend Gina Newman created a set of 10 art prints to accompany the record, focusing on the items stolen by the Bling Ring and the celebrities they stole those items from.  The pieces are very striking, clean and detail oriented, a hallmark of Gina's meticulous work.  Signed and numbered by the artist herself, each set comes with two of the original (one item and one celebrity) prints plus a smaller facsimile set of the entire run.  The originals are suitable for framing if you like. 
Also included is a bonus disc created by me using dialogue from the film, a chilly excursion into nothingness that stands as a fitting closer to a film ultimately about the waste and hollowness growing rancid at the bottom of the cultural pool.
Packaged in a twin DVD case with the artworks sent along in a clear plastic bag.  Released in a very limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $45 ppd. in the United States, $57 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

NECRONOM IV "PROMETHEUS" 4CDr (AOW 118)

The follow up to "From Malice, From Nothingness" finds Necronom IV still exploring the mythology of Ridley Scott's Prometheus, this time trading the cold and infinite echoes of space for the nightmare tone baths of pure claustrophobia and the numbing growth of the void.  The four pieces found on "Prometheus" show the project reaching back to its inception, awash in the majesty of stagnation and eternity, with glacially unfolding waves of sound that seem to neither change nor evolve but instead simply exist, oozing towards an end they are utterly indifferent to.  The illusion of intellectualization and the human capacity for curiousity will become folly, welcoming the embrace of death and the ultimate nullification of self-conception.  Everything is a construct, an architecture of imprisonment that stretches across the breadth of a universe.  Take no comfort and tremble in fear.
Altar Of Waste is pleased to release this continuing engagement with one of science fiction's most malleable and well-mapped out mythological spaces.  All you will find is darkness.  Packaged in a DVD case and released in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $20 ppd. in the United States, $32 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

Friday, August 2, 2013

ATARAXY AND DEATH FREES EVERY SOUL "SODOM AND GOMORRAH" CDr (AOW 124)

A massive split/collaborative release from Ataraxy and Death Frees Every Soul imagining the Biblical warning of Sodom and Gomorrah through sonic devastation, a desolate crawl through incredibly weighty bass textures and severely static forms of wall-making that bring to mind both the moral decadence and the lustful gratification that brought a city to flame.  The sounds here are appropriately apocalyptic and monstrous, easily suggesting the raging vengeance thrown down by a God affronted by the wanton lasciviousness of His wretched creations.
Each project offers up a solo track and then unites for a brutally kaleidoscopic collaboration that feels like it's living in the very heart of the conflagration that tore a city to the ground.  God's unwavering eye sees all beneath His domain.  Running only prolongs the suffering.  Submit, and repent.  For eternity.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 30 hand-numbered copies.  $10 ppd. in the United States, $22 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

MONUMENTS ARE NO GOOD TO THE DEAD "EARTH'S HUM, VOL. II" CDr (AOW 123)

The second volume of an ongoing five-volume project dedicated to the HUM, Monuments Are No Good To The Dead's "Earth's Hum, Vol. II" is a devastating suite of mid-range static abuse and perfectly engineered walls of crunchy belligerence, staking claim in a space that I've heard few HNW acts work in before.  The sounds here are jagged and knifelike, crumbling shards of mountain raining across a lightning-stained sky, falling into ravaged pockets of distressed and choking soil.  The song of the earth is diseased and loping towards inconsequence, forgettability.  Soon there will be naught but ash but before that great blank there shall be a reaping, a vision of scythes in the sky brought to life in full bloody and visceral exposition.  Grind yourself into dust and ferment deep in the earth.
Based on a very real and haunting natural phenomena, MANGTTD's project gives voice to the death knells of a planet.  More details on the project are available here:

http://mangttd.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-release-announcement.html

Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 15 hand-numbered copies.  $10 ppd. in the United States, $22 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

STATIC GOAT "MENTAL CASTRATION" 2CDr (AOW 122)

A physical release of the compilation album originally released by Dipsomaniac Records, Static Goat's "Mental Castration" is a wasted electric head trip of the mightiest order, a tour through the obsessive psyche that disturbs and disorients as much as it truly and utterly basks in the hopelessness of improvement as a concept for continued existence.  This is a massively psychedelic and ripping auditory experience that will eviscerate you through a maddening employment of textures and hypertextures shattering off of one another, creating a total maelstrom of anxiety and dysfunction.  Wading far into the outer spaces of the HNW pool, "Mental Castration" gleefully chokes on its own vomit and licks the remnants up from the waves.  It's total neon laser damage in the most exuberant and aggressive way possible with a seriously expansive palette of sounds anchoring it to a scorched earth.  This is an intense fucking mind spiral and it will take you deeeeeeeeeeeep.
Altar Of Waste is pleased to delve into this portrait of recessed consciousness.  Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 15 hand-numbered copies.  $15 ppd. in the United States, $27 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

UPCOMING RELEASES

Just a quick update to let you know what's on the horizon.  All dates are tentative but I will do my best to get these things out within the time frames listed.

AUGUST:
STATIC GOAT "MENTAL CASTRATION" 2CD
MONUMENTS ARE NO GOOD TO THE DEAD "EARTH'S HUM, VOL. II" CD
ATARAXY AND DEATH FREES EVERY SOUL "SODOM AND GOMORRAH" CD
NECRONOM IV "PROMETHEUS" 4CD
CORY STRAND "THE BLING RING: A REINTERPRETATION" 6CD

SEPTEMBER:
ANONYMOUS "ANTIETAM" 6CD
HORRIBLE MESS "CONCRETE AND CLAY" CD
STATIC GOAT/GNASHING OF TEETH "NIGHTHYMNS" CD
NIGHTTIME IN THE ABYSS "PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ABOMINATIONS" CD
THE DEAD END STREET BAND "SONGS OF AIWASS" CD
ANTISOCIAL BLOCK/PHANTOM CADAVER/THE SLEEPING QUARTER "SPLIT" CD

OCTOBER:
LETHE "TOWER OF SORROW: COLLECTED RECORDINGS" 3CD
CORY STRAND "HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX: A REINTERPRETATION" 10CD BOX SET
YOG-SOTHOTH "EXTRAORDINARILY MAGICKAL" 2CD
YOG-SOTHOTH "III" CD
YOG-SOTHOTH "APRIL 2010 DEMO" CD
NORTHUMBRIA "ALL DAYS BEGIN AS NIGHT" CD

THE FUTURE:
CROWN OF BONE/RITUAL STANCE/EARTHENWOMB "SPLIT" CD
CORY STRAND AND CROWN OF BONE "NIGHTBREED" (this may come out on Occult Supremacy depending on what Dustin and I end up with)
CORY STRAND "SE7EN: A REINTERPRETATION" 6CD
CORY STRAND "FROM BEYOND: A REINTERPRETATION" 3CD
NIGHTTIME IN THE ABYSS BOX SET
"BLUE VELVET" COMPILATION BOX SET (very much aways in the future)
ALOCER CHRISTUS 2CD
VENOWL AND AUDITOR "ACID REVEALING OPEN WOUNDS" 2CD
GNASHING OF TEETH CD