CORY STRAND "HALLOWEEN: REVISITED" CDr (AOW 247)

Do i need to say anything?  It's Halloween, so here's another rework of John Carpenter's beloved score for the equally beloved film.  This one is the soundtrack as one unbroken track, transformed into a psychedelically charged piece of HNW horror-sculpting.  Enjoy, and happy Halloween!
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 "VERTIGO: A REINTERPRETATION" 5CDr (AOW 246)

Deep ambient reworking of Bernard Herrmann's masterful score for what is perhaps Hitch's finest film, "Vertigo."  I've been really enjoying working with these highly orchestral scores as of late; their flourishes and changes make for very interesting and emotionally resonant manipulations.  In working with this particular score, I wanted to keep the dread and anxiety in Herrmann's score present without sacrificing beauty; the pieces here are at once imbued with a crawling sort of nauseau as well as an inherent loveliness, a call from the ghostly past.  I'd put this somewhere between my Tim Hecker-type constructions ("Marie Antoinette," et al.) and my very stagnant drone works ("Escape From New York," etc.)  The class I'm taking on Hitch this semester has reawakened my love of his work, not least of which is the incredibly fertile period of collaboration with Herrmann.  A thing of beauty and foreboding.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $30 ppd. in the United States, $43 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com 

CORY STRAND "THE BIRDS: A REINTERPRETATION" 5CDr (AOW 245)

Another film that someone requested I work with.  The timing seemed right (it's Halloween, plus we've been working with this film quite a bit between my various film classes this semester) so i thought I'd give it a whirl.  Hitchcock fanatics will of course know that "The Birds" has no score, only diegetic music and a pummeling sound design; in working with the film, I opted to use the entire audio track directly, breaking it into two one-hour chunks for ease of manipulation (also enabling me to create audio CDs as opposed to a DVD-r.)  This five disc rework features two discs of crushing, psychedelic HNW and two discs of insanely cold and dreary death ambient, and a fifth disc of HNW created from the film's awesome credits sequence (the last disc may well be my favorite of the set, as it features very little manipulation other than distortions-for those familiar with the film, expect nothing less than avian HNW holocaust!)  This one was really fun to make, and I believe that joy comes out in the recordings.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $30 ppd. in the United States, $43 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

"THE WALKING DEAD: IMPRESSIONS" ART PRINT BY GINA NEWMAN

To raise money for our upcoming collaborative release "The Walking Dead: Impressions," my lady friend Gina has created an art print of the slipcase image that will adorn the 3xC60 set.  The original image was hand-drawn by Gina and cut into a wood block by her; each print is then created individually and inked by Gina on a heavy paper stock.  The prints are suitable for framing and measure about 4" x 7".  We're offering these because I don't have the means to dub cassettes and we're trying to raise some money to do so; to create this particular work we need to send the cassette out to be dubbed by a third party.  If you've purchased any of the Sofia Coppola reworks Gina and I have collaborated on, then you're familiar with her meticulous, clean black and white style.  These are really quite cool!
Released in an edition of 20 prints.  $7 ppd. in the United States, $20 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND " A WORLD WITHOUT FLOWERS" 2CDr (AOW 244)

All new double album set of Paris Hilton reworks, this time using large chunks of audio from her debut album.  The pieces here are severe and austere death drone, very minimal and stagnant, with a frigid melodic undercurrent that makes you think you're hearing things that may or may not be there.  Time freezing pop manipulations in honor of one of my favorite cultural touchstones.
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 "HNW '77" 3CDr (AOW 243)

A couple people expressed interest in hearing me rework the art piece "Tuning '77," an hour and a half megacut of the Grateful Dead doing nothing but tuning their instruments during their 1977 tour.  The original piece has a beautiful sort of atonal ambience to it, an epic slab of pointless drift that goes nowhere and takes a significant amount of time getting there.  For this rework, I chopped the original "Tuning '77" into three distinct sections and manipulated each in a slightly different way; the resultant 3CD set is a crushing journey into the outer reaches of beauty and narcissism.  If you enjoy my melodic, psychedelic HNW work, then this one is tailor-made for you.  There's some really lovely violence here.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $20 ppd. in the United States, $33 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "THE SHINING: ANCILLARIES, VOL. XI" DVD-R (AOW 241)

Absolutely epic rework/manipulation of the entire audio track of the film "The Shining."  A crushing 2.5 hour piece of dense, melodic, scathingly psychedelic HNW full of minute changes in tone and texture.  This is easily one of my best works as of late, a journey deep into the heart of Kubrick's film, unbroken and completely excessive.  Not for the faint of heart.  The length of this piece necessitated it being on a DVD-R; please note you will need to play this one via a computer.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $20 ppd. in the United States, $33 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "THE SHINING: ANCILLARIES, VOL. X" 5CDr (AOW 240)

Massive new set of HNW excursions into Wendy Carlos' masterful soundtrack for "The Shining."  For this set, I took my own reworks of the track "Rocky Mountains" and re-manipulated them, transforming the deep death ambient of the originals into thick, dense blasts of HNW uberdrone.  Stagnant and unrelenting, these five pieces reflect the violence inherent in the film, a call from the void pockets of the Overlook's forgotten past.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $30 ppd. in the United States, $43 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "VIDEODROME: A REINTERPRETATION" CDr + DVDr (AOW 239)

Immersive and mostly punishing rework of the soundtrack to David Cronenberg's technology and violence-fetishizing mindfuck Videodrome.  Howard Shore's score for this one may be quite short, but it remains wholly and creepily effective (it's easily one of my favorite scores from him); in working with the music I've tried to maintain both the claustrophobic and paranoid sense of dread and the explosive and skin-shredding aura of sexualized violence.  The soundtrack rework (disc one, the CDr) comes in two parts: a thick ambient/drone version and a nullifying HNW assault.  The second disc (the DVDr) is the full audio of the film, manipulated into a scathing and terrifying HNW nightmare.  Like the white noise of a VHS cassette ripping into your brain endlessly.  Long live the new flesh.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $20 ppd. in the United States, $33 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "REBECCA: A REASSEMBLY" 2CDr (AOW 238)

A companion album to my rework of Rebecca's score proper, a scathing double HNW assault constructed from various elements of Franz Waxman's elegiac score.  It just seemed wrong somehow to be reworking the score to a Hitchcock film and not creating any HNW out of it!
The two pieces here explore some of my different HNW guises: the first disc is the incredibly melodic, ripping psychedelic HNW that i'm most associated with and the second disc is some deep, darker sludgy HNW that approaches ANW type-textures.  Two epic compositions that embrace sensuality and violence.
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 "REBECCA: A REINTERPRETATION" 5CDr (AOW 237)

Taking a class on Hitchcock this semester has allowed me to revisit some of my favorites in his filmography and reacquaint myself with aspects of those works I had overlooked.  In the case of 1940's Rebecca (one of my very favorite Hitch films, alongside Notorious and Rear Window), that overlooked aspect was Franz Waxman's truly lovely, melancholy, and haunting score.  Hearing it again and meshing it to the film's imagery was incredibly inspiring.
My rework of the score is entirely drone and ambient, at times falling into the Tim Hecker-type blurgaze soundpool, creating grand, sensual pieces of intense emotional resonance; other pieces find the sounds given over more fully to death ambience and grey ambience, massive unbroken flows of expansive and engulfing tone.  The whole record has a ghostly feel that I think perfectly captures Rebecca's aura of eroticism, sensuality, sorrow, and sexual menace.  One of my best recent outings, truly.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $30 ppd. in the United States, $43 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "UNTITLED PIECES, VOL. III" 2CDr (AOW 236)

Third volume in my series of untitled/themeless sound recordings.  This one is a double album, with one disc given over to ambient drone manipulation and the second to full-on HNW speaker shredding.  Both pieces are crafted from the same source material.  The drone work here is quite lovely, evoking a feeling of emptiness and tedium but still suffused with vague melodies and a feeling of yearning.  The HNW piece is just straight up, unbridled, dense/crackly noise.
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