CORY STRAND "ELECTRORETARD: A REINTERPRETATION" C50 (AOW 261)

A very special release.  This year I was invited to participate in another HNW tape swap: this tape is my contribution.  Since I don't actually own the hardware necessary to dub tapes, I had to send this out to be manufactured/professionally dubbed; it wasn't cheap (and since I had to order a larger minimum quantity than what I actually needed for the swap), and the organizer of this year's swap has graciously allowed me to offer the remainder of the tapes for sale through AOW, to offset the cost of manufacture.
So what is this tape?  It's an HNW rework to one of the Melvins' noisiest and (now rarest) releases, "Electroretard."  Released back in 2001 on Frank Kozik's now defunct and sorely missed label Man's Ruin Records, "Electroretard" found the Melvins in full-on experimental noise form for the record's majority, with their epic and glorious cover of the Wipers' "Youth Of America" standing as its centerpiece (one of my absolute favorite songs by the Melvins, hands down.)  This rework takes each "side" of the original recording and transforms them into huge swathes of psychedelicized HNW terror.  I love doing these swaps because it really lets me explore my own interests without worrying about reception; if you've enjoyed my previous Melvins reworks, you'll enjoy this one as well.
This is a normal bias C50 in a rubine red shell, with black and white artwork.  It is released in an unnumbered, undisclosed limitation.  $10 ppd. in the United States, $23 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "DEAD ALIVE (TOTALITY)" DVD-R (AOW 278)

Overloaded HNW rework of the full audio track to Peter Jackson's legendary zombie mindfuck, Dead Alive (also knows as Braindead, but since it was released here in the US as Dead Alive, i've decided to use that nomenclature.)  I'm hard-pressed to name a more gleefully disgusting or joyous dissection/re-envisoning of the zombie splatter film; Jackson's film is stripped of any pretense towards political consciousness (ala Romero) and instead traffics merely in gore upon bucket of gore, with a wink and nod and a healthy dose of severely black humour.  I don't really need to tell anyone about this film-I would dare surmise that almost everyone who frequents my label is familiar with this film (and if you aren't-rent it now!  You won't be disappointed.)
My rework is super psychedelic, colorful HNW, with lots of textures and tonalities.
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 "MEMORIES OF MURDER (TOTALITY)" DVD-R (AOW 277)

Subtle and eerie HNW rework of the full audio track to Bong Joon-ho's epic Lynchian police procedural Memories Of Murder.  The film is less about the bizarre killings committed by Korea's first serial murderer than it is about the psychic toll the investigation wreaks on the beleaguered detectives and the nation itself; its tone is unabashedly elegiac, even when the film finds itself wading into the dark waters of black humour.  A panoply of beautiful, epic landscape shots and haunting close-ups of violence, Bong's film stands alongside David Fincher's Zodiac and Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs as one of the finest cinematic deconstructions of serial murder investigation and the psychological damage it inflicts to anyone even remotely involved with it.  A tale of obsession and frustration, artfully rendered.
My rework seeks to push forward the idea of stagnancy and weariness that the film summons up; as such, this piece is more glacial and obstinate in its structure.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $15 pd. in the United States, $28 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET III: DREAM WARRIORS (TOTALITY)" DVD-R (AOW 276)

Assaulting and massively psychedelic HNW rework of the full audio track of my favorite film in the "Elm Street" series, A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors.  This was actually the first film of the series that I saw, when I was about 9 years old, and it scared the shit out of me.  My dad was not the sort to censor anything in our house, so he let me watch this one night on cable, and it gave me nightmares for weeks.  But there was something about it that i loved, too; the idea of being able to dream lucidly and become whatever you wanted to be within someone else's psychic framework was an idea that elevated the film to a level beyond mere horror, something more akin to a metaphysical discourse.
My rework of the audio is giallo noise at its best: all manner of shifts and melodies, courtesy of Angelo Badalamenti's beautiful score that plays in the film beneath the dialogue and screams.  This was a blast to make; if you enjoyed the A Nightmare on Elm Street double album i did for Occult Supremacy last year, then you'll enjoy this one as well.
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 CALL OF CTHULHU (TOTALITY)" CDr (AOW 274)

Punishing HNW rework of the full audio track to the HPL Society's beautiful silent film reimagining of Lovecraft's classic lynchpin story "The Call of Cthulhu."  Many Lovecraft fans (myself included) have long been disappointed by the majority of film adaptations culled from the author's work, especially ones that attempt to deal with the Cthulhu Mythos; the HPL Society's version is about the only adaptation that really does justice to both Lovecraft's visual sense and the sense of unknowable horror that his best tales traffic in.  Aside from Stuart Gordon's beloved Re-animator, I'm hard-pressed to think of another film that so beautifully captures the Lovecraftian aura.
My rework of the audio is interesting in that the film is silent, so what's getting manipulated is the soundtrack and few incidental noises that the film allows in.  As such, it plays like one of my soundtrack reworks, with buried wisps of melody and glacially shifting tonalities.  Harsh and lovely at once.
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 "L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (TOTALITY)" DVD-R (AOW 273)

Exhaustive and psychedelic HNW rework of the full audio track to Curtis Hanson's award-winning adaptation of James Ellroy's masterful L.A. mosaic L.A. Confidential.  A beautiful film that weaves together elements of classic Chandleresque labyrithine intrigue and good old-fashioned 1940's noir aestheticism, Hanson's film truncates Ellroy's book significantly but still manages to remain true to the torn and battered romantic heart of it.  L.A. Confidential is nothing if not a love story-between men, men and women, men and L.A., and men and women and history itself, with a healthy dose of tabloid sass thrown in for good measure.  Historical revisionism at its absolute best.  One of my very favorite films that I've long wanted to work with.
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 BLACK DAHLIA (TOTALITY)" DVD-R (AOW 272)

Crushing HNW rework of the full audio track to Brian De Palma's criminally underrated adaptation of James Ellroy's historical revisionist mindfuck The Black Dahlia.  Ellroy has long been one of my very favorite authors, and his version of one of history's most notorious unsolved murders is an epic paean to a Los Angeles of the past, romanticized and bloody.  De Palma's film treatment of the novel was critically reviled, but I thought it was an outstanding interpretation that sacrificed little of Ellroy's intent or aesthetic.  Synthesizing elements of Ellroy's novel, Steve Hodel's masterful Black Dahlia Avenger (which Ellroy himself has endorsed as being the most likely "true" solution to the case) and Mark Nelson and Sarah Hudson Bayliss' Exquisite Corpse: Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder, De Palma creates a mosaic of theories and images that go deep down into the rabbit hole of possibility; what emerges is a theory of the murder that merits as much attention as any of the aforementioned sources. 
My rework is caustic and violent, brooding and dark.  No respite here-just surrealistic assault and audio battery.
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

I LIKE YOU, GO HOME "IF IT WAS ME YOU WOULD HAVE IT BY NOW" CDr (AOW 271)

A compilation of various pieces recorded by depressive PE life-loathing project I Like You, Go Home, continuing along the heart-crushingly introspective and anxiety-inducing path of their AOW debut "I Secretly Love You."  Here anger and self-despair synthesize with one another into a scarring exorcism of scorn, regret, and disgust.  From start to finish, the album drags the listener through a muck of imprisoning reflections on mistakes made and hatreds nursed, an intense descent into a very damaged and aching psyche.  Sonically, it's an amazing mixture of cold keyboard drone, insane and desperate shrieking vocals, and HNW sludge explosions.  Frightening stuff for sure, beautiful in its harrowing disregard for niceties.
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 15 hand-numbered copies.  This was released for the project's February tour with Boar, so AOW only has a small handful of the pressing.  $10 ppd. in the United States, $23 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "DOGVILLE (TOTALITY)" DVD-R (AOW 270)

Massive and belligerent HNW manipulation of the real-time complete audio track of Lars Von Trier's brilliant deconstruction of American exceptionalism, Dogville.  One of my very favorite movies of all time, Von Trier's vision of the American sense of community is really an endorsement of the pessimistic philosophies of Saltus, Schopenhauer, Dostoevsky, and Ligotti, driving home the basic premise that people are shit and will take every opportunity to exploit one another and that life is ultimately miserable, base, and revolting-in a word, inhuman.  Just as the film is obvious but effective, so too is my treatment of the audio-this album is a crushing, completely assaulting mixture of brutal, stagnant HNW and veiled melodic movements, reveling in its own violence and cruelty but also inviting reflection within its illusions of non-movement.  Three hours of unending destruction and filth.  Revenge is the purest and most fulfilling form of catharsis.
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

ROADSIDE PICNIC "EXERCISES IN LIVING" CDr (AOW 269)

Second AOW release from the UK's Roadside Picnic, this time turning its attentions to the self-help books and audio cassettes written and recorded by Dame Joan Collins.  Across two shorter and distinctly different pieces, Collins' work is deconstructed, destroyed, and refashioned into both crushing blasts of dense, overloaded noise detritus and hypnotic, lulling, but ultimately disruptive sleep commands from Joan herself.  A seriously different sound from Roadside Picnic's previous AOW release, illustrating another of the many sound facets of this challenging and creative project.  Weird, psychedelic, crushing, and irreverent.
Packaged in a fold over cover in a clear plastic bag, in a limited edition of 15 hand-numbered copies.  $7 ppd. in the United States, $20 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

ECHOLALIAC "SYMPHONIC RAIN" 4CDr (AOW 268)

Official debut record from excellent new HNW project Echolaliac.  Drawing inspiration from Small Hours' seminal "Kingdom Hearts" release and my own soundtrack reinterpretation work, "Symphonic Rain" sees Echolaliac working with the OST and related elements of the visual novel game Symphonic Rain, creating an utterly immense, immersive, nuanced and majestic display of HNW dynamicism.  The various pieces on this beautifully exhaustive album work their way through an awesome variety of textures, tones, melodies, and moods; at turns aggressive and furious as well as yearning, restrained, and emotionally intense, the work here bears repeated listenings and deep, considerate exploration.  One of the most impressive, thoughtful, and well-constructed HNW records I've heard in a long while.  I'm very happy to be releasing this through AOW.
The album is available to stream (or purchase digitally) through Echolaliac's Bandcamp:

https://echolaliac.bandcamp.com/album/symphonic-rain

The physical version released by AOW is packaged in a DVD case, in a limited edition of 15 hand-numbered copies.  $20 ppd. in the United States, $33 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

THE EBONY TOWER "THE VIRGIN SUICIDES" 4CDr (AOW 267)

Bleak, crushing, and epic HNW from The Ebony Tower in honor of Jeffrey Eugenides' nostalgic and hallucinatory murk-dream of a novel The Virgin Suicides.  The tone here is considerably more aggressive and unrelenting than on "1Q84," The Ebony Tower's last release for AOW; "The Virgin Suicides" showcases a focus on truly immersive and destructive textures crafted to provoke intense consideration and meditation on the influence of modern culture and its insistence on affecting perception.  As usual with The Ebony Tower, there's a restless creative energy present and a willingness to go deep into source material and inspirations.  Each release I hear from this project just makes me love it more-so glad to continue releasing the work through AOW!
Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 10 hand-numbered copies.  $20 ppd. in the United States, $33 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com