BLUE VELVET: DEJECTION (AOW 216V)

Dejection is a new project from me, focusing on minimal synthesizer ambience, modular synth improv psychedelia, and organic wall creation.  This contribution to the "Blue Velvet" series is Dejection's debut release and is certainly indebted to Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch's mournful, dark synthesizer compositions with just a twinge of Blue Velvet's melancholy and inky blackness.  The piece is meant to evoke Frank Booth's vision of Lumberton, a place of outlandish fantasy, violent sexualized deviance, and pure hedonism.  Deep, engulfing mourndrone meant for headphones and solitude.
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: BIG HOLE (AOW 216U)

I am very excited to offer another installment in the "Blue Velvet" series, this time from one of my favorite newer HNW projects: Big Hole.  Big Hole's contribution is a truly massive, dense, unrelenting monolith of fuzzed out wall torment and horror, deep and churning and slowly, torturously loping towards total collapse.  Working off an emotionally intense and enervating scene from the film, Big Hole creates a wall that stands up to Blue Velvet's aura of sexual severity and psychic violence, with a hint of mournful yearning.  Just a staggering wall from an incredibly focused project.
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

CORY STRAND "TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME - COMPLETE" 3CDr + BONUS CDr + DVD-R (AOW 63) (REISSUE)

In honor of the fantastic news regarding the new "Twin Peaks" series, I have reissued my long out of print rework of the "Fire Walk With Me" soundtrack, along with a wealth of bonus material.  This version features totally different artwork and two extra discs of music (a lengthy ambient rework of "The Nightingale" and an HNW "Totality" rework of the film's entire audio track.)  All told, over three hours of new sounds added to the original album, so even if you have the original release, this may be worth your time.  Here's my description of the OST rework:

I don't think I need to really explain my affinity for David Lynch.  Before Altar Of Waste I was making a series of Lynch inspired recordings as Lethe, and I'd like to think some of his aesthetic has carried over into the work I've done since.  "Fire Walk With Me: A Reinterpretation" takes as its source material the soundtrack to Lynch's woefully underrated Twin Peaks prequel film and attempts to map out the darker spaces hidden betwixt the gorgeously soothing melodies of Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch's masterful score.  Washes of hanging empty ambience are paired alongside severe walls of crumbling bass architecture, culminating in an evocation of violence so radiant it deadens the stars.  The surreal has been given leave to wreak its havoc on the wavering pockets of reality Lynch so effectively brought to light with his complex and bizarre series; the music here is my interpretation of some of that havoc.  The owls are not what they seem.

Packaged in a DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $35 ppd. in the United States, $48 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "THE EARLY ROMAN POLANSKI" 7 DVD-R SET (AOW 291)

Another large scale collection of "Totality" recordings centered around the work of another of my favorite directors, this time exploring the "early period" of auteristic pariah Roman Polanski.  Polanski's works speak to an omnipresent threat of darkness and disorder leveled against existence and modernity, highlighting the twin dangers of solipsism and human arrogance.  Though he has done magnificent work across the entirety of his lengthy career, for this set i have decided to focus on seven of Polanski's early features, culminating with 1974's legendary Chinatown.  The seven reworks here all head into some severe and bleak HNW territory, a brutal and texturally varied tour through psychedelic sound structures and imaginary towers of continuous psychological decline.  Films included: Knife in The Water, Repulsion, Cul-De-Sac, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Rosemary's Baby, Macbeth, and Chinatown.
Packaged as a seven album set, with each recording packaged separately in a DVD case with their own artwork (much like my "No One Ever Changes: The Films of Todd Solondz" set).  Released in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $95 ppd. in the United States, $108 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "HIGH OFF MY LOVE: THE COLLECTION" 8CDR SET (AOW 290)

A new Paris single means a new lengthy exploration from me, this time working off Miss Hilton's recently released "High Off My Love."  The single is considerably darker and even more overtly sexualized than is usual for Paris; consequently, my manipulations of the work head into some pretty caustic, violent, and blackened nightspaces.  Eight different remixes here, showcasing my varied approach to interpretation and pop deconstructionism: you get menacing Carpenter-esque slabs of death ambience, deep ocean drones, some massive and cruelly oppressive stagnant HNW, some shimmery beauty, and an overloaded, uber-metallized slog through the emptiness.  Some heavy shit here, for sure.
Packaged as 8 separate albums, each with their own fold over covers, all housed in a clear plastic bag with a larger fold over cover and an insert info card.  Released in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $ 50 ppd. in the United States, $63 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

BLUE VELVET: SEAN E. MATZUS (AOW 216T)

Sean E. Matzus' contribution to the "Blue Velvet" series finds him creating two massive, engulfing slabs of drifting HNW emptiness par excellence, a distant and oppressive tower of rumble and quake that threatens to overwhelm at any moment but never quite does, content to hang in a tense and calculated pocket of spacesound.  There is a sense of ambience here, but it is subordinate to the all-consuming and relentless drive of ANW-style glacial stagnancy, a forcible enmiring of the listener into the hidden recesses of sexual violence and overt friendliness that comprise Blue Velvet's diegesis.  Just crushing, in every way.
Packaged in a fold over cover in a clear plastic bag, released in an edition of 10 hand-numbered copies.  $7 ppd. in the United States, $20 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

BLUE VELVET: BODY STRESS (AOW 216S)

Body Stress's entry in the "Blue Velvet" series is an interesting and arresting take on HNW, veering into depressive ANW throughout the record's two pieces, but culminating in an overall emotional wipeout that belies the record's truncated runtime (about 22 minutes.)  The two walls here sound roaring, oceanic, and incredibly far away, as though beheld from a great distance; perhaps of time, perhaps of emotion.  Again, the power of nostalgiah that permeates Lynch's film haunts the compositions here too; the inherent darkness existing in the cracks of suburbia eventually begins to waft up into the beams of lurid sunshine.
Packaged in a fold over cover in a clear plastic bag, released 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 RAJA'S MESH MEN (AOW 216R)

A Raja's Mesh Men's entry in the "Blue Velvet" series comes in as a long form and impressively dynamic wall piece, working off of HNW's continued interest in intense duration combined with a texturally transformative approach that exists in the shadows of the modern HNW movement.  As the piece progresses and veers away from a pure power assault, the intensity of the wall begins to crumble away, becoming more forlorn and despondent, building towards an affective release of ache and anger at the composition's end.  A very masterful, shifting, expressive slab of wall from this young project.
Packaged in a fold over cover in a clear plastic bag, released 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: SEEING THROUGH BUILDINGS (AOW 216Q)

Seeing Through Buildings' entry in the "Blue Velvet" series is an incredibly intense three-piece suite that moves effortlessly from gargantuan, dense rumbling wall horror to all-out psychedelic, writhingly electric bursts of molten sound vomit, touching on HNW's staticism and fusing it to the noise ethos of the old Japanese masters.  Nothing stays in one place for too long across these three tracks; the listening experience is a chaotic one, totally violent and oppressive, but still grounded to a philosophy of belligerence and terror.
Packaged in a fold over cover in 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: DDM (AOW 216P)

A mass of seething, slithering creepy dark ambient noise from DDM for the 16th installment in AOW's ongoing "Blue Velvet" project.  DDM's work here evokes the dark and haunted nights of Lumberton, tormented by ghosts of violence and the continuously reverberating echoes of tainted nostalgia.  You are invited to both look closer and veer back in repulsion; such is the strength of the night and the inky shadows of a hidden grotesquerie.
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

ROADSIDE PICNIC AND PIRATEHAIRWAVES "STAR WARS: CHAOS THEORY" DOUBLE CASSETTE SET (c100 and c80) (AOW 284)

PLEASE NOTE: This is currently being offered as a PREORDER.  The first tape of the set has been sent out for manufacture; I am offering this as a preorder to help offset the cost of manufacturing the second cassette.  I expect the entire set to be finished and shipping towards the end of June/early July.

 Roadside Picnic's trilogy of AOW releases sees completion with this, an incredible work of cinematic sound manipulation and transformative sound art, created in collaboration with Piratehairwaves.  "Star Wars: Chaos Theory" is the audio component of an experimental film/gallery installation created by RP's Justin Wiggan and Piratehairwaves; the film is all six episodes of the "Star Wars" saga layered on top of one another and played as one film.  The result is deliriously psychedelic and at times hauntingly beautiful; for those interested, I have included a link that gives a deeper explanation of the project and its goals.
Justin and I back and forthed for awhile about the best way to present this release; we decided on a double cassette set, with artwork drawn from the entirety of the "Star Wars" saga.  for me, this release is less about "Star Wars" than it is about the wondrous possibilities inherent in the art of manipulation and transformation; in this regard, this release is very close to the heart of my mission with Altar Of Waste.  I am very happy to be releasing this!
Released in a limited edition of 20 hand-numbered copies, on colored cassettes.  $20 ppd. in the United States, $33 rest of world.

"Chaos Theory" explained: http://www.paxford.go-plus.net/chaos/

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "DEAD MAN: A REINTERPRETATION" 27 CDr + DVD-R SET (AOW 288)

Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man is my favorite film of all time (as much as any cinephile can have a "favorite" film.)  The first time I saw it, I was moved to tears by the potency of its imagery and  the poetic illustration of its metaphysical inquiries; I have seen it many, many times since and am never left unmoved by its power.  This is the film that made me want to study cinematography; this is one of a small handful of films that made me really want to become a filmmaker.  In Dead Man I see the potential of cinema as a true means of artistic expression, and as a means of communicating with something powerful and transcendent, in oneself and in the cosmos.
And of course, Neil Young's elegiac, exploratory, and haunted soundtrack is staggeringly beautiful.
I started working on this reinterpretation about a year and a half ago; at the time; i was not happy with the results-the pieces were too long, too directionless, lacking discipline and cohesion.  They did not do the film the justice I knew it deserved.  Fast forward many months, and I was struck by the way to approach it, late at night; it came to me like a flash of lightning in the mind, a beam of inspiration sent from somewhere outside of me. 
This is a different set for me in several ways.  The pieces here are shorter, ranging from 1.5 minutes to just over an hour in length (all told, the set features just over 7 hours of music.)  The style of presentation is meant to reflect my interest in Dead Man as an art object; I have selected some of my favorite images from the film and arranged them in a quasi-chronological manner, so you will get the experience of moving through time and purgatory with William Blake, with enough freedom to divert and explore if you so wish.  I put an enormous amount of work into this, and I believe I have done the film and its soundtrack justice.  This is easily one of the best releases I've created, and I could not be more proud of it.
The set includes my rework of the film's soundtrack in both ambient/drone and HNW modes; a "Totality" HNW rework of the film's entire audio track, and an original HNW piece crafted from disparate elements of the soundtrack.  Packaged in 15 separate double and single DVD cases, each with their own artwork, in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $150 ppd. in the United States, $163 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

CORY STRAND "FARGO: SEASON ONE" 10CDr SET (AOW 215)

Finally available, the stand-alone edition of my HNW rework of every episode of the first season of "Fargo."  As usual with my television/film reworks, I have utilized the full audio of each episode of "Fargo" and transformed them into towering, blizzarding storms of psychedelic HNW severity.  This beautiful stand-alone version of the record is packaged as 10 separate albums, each with its own unique and beautiful stark cover artwork created by my lady friend, Gina Newman.  Pessimism and nihilism have never looked so lovely, or sounded so unapologetically caustic.  I hope this will be worth the wait!
Released in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $110 ppd. in the United States, $123 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

MIDWICH "THE SWIFT" REISSUED ON CASSETTE BY INVISIBLE CITY RECORDS

Midwich's album "The Swift," originally released by AOW on CDr in an edition of 15 copies, has been reissued as a cassette by the fantastic English label Invisible City Records, in a much larger edition of 40 copies.  This album sold out very quickly through AOW; i suspect that some of the folks who missed it will be excited to learn it is available again, in a nice package featuring an all new layout.  I will be receiving a few copies of this myself and will offer them through the AOW store when they arrive, but for now you can purchase the record digitally or on cassette.  Invisible City is a fine label; they also just released a lovely cassette, "Watership Drowned," from AOW affiliate/recording artist Roadside Picnic.  Why not buy both?  There's a Culver tape as well!  Available here:

https://invisiblecityrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-swift

You can read Rob's (Midwich) words about the reissue here:

https://radiofreemidwich.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/screaming-party-above-invisible-city-the-swift-by-midwich-reissued/

CORY STRAND "REIGN IN DRONE" 10CDr SET (SECOND PRESSING) (AOW 89)

A repress of my long out of print (and oft requested) "Reign In Drone" set from 2013.  This version comes with all new artwork, but beyond that, everything is the same-no bonus tracks or anything (and this version does not include the Slayer bootlegs that accompanied the first pressing, hence the lower price).  Only order if a) you don't have this already; b) you are an AOW completist and want the new artwork.  Here's the info about this recording:

The second of my tributes to Jeff Hanneman, "Reign In Drone" is a monumental ambient rework of Slayer's classic "Reign In Blood."  I feel like people will either love this or hate it, but for me, I think it's an incredibly massive statement that plays off the original album's severity but in an entirely different format.  In a certain way, "Reign In Blood" was all about intensity and saturation, its short runtime doing little to indicate how exhausting and caustic of a record it actually was.  It doesn't matter how long it goes on-it just has to work.
This set will attempt to wipe you out, but it will also attempt to wrap you in revelry, a celebration of one of metal's most gifted and recognizably idiosyncratic rifflords.  Jeff is gone but not forgotten.  Go for the fucking throat and never, ever compromise.
Packaged in a twin volume DVD case in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  No trades on this one please, as it was a beast to construct.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com 

CORY STRAND "SHERLOCK: SEASON ONE" 3DVD-R SET (AOW 286)

A massive HNW rework of the full audio tracks from each episode of the first season of "Sherlock."  I guess this one might strike people as odd, since HNW isn't necessarily the first thing a person might think about when considering "Sherlock" as pure sound, but Holmes' emotional reserve and sociopathic tendencies, as well as his unflinching attention to detail, suggests to me that HNW might just be a good fit.  I am pleased to say that my rework of the episodes has resulted in some of my densest, most intense walls amongst my ever-growing collection of "Totality" recordings; thick, tarry eruptions of vomit-noise drone with just a hint of meoldy rising up in the background.  Sheer audio violence, and of course, close listening will yield a rich amount of psychedelic detail.
Each episode is packaged separately in its own DVD case, with artwork culled from some of my favorite images from each (the cinematography on "Sherlock" consistently blows me away.)  Released in a limited edition of 5 hand-numbered copies.  $40 ppd. in the United States, $53 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com

DISTORTED SOULS WITHIN A CORRUPT VISION "KNOWING LOSS" 2CDr (AOW 283)

Full length follow-up AOW release for Distorted Souls Within A Corrupt Vision, following the project's epic contribution to the "Blue Velvet" series.  I was so impressed by the crushing, unrelenting, immersive staticism of DSWACV's "Blue Velvet" record that i knew I had to do more with the project; the result is the gargantuan double album "Knowing Loss," the first physical releases of two massive works previously only available digitally.  The two pieces here are exactly what you'd expect and want: crumbling, dense, stagnant, and torturous walls concerned with approaching death.  Both tracks have been remastered by DSWACV for extra destruction.  True fucking WALL.
Packaged in a DVD case and released in a limited edition of 15 hand-numbered copies.  $15 ppd. in the United States, $28 rest of world.

ORDER HERE: www.altarofwasterecords.storenvy.com