WOLF EYES

w/ Spykes

Genre: DARK AMBIENT / DRONE / METAL, INDUSTRIAL / WAVE / ELECTRO

LP (Black Vinyl)

Boomkat Product Review:

Some of the earliest and sickest recordings from Wolf Eyes captured in an embryonic state back in October 2000, featuring Aaron Dilloway on electronics and tapes, John Olson on electronics and keys and Nate Young on voice, keys, and “secrets”. Originally released in a limited edition by Hanson Records on CDR. this is the first time it’s been pressed on vinyl (newly mastered by Jack Callahan) and amounts to one of the most vital and wild documents of a crew that went on to give us over 300 releases, and counting, in the years since this recording.

Recorded in 2000, with Wolf Eyes represented by Aaron Dilloway & Nate Young, and John Olson as Spykes, this is pure, uncut grot from Wolf Eyes’ earliest days, before Olson was even a fully fledged band member. Mashed direct to 2-track reel to reel tape in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it hails the genesis of a loose and genius formula that would be adapted in fathomless variations over the coming decade, when Wolf Eyes were prolific spearheads of a highly influential US noise/tape scene that begat the likes of everyone from James Ferraro & Spencer Clark’s The Skaters to Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds.

Both sides of the LP epitomise Wolf Eyes’ radically atavist approach, short-circuiting perceptions of noise and hardcore musicks as aggressive and in-your-face with a patiently slow and creepy concoction of hard-to-identify tones and unexpected developments that laid the groundwork for a world-building sound. In the first side they slur greyscale effluence with zoned kicks and wiry high register madness, culminating in a Sun Ra-esque, eyes-in-the-back-of-yr-head blowout, before the B-side starts out like a lo-fi echo of gameboy music that skews cantankerous, blending blasts with chirruping electronics, seesawing melodies and barely hinged vocal gunk.

The real mf deal.

LP (Black Vinyl) (5)