Private Release

Friday, March 6, 2020

Himukalt - (2016) See One Dark Eye CS

Angst ‎– 046

Himukalt - (2017) Desperate Soil Grows Poor Flowers CS

Sinneslöschen ‎– 014

Himukalt - (2017) Knife Through The Spine LP

Malignant Records ‎– 116

Himukalt - (2017) Vulgar CS

No Rent Records ‎– 041

Himukalt - (2018) Between My Teeth CS

Several Minor Promises ‎– 018

Himukalt - (2018) Come October CS

Dumb Remains ‎– 005

Vatican Shadow - (2014) Death Is Unity With God 6xCS

Hospital Productions ‎– 424

Vatican Shadow - (2019) American Flesh For Violence

Hospital Productions ‎– 611

As part of the series of the 9th anniversary of the project arrives ‘American Flesh For Violence’, featuring both moody and dense unreleased tracks from the archives as well as a companion of remixes throughout the projects history featuring: Alessandro Cortini, Ancient methods, CUB, and JK Flesh.
mastered by Josh Eustis.
credits
released December 6, 2019

Vatican Shadow - (2019) Byzantine Private CIA

Hospital Productions ‎– none

First three Vatican cassettes including Byzantine Private CIA, Mural of Saddam, and Yemeni Commandos remastered. Part of a series of releases for the 9 year anniversary of the project. New artwork.
credits
released July 26, 2019
Tracks 1 - 4 originally released as Byzantine Private CIA.
Tracks 5 - 7 originally released as Mural Of Saddam.
Tracks 8 and 9 originally released as Yemeni Commandos.

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Vatican Shadow - (2019) Church Of All Hallows' Eve

Hospital Productions ‎– none

“Halloween speaks to the deeper psyche in us all,” he explains, “the curiosity of the unknown, about overcoming fear, which despite its frightful iconography is ultimately a positive celebration. Unlike other holidays Halloween doesn’t have much traditional music. It is mostly affiliated with films, characters, and overarching abstract atmosphere.

He continues, “To create original music that would reflect this atmosphere that is contemporary yet somehow familiar was a true challenge. It was an opportunity to respond to music that has influenced me since childhood but was confined mostly to specific settings outside traditional venues — movie theaters and temporary outdoor haunted houses and fairs. This project was an opportunity to bring the sounds of those settings inside to a club or car stereo for late night drives around town.”

Vatican Shadow - (2019) Kuwaiti Airforce

Hospital Productions ‎– 643

Remastered by Dubplates Mastering. New Artwork. Part of a series of releases for the 9 year anniversary of the project.

A1 and A2 previously released as Kuwaiti Airforce.
B1 and B2 previously unreleased.
C1 and C2 previously released on Around The Dragon's Broken Neck Hangs The Medal Of Saint Lazarus.
D1 previously released on The Serpent Carries Him Back Into Paradise.
D2 previously released on White Eye Of Winter Watching.

Vatican Shadow - (2019) Pakistan Military Academy

Hospital Productions ‎– 641

Originally slunk out on a tape edition of 125 copies in 2011, ‘Pakistan Military Academy’ sees Dominick Fernow calibrate his night-vision goggles to scan the most potent, affective visions of dark ambient and militaristic techno in his war chest. At the time of release, only months after the capture of Osama Bin Laden by US Army SEAL “Night Stalkers”, the project really came into its own as a form of impressionistic reportage, daring to grasp the nettle of contemporary US geopolitics in a way that, as music and art history will only make starker, everyone else broadly avoided at the time.

In place of literal lyrics, a mix of quotes from newspapers and official government communiques, together with evocative photo documentation, supply the song titles and narrative/aesthetic framework for what are essentially abstracted emotions related to American military and foreign policy. Depending how much you read or buy into it, for us at least the music rarely fails to evoke the shadowy unease and precarity of that era, as the sound betrayed an underlying mood that also spoke to the realignment of borders between musicks and socio-economics.

The A-side is worth the cost of entry alone for ‘Whitewashed Compound Stealth Helicopter Crash’, a spine-freezing tract of arcing synth pads leading to one of this decade’s most memorable codas, but when we factor in the scudding techno-stepper ‘Staccato Bursts of Gunfire’, plus the haunting late period Muslimgauze styles of ‘CIA Contractor Freed Over Pakistan Killings’, and the deep systolic thrum of ‘Prime Minister Defiant As Pakistan Outs CIA Agent’, this plate becomes an absolute essential for any and all connoisseurs of modern industrial and dark ambient music.

Vatican Shadow - (2019) Washington Buries Al Qaeda Leader At Sea

Hospital Productions ‎– 642

Holding all six sides from 3 x impossible-to-find tape “deck” issues of ‘Washington Buries Al Qaeda Leader At Sea’, plus the previously digital-only track ‘He Ambled Down The Dirt Road For Visits To A Market’ and the aforementioned Regis exclusive; the 3rd instalment of the series compiles the rarest cuts from Vatican Shadow’s impressionistic take on a turning point in 21st century U.S. geopolitics.
Coupled with track titles lifted from the media and official government communiques on the subject, plus a full length portrait of the Twin Towers prior to 9/11, the stark music suggests a perceptive void of detachment between reporting of the events’ objective reality and the viewer’s response, beckoning listeners to read between the lines in a way that was previously deployed by two of Dominick Fernow’s (aka Vatican Shadow/Prurient/Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement) key historic influences; Muslimgauze and Whitehouse.
From the offset clatter of drums evoking marching boots on ‘People In The Compound Kept Themselves To Themselves’, to the furtive pads that bleed thru ‘Supplying The Compound With Food and Medicine’, and the elegiac gloom cast by ‘Peace Be Unto You’, there’s a nerve-edged tension to the music which surely evinces its subject in an allusively classic style. And the two new parts succinctly fall in line, with the dusky stroll of ‘He Ambled Down The Dirt Road For Visits To A Market’ marking out one of the project’s finest trip hop downbeats, while his collaboration with Regis on ‘See You Again Always’ provides the project a new highpoint of guttural, militant, technoid pressure.
With original tapes selling for triple figures on the 2nd hand market, this expanded definitive 2LP edition is unmissable for anyone with their head in the belly of modern electronic gloom.