Your cart (0 item)

SURFACE HOAR - Sin Eater

Format: CD-R Label & Cat.Number: Galloping Foxley Recordings GFOX008 Release Year: 2013 Note: "Smoky Mountains of Madness" - remarkable album by this US experimental / psychedelic / musique concrete project, combining instrumental drone expanses with weird sounds (strange beat box electronics, alienated plunderphonics, retro futuristic stuff), here based on the radioplay "Sin Eater" from BOB CORCORAN and somehow influenced by the experience of living in the Appalachians... mastered by ANDREW LILES, full colour digipack Price (incl. 19% VAT): €9.00 Warning: Currently we do not have this album in stock! More Info "Inspired by Bob Corcoran’s radio play, “The Sin Eater,” which originally aired on the Suspense program in 1962, Sin-Eater plays homage to that work and also serves as a tongue-in-cheek rumination on time spent living in the Appalachian foothills. Recorded at Studio 8 in Knoxville, TN credits released 19 September 2013 Surface Hoar is Matthew Amundsen Mastered by Andrew Liles Professionally printed CD-R comes in sealed glossy digipak with art by riggAMA First 50 copies come with glow-in-the-dark pin" [label info] surfacehoar.bandcamp.com "More music here by Matthew Amundsen, better known as Surface Hoar. For some reason, very unclear to myself, I always think of Surface Hoar as a noise project, and every time I hear music I am sure it isn't (see for earlier reviews for instance Vital Weekly 759 and 593). 'Sin-Eater' is his fourth solo album (besides a bunch of collaborations and compilations) and is "inspired by Vob Corcoran's radio play, 'The Sin Eater', which originally aired on the Suspense program in 1962" and this can be seen as a homage to that as well as time Amundsen spend in the Appalachian foothills. He uses such instruments as air-organ, voices, synthesizer, drum machines, bass, electric guitar, adult toys & video, greetings cards, cicadas, crickets, violin, museum demonstrations, vocoder and other electronics. I would think lots of other electronics. Especially of the kind that samples and holds sounds. The album starts out with a strong piece, 'Smoking Mountains Of Madness', with a brass band being sampled, played along with an out of control drum machine and a harmonium, before effectively moving over to a more abstract field. I am not sure if the element of suspense is something that I thought was easily to be detected here, but perhaps because I think some of it comes across like a cliche. The minor keys in in 'Moonshine Nocturne' for instance, with its animal sounds and air-out-of-a-balloon, or the film conversation snippets in 'Appalachian Snail Trail'. That is not enough to make it suspense like, but throughout these seven pieces are a bit creepy and dark, which is probably fine enough to keep you awake and be careful. Much of this is again sampled and occasionally melodies rise up from the drones of layers of sound. For instance in 'Warm Velvet Mystery', with its jazzy undercurrent; almost a Twin Peaks like song. Its here where the album works best: when there is still a notion, a hint of melody present, somewhere lurking beneath the surface, whereas on top we have all this abstract rumbling of electronics, and whatever they have processed or possessed, for all I know. Nothing really noise based, quite dark (almost in a gothic like manner) and throughout a great album. Excellent and pleasantly scary." [FdW/Vital Weekly]