From Corners Unknown

Owen Swerts is a multi-instrumentalist and producer from Belgium. His love for berating, adrenaline-pumping metal began at a rather young age and within these early years, he conjured a handful of bands. Though these projects never blossomed beyond his early adulthood, they were essential in concreting his love for brutal, textured music. A drummer at his core, he eventually picked up guitar and bass to construct his progressive, djent-laden titan known as Frequency Eater—he plays every instrument. The debut LP for this project, Finite States, came out in October 2017, but the kernel of its inception was seeded at least four years before. And it germinated as Owen’s proficiency in various instruments bloomed. Over these successive years, Owen perpetually ground his teeth in other bands. He played guitar and snarled words in his hardcore punk project, Shaken Baby; he dabbled in droning soundscapes plagued with experimental touches under Horse’s Sinews; he actively crushes the kit in the Belgium-based crusty d-beat outfit Days of Desolation; and his most recent endeavor, Ikea Mutilation Manual, embraces absurd—and at times, hilarious—clashes of myriad sounds and styles with unhinged grindcore.

Underlining this relatively packed level of musical output is Owens’ burning desire to create. When he is not writing or recording in his home studio, he is assisting other artists in recording their creative efforts. In this conversation, Owen speaks about his day-to-day and his innate propensity to conjure and record. He also delves deep into Frequency Eater, Days of Desolation, and Ikea Mutilation Manual, discussing the creative writing processes in each project whilst also exploring the themes and concepts they wrangle. Thank you so much for listening.

In episode three of Celluloid Obscurities, we discuss the 1964 Japanese film, Onibaba. Written and directed by Kaneto Shindo and scored by Hikaru Hayashi, this visceral black and white drama set in feudal Japan follows the squalor lives of two women—one younger, one older—who subsist in a seemingly endless field of susuki grass. Their existence is meager as they survive on slaughtering stray samurai to barter their armor and weapons for paltry sacks of millet. After a typical trade with the merchant Ushi, the women return home and in the middle of their evening, a warrior by the name of Hachi returns from battle. He bears the morbid news that the younger woman’s husband perished in battle. And as this reality soaks in, the now trifecta begin to co-exist in the tall brush. What transpires is a tale of lust and sexual frustration wrapped in a desperate existence to just see the sun the next day.

Thank you so much for listening and thank you for your continued support.

The Coma Calling is an experimental downtempo/electronica project helmed by Kyle Cramb. A native to Wichita, Kansas, Kyle's interest in music began at a rather young age where he picked up guitar around 13 years old. A few years later, Kyle met his best friend Andrew Stephens (Scattered Lodges), whom he would later go on to produce music with as ills—a grimy downtempo duo—and who would also become the mainstay graphic designer for his The Coma Calling albums. It was not until years after this friendship formed that Kyle acquired his first DAW. And from there, his experimenting, his composing, snowballed.

Kyle's project was established about twelve years ago, in 2006. Since its founding, he has released but a small collection of digital EPs and just this year, he dropped his first LP titled The Howling Family. Just one month prior to this LP's release, Kyle teamed up with Scattered Lodges to explore raw ambient soundscapes. Deemed Overlap, this split pushed Kyle to dabble in simpler structures and claw deep into the emotional foundations which comprise his much denser, more traditional, compositions. Though his output overall is rather brief, each of his releases are compact with intricate layers and replete with swathes of skin-tingling atmosphere.

In this conversation, Kyle discusses the early beginnings of his musical experimentation and how he founded The Coma Calling. He then describes some of the specific tracks off The Howling Family, the stories underlying them, and he explores the depths of his split release Overlap. There's much more to glean in this conversation; thank you so much for listening.

Scott Lawlor is a seasoned ambient artist based in Texas. His sprawl of musical experimentation has deeply perforated auditory realms such as dark ambient, lighter ambient, dronescapes, classical piano works, noise, and a sundry of styles more. Where his interest in music began at a young age, Scott’s early tinkerings involved tape manipulations, warping vinyl speeds, and crafting sound collages of already existing songs. It was during Scott’s short time as a graduate student that he acquired his first professional keyboard, which he soon thereafter schlepped across Akron, Ohio playing local coffee shops to their caffeinated denizens. This endured a short while and in 1999, he took an extended hiatus from performing and composing until 2013. When he re-entered the sonic fold; however, he left the live performances behind and focused intently on contributing songs to compilations as well as generating his own albums. In just the past five years since his return, Scott has poured out well over 200 albums on his personal Bandcamp. And this does not even include his various releases across net labels.

In this conversation, Scott takes us back to his earliest years when he exhibited interest in music. He speaks about acquiring his first keyboard, performing in local coffee shops, taking an extended break from producing music, and how he has been churning out innumerable albums over the past five years. Thank you so much for listening.

In episode twelve, we mull over the cavernous, nasty self-titled debut LP of the Portland hardcore/d-beat outfit, Pissblood. We discuss the latest crushing behemoth from Belgium’s blackened doom/ambient/post-rock conjurers Hemelbestormer titled A Ring of Blue Light and also muse over Intercourse’s infectiously energetic Everything is Pornography When You’ve Got an Imagination.

Thank you so much for listening and your continued support. Let us know what you think about each of these releases below and please feel free to leave us some album suggestions for future episodes.

In episode #02 of Celluloid Obscurities, Graham, Connor, and Ryan discuss the unsettling 1960 French horror film, Eyes Without a Face. This film is an adaptation of Jean Redon's novel, directed by Georges Franju and scored by Maurice Jarre. It revolves around a young woman named Christiane who's father, Dr. Génessier, desperately attempts to skin graft a new face onto her horribly disfigured one. Christiane remains under a creepy doll-like mask most of the film, wandering the halls of her father's estate as he and his devout assistant, Louise, try to lure young, beautiful women to the remote mansion to slice off their faces. It's a beautifully taut and morose film splotched with theme-specific scores for most characters. But it is between these scores, these stretches of silence, that heighten and accentuate the horror unfolding on screen.

Thank you so much for your continued support and thank you for listening.

Malevich is a blackened hardcore/grindcore quartet from Atlanta, GA. That genre descriptor does fall a bit short, though. Irregular infusions of sludge and angular song structures that conjure a disorienting yet brutal cudgeling of sound, this group is perpetually focused on challenging listeners whilst eviscerating them. This is evident in their two new tracks, "Trial of Metaphor" and "Causality", which comprise one side of their new split with Iron Gag—a filthy neo-crust outfit from New Hampshire-Massachusetts. With a new vocalist in their fold and an invigorating propensity to push their compositions into strange, uncharted territory, this split is a stepping stone—a microcosmic evolution in sound—between their debut LP, Only the Flies, and where they are forging ahead. Malevich is plunging deeper for their new LP, and when they arise, their sound will be a colossus towering over the work that set them off on their journey.

In this conversation, Malevich discuss the early formation of the outfit and how their sound has evolved from Only the Flies to their new split. They illuminate their respective influences, talk about how they've crafted such a fascinating and unforgiving sound, and also explore the themes and concepts underlying their lyrics. Thank you so much for listening.

In episode eleven we discuss the unsane chaos that is Sectioned’s debut LP, Annihilated, the deeply unsettling, near-death revelry of Deathscapes from Psionic Asylum, and the latest album of obliterating riffage from Italy’s long-standing death metal quartet, KENOS.

Thank you for so much for listening and your continued support. Let us know what you think of each of these albums down below and please feel free to leave us recommendations or notes about new albums you think we should cover.

Celluloid Obscurities is a new podcast series where Connor, Graham Williams (<1, Fencepost, et al.), and Ryan discuss obscure films with a focus on their score. Between the three of us, Connor is perpetually sharpening his expertise of technical film set lighting as it is his day job, Graham is a film aficionado who composes reams of brooding noise and ambient soundscapes (and also crafts albums around strange, forgotten films), and Ryan just likes weird shit. This series will be relatively infrequent, but we hope it is of interest to those who enjoy unsettling films and for those who enjoy exploring the utterly strange.

For our first episode, we discuss Tetsuo: The Iron Man, a peculiar body horror, cyberpunk opus released back in 1989, written and directed by Shinya Tsukamoto, and scored by Chu Ishikawa. Mr. Ishikawa passed away in December 2017; he founded two industrial outfits Zeitlich Vergelter (some say this group was one of Japan's earliest industrial outfits) and Der Eisenrost. May he rest in forever lasting peace.

Thank you so much for listening. Please feel free to leave a comment describing your thoughts or sentiments on this film, providing constructive criticism, just to say hello, or really, whatever you like. Episode two will be up in due time.

Serpatus is an electronic ambient project from the mind of Alejandro Hiraldo. Born and based in the Dominican Republic, Alejandro's musical endeavors commenced in his later teen years. His first output was an intricately woven instrumental progressive rock album focusing intently on his guitar chops; his follow-up was in a similar vein, but he made a particular effort to be more accessible whilst simultaneously infusing some of the Dominican Republic's rural music culture into his rock rhythms. Some years passed by, then Alejandro began composing original scores for short films. The sounds he crafted for these shorts strayed far from his rock roots, yet he managed to incorporate his guitar skills into this newfound ambient work—albeit unnoticeable to the ear. And it's within this body of work where Serpatus was actualized. Though most of Alejandro's compositions as this ambient moniker subsist in the films he contributed to, in early 2018, he crafted his first self-titled release—a dreamy and tantalizing swell of ambient, which was published by OldeBlock Records.

In this conversation, Alejandro discusses his love for strange and experimental music. He takes us through some of the Dominican Republic's music scene, explains how Serpatus came to be, how he composed his beautiful self-titled album, and a good deal more. Thank you so much for listening.