A Hidden Doorway To The Past & Your Fears Are Real

 

These two albums are connected to me because they both incorporate elements that were recorded around the same time, initially for a local noise label ended up turning into two different labels, neither of which released either of these! This material was recorded on the Fostex MR-8 digital multitracker, the first time I used it, and also I believe the first time I used MIDI sequencing on anything that ended up being released.

Hidden Doorway has lots of MicroGranny all over it, fucked with via MIDI using a Roland MC-303 and played on its own, the first two tracks are basically just MG layered over itself with some post-production. "Allium Sativum" is a mangled sample from Bart The General 2, "Frank Silva" is a sample of the man himself at Twin Peaks Festival in 1993 reciting a poem David Lynch wrote for the 'movie' version of the pilot episode of Twin Peaks. "Little Monastery" is a reference to the location of Vomir's Harsh Noise Wall Festival, and I briefly thought about having the track be a short HNW piece but found it a little too boring. The opening melody of sorts on "Roger's Bedtime Story" is MG sequenced with MC-303, and the sample is from a Slenderman youtube series called Tulpa Effect. The rest of the track is mostly synths and tape manipulation thanks to the ever reliable Library of Congress C-1.

The final title track takes up all of the B side and is mostly a manipulated band rehearsal cassette recording which was played through the MR-8 using it as an effect by switching between the delay types, which gives you an interesting glitchy delay (AKA the Koufar vocal effect), layered with noise synths and some MC-303 programming.

Your Fears Are Real opens with "Bridge To Nowhere," which is basically the same as how I performed it live, except it has a sample from the EverymanHybrid/Tribetwelve crossover of the same name. This album thematically was supposed to be about how we process reality and our fears of death and dismemberment through fiction, although it doesn't always keep to the plot and anyway I don't think they meaning is very well conveyed. "The Infection of Grant Mazzy" refers to the main character of the movie (and radio drama) version of Pontypool and incorporates a sample from the movie played in fast forward and reverse on cassette tape. "Dzud" is named after a "Mongolian term for a severe winter in which a large number of livestock die, primarily due to starvation due to being unable to graze," an occurrence that is becoming more common thanks to climate change, and incorporates samples from "The Last Winter" a horror movie by Larry Fessenden about climate change. "Assimilation" I think was recorded for Hidden Doorway originally and has MicroGranny all over it, plus some tape loops, and the last track "The Pain Goes On And On" was originally supposed to the the final track on Hidden Doorway but didn't really fit tonally so it ended up here. The title came from a true crime show and was said by the family member of a murder victim after the murderer had been sentenced to a long prison term.