I was freaking out last week, pacing the room, like someone stole my car.

Yes, dear blee, my apologies. Every effort of will is made each week that I NEVER miss a Castle broadcast, because in the depths of my soul I miss it as much or more than my dedicated fans when I don't do it. Every once in a while, life obligations (or mere health) must come first. But I do indeed see the show as one of my missions, though it garners me no monetary income, the returns are more spiritual and nevertheless tangible to myself, and gratefully, to the ever-growing pool of Castleheads.

The Gate, yes, THE GATE! Their set was cavernous, mighty, moving all over the place, and low-frequency hums rattled the little bits and pieces of WFMU's fourth-floor studio. My gratitude goes out to Tom, Dan, and Brian, for carrying their gear up four flights (with WFMU's elevator on the fix) and bringing an inspired, mighty performance. You can hear it in the streaming archives, by clicking on our drippy friend above. Mp3s to come, on WFMU's Web portals. Also in the meantime, I cannot recommend their two releases highly enough (the first is an LP, as the Dan Peck Trio.)

I'm also very pleased that over the last few years Diane Farris and I have become a quite productive and mutually supportive team. Her professionalism as a colleague and audio engineer is unsurpassed, and we've brought the WFMU public a great many sessions together. My eternal thanks, Diane.

As to the rest of the show, there was much enthusiasm for Torture Chain's new release; thanks to Todd Watson, my good buddy, for supplying a burn on that one, and mental note to myself to BUY THE TAPE. There is also much afoot in the UK black-metal underground, and the new Satanhartalt LP is a big part of that mighty onslaught, released through a dual effort of the great labels Legion Blotan and All Dead Tapes. I highly recommend going for ADT's 2LP + free Sump tape deal; Gaz is a top guy, and ships fast and reliably. We'll hear next week from another stellar co-release of the those labels, the Arch Toll LP.

As to my set of video-game music, that which owes a great debt to Italian film composers like Frizzi and Simonetti, though there were no specific comments, I hope that many of you enjoyed it, as it might soon be a semi-regular feature of the show, as my interest in the genre deepens. Techno does not suck!

Must hit the showers. Big holiday weekend with my son, who's been feeding me recommendations on all the vid-game music mentioned above. Yes, we can learn much from the young; it's far from a cliché.

Until next week, I remain.... Thanks as always for your support; tuning in, sharp comments, and the like.

The Gate ... opens. LIVE on My Castle of Quiet, TONIGHT!

    "...and so it came to pass, that seeds of Jazz were sown, yet sometime later, it was instead Doom that broke the dirt, hungering for sunlight." Thus The Gate were born. Originally known as The Dan Peck Trio (debut LP, Heat Retention Records, 2009), The Gate play doom like no other band that has earned that label. Doom conveys its tension not so much in the hits, the downbeat, but rather, power often lurks in the pregnant space between those hits—the lingering, hovering anxiety that wades in the space between the punches. The Gate are unique in many ways, firstly and most-obviously it's the tuba (played by Dan Peck) that guides the mighty beast on its path of destruction, joined by double (aka upright) bass (Tom Blancarte) and drums (Brian Osborne) on its take-no-prisoners journey.

The debut LP was right impressive, consisting of three intense chunks of jazz-doom, quite instantly defining its genre as its territory was staked. With a name change, and a new full-length (Destruction of Darkness, this time on CD from Carrier Records), The Gate peel back another layer of their own mystery, with three more slabs of heavyweight playing, but with the sensitivity that comes from individuals who really know their instruments, and communicate like seasoned improvisers. My Castle of Quiet is thoroughly excited to present this unique and fresh combo, with power and sophistication in every blow, absolutely LIVE on the WFMU airwaves, tonight.

I drive into town, with a trunk full of guns, ammo and crossbows; zombie flesh flapping off the grill, tonight @ midnight.
TG @ 12:30 approx.
WFMU 91.1 FM (NY/NJ)
WMFU 90.1 FM (Hudson Valley)
wfmu.org live on the Web, with accu-playlist and message board

drawing by Matt Minter

CASTLE PODCAST FOR MAY LOVERS....

House-bound, couch-bound and sweating out a mystery illness, I'm still not recovered, and, much to my chagrin, missing the entire Ende Tymes Festival this weekend. I decided to pass the dreary times by not only watching a ton of films (and a few old Buffy episodes), but also by creating a podcast for loyal My Castle of Quiet listeners who may have missed the show this week.

Bill Zebub filled-in for me, on short notice, and with style, grace, and a hearty meal of metal which you can check out in the WFMU archives here. Thanks, Bill!

So here's a little something I put together for faithful Castleheads, those curious individuals who follow the show weekly, and obviously, for anyone else who might care to listen.

Hope you enjoy, and that this fixes you until I return this coming Thu./Fri. with The Gate, live in the studio, plus the usual extreme hijinx. Thanks, as always, for listening.

Playlist >

Drowning the Light - XII from Obscure Worship
Doom - Drowning in the Mainstream from Total Doom
Birdflesh - Catbomb from split with The Kill
Cunt Grinder - Kill Your Enemies from ...The Day of Judgement
IXXI - That We May Kill The Mocking World from Assorted Armament
The Kill - Walking Dead from split with Birdflesh
King Diamond - Killer from The Spider's Lullabye
Absu - Stone of Destiny (...for Magh Slecht and Ard Right) from Tara
Teen Cthulhu - I'm Going To Fucking Kill Myself from Ride The Blade
Aksumite - Laid Bare Upon the Stone from The Gleam of Wetted Lips
Armanenschaft - String, Stone, Grass, Green from Psychedelic Winter
Ash Pool - Dragged Down the Cobblestones from Genital Tomb
City Bones - Hold Back from Dead Close
Enslaved By Owls - They Came Back For Me from ITI
Kevin Drumm - Samson's Cold Minotaurs from Land of Lurches
KILT - Kitchen 2009 1 (pre-album mix and edit); album version on Kitchen Sorcery
Kommissar Hjuler - De Hellige Tre Konger from [SH-mp3] CDr
Kurzschluss - Kurzschluss from Wahrnehmungen 1981-1982 (Disc 1)
Lali Barriere, Miguel A. García, Tomas Gris - Chamber Music from Chamber Music
Lard Free - Spirale Malax (1977) from Musiques Electroniques En France, 1974-1984
Lavas Magmas - Toxic Communion from Toxic Communion
Neil / Noah - nn2 from Unreleased Jams
Leaden - Dark Journey In Myself from Monotonous Foghorns of Molesting Department
Dhampyr - A Trembling of Roses from White Fire Laudanum

There you go—24 tracks, two-and-three-quarter hours, no talking, and the usual Castle mix of extreme metal and dark, experimental extrapolations. Click on the happy nun to download.

Catch up with you all soon, one would hope.

Kudos to the Switchboard.

 

See that there? My subconscious mind. Maybe yours, too. We all have that creepy-moment-in-Phantasm backdrop, with assorted contents, depending upon the individual. Mine is often inhabited by my ex-wife, releasing me again and again into the wild; she know NOT what she hath done. And then, sometimes, the entire city of San Francisco is in there. Not bad.

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, boils back to your subconscious, always the ruler, the leading horse. You think you have free will? It all depends on what experiences you've stored, and what motivates you from that reddish-brown mist. Sometimes I want my Mommy, sometimes I'd rather be dead, and sometimes I'm just okay. A O-kay.

Onto the show this week. Goddamn, The Spiritual Switchboard did well. When I'm wheezing out my last in a hospital bed, all the great live music I've had the privilege to present on the My Castle of Quiet radio program will course through my brain, and it's one of the things I'll be most proud of in my life.

Simply dynamite, heavy Brooklyn electronics filled the air for close to 45 mins., and rattled minds worldwide. My gratitude, gents! Coming soon to WFMU's Beware of The Blog and Free Music Archive. And yes, I'm aware that the Occultation set has not even posted yet—I've fallen a bit behind. Still, these postings are creative acts, volunteer acts, and I must get to them in my own time. That said, I appreciate the patience and overall contribution of the bands tremendously.

New work by Belgium's Alkerdeel also wowed the faithful; a great, new LP, from a band that's been too long silent. No US distro at the moment, but your can order direct from Consouling Sounds in Belgium.
What else? New releases from Hive Mind, The Gate (live on The Castle 5/25; and check out the scary-ass promotional clip at that link!), and a Segerhuva-label release by Incapacitants from a few years past.

Well, back to bed for me. I keep vampire hours. Appropriate, yes? Thanks to all who listen, read and appreciate, and a special thanks to Ophelia Necro for shouting out The Castle this week on her Facebook. Much obliged, Queen of the Night, Muse of the Strange!

Click upon the murky wasteland up top to access the playlist and audio archive of this week's horrorcast™.

The Spiritual Switchboard touch down on My Castle of Quiet

The Spiritual Switchboard are the latest splinter faction/ collaboration to come out of Brooklyn's continually vibrant and prolific analog electronics scene. Why Brooklyn? I'm not exactly sure, but after getting intimate with the works of Telecult Powers (originally from Cleveland), Grasshopper, OPPONENTS, and Long Distance Poison, there's something about Brooklyn that inspires an experimental edge, a noisy, ominous, urban shroud that finds these projects transcending the merely imitative, to something more like a redefinition.

Instead of simply flogging the horse, as so many who pick up a DX7 and a Mini Moog on craigslist are doing these days, these bands are injecting new life into a sound that saw its heyday in the late 1960s through the early 80s. The Spiritual Switchboard brings together two of Brooklyn electronics' major players; Jesse DeRosa, Baked Tapes impresario and member of both Grasshopper and The Hex Breaker Quintet /Quartet, and Joshua Slusher, of OPPONENTS, Creeplings, Hollow Moon, and The Grand Selector, someone who in my observation treats electronic music with a solemn, almost holy reverence. Their one cassette release, on Baked Tapes, under the early name of Night Travelers, is a moody masterpiece that will grow on you like a weed, is heavy without shying away at all from melody and counterpoint, and is very much its own thing while pleasanty recalling Popol Vuh, Edgar Froese / T-Dream, and The Residents' Eskimo. Hear The Spiritual Switchboard emanating LIVE from WFMU / My Castle of Quiet tonight.

From the band -

"The Spiritual Switchboard is not music made, but music found. It is the molecular interaction of man and machine, the channeling of the ever-present poly-dimensional energies which flow freely between them on a daily basis. It is a temporary view behind the deafening wall of consciousness, a lifting of the veil of the cultural operating system. It is not music performed, but rather music brought back. It is an artifact of truth."

I scribe the circle, read the incantation, which opens the doorway (oops!) @ midnight.
TSS @ 12:30 approx.
WFMU 91.1 FM (NY/NJ)
WMFU 90.1 FM (Hudson Valley)
wfmu.org live on the Web, with accu-playlist and message board

Thank you insomnia.

Poor Fox. Never a true friend, always used; a human accessory. The usually quiet man, fashionably dressed, sitting in the corner chair. A life of partial, peripheral existence.

With no real reason to stay, he chose to leave.

'Twas a metal-heavy show this week, weighted down by chains, gauntlets, perhaps even the stray codpiece. Tracks by Krisiun, Ulver, Floridian Winter (new fr. Primal Vomit!), Axnaar (pre-release track from a forthcoming Legion Blotan issue), Ganzmord and NRIII (also brand new!) provoked commentary from faithful Castleheads, and some new names from the beyond. Always welcome—always room for one more at this Castle.

Like every week, I had a time, always do. But I'm tired, world-weary, though not quite as much as Fox. Thankfully, I have more to live for. Click on that lovely studded jacket, soon to be stolen off of Fox's fresh corpse, to reach the playlist and audio archives of this week's horrorcast™.

Next week, a heavy analog electronics live session with The Spiritual Switchboard, including special guests. Don't miss it; even I am not really sure what's going to happen.

CAN YOU HEAR THE HAMMERHEAD IN THE WIND?

Listen closely, carefully. It's there.