Blood Rhythms – ‘Heuristics’
“Heuristics” is a collection of previously unreleased / scarce material over the last 15 years or so. Ranging from halloween themed instrumental homages, soundtracks, blistering rhythmic industrial, and raw, looped based noise, Arvo Zylo has released a cohesive set of works under his collaborative moniker, Blood Rhythms. These tracks didn’t have a home by themselves, and didn’t fit into the scheme of what a “single” should be, but now they make sense together. Zylo went to group piano class to learn to play one Fats Waller song, featured here. Another track was part of a ritual performance on June 6, 2006. Yet another was a collaboration with an ex-partner/vocalist from 2001. Each track has its own story. The album comes with photos from a photo shoot inspired by a dream, wherein a child is made to grow up immediately, and finds himself with poetry all over him that is not intended to be read in any chronological fashion.
Thirteen Hurts – ‘UVB-76’
Thirteen Hurts is a recording artist who has spent much of his time in a solar-powered dome in rural Colorado, 6 hours from any real civilisation. UVB-76 is a shortwave numbers station which has been mostly dead air since at least the 70s. Occasionally, there are various voices or anamolies that come on, and lots of speculation behind the sources and reasoning. Thirteen Hurts has crafted an album based around this idea, with mainly a wide array of pedals, resulting in carefully crafted soundscapes along the spectrum of industrial music’s forebearers, but in a realm all its’ own.
Arvo Zylo – ‘Hello Walls’
This strange album was originally released on cassette by the very discriminate and taste-making Enemata Productions. Then again, it was reissued on cassette two years later, in a black vinyl bag with three full color post cards, a page from a book in German that I’d found in an abandoned church, probably from the 19th century, and dirt from various places, namely, the notoriously haunted Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery. Naturally, the moisture caused the tape to rot, but even before that, I was getting eerie reports of tapes being “completely blank”. Even so, while the decay did lend a certain something to the experience, if not the physical detritus, it also limited the range of that experience. It could be haunting, it could be my soundtrack for the times I spent the night at the aforementioned Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery, or it could be just an unusually precocious lo-fi dark-ambient album made by a somewhat high-strung person with not much of an ability to sit still long enough to be truly ambient. It comes off as minimal, but there are sometimes an excessive amount of layers. In the case of the title track, there were over 150 tracks used in various mixdown sessions. I’d say this is best listened to in a solitary environment, preferably outside, and in the dark. Is it still possible to do that? If not, a boiler room from a building built in the 20s or before would do. Approximate running time is around 70 minutes.