Insects are crawling slowly around in a cave of blackened drone, while communicating with the feedback that is pouring out of the rock walls. No light shines inside this place, and only shrill screams out of the darkness radiate onto our bleak thoughts. The insects are growing stronger as silence is replaced with the sound of cryptic doom, resonating with the energy of their ancestors. What force has inspired the words I write? It’s the otherworldly sounds of CIRCLE OF EYES. This Bay Area band is made of up some pretty rad humans: Sutekh Hexen’s Kevin Gan Yuen, Necrite’s Thrull & J. from Swamp Witch on vocals. CIRCLE OF EYES’ limited edition self-titled tape will be released by FLENSER Records & is available now! CVLT Nation is super excited to be able to turn the world on to one of our favorite new recording projects. Allow your mind to expand as CIRCLE OF EYES streams for you below!
…Three mammoth tracks spread over 37 minutes. The artwork was designed by Kevin Gan Yuen. The J-card is printed on thick stock and the images printed on the cassette came out very well. Shrink wrapped for your pleasure in an edition of 100…
SIDE A
Track 1 – Penumbra (AWOKEN)
SIDE B
Track 2 – Woe Betide the Worms: (Dirge for Eternity)
Track 3 – To Wander (sacred time)
Preview the cassette artwork after the jump…
James
September 6, 2011 at 9:41 am
Bk(Sep 2), I hear ya man. I also wasn’t pumped on tapes before because, well i dont live in 1982, however the dire state of artists being supported by their art is next to not existent within the underground community. It’s just not affordable for bands to put out records, on top of paying for recordings and then trying to balance your actual life with band life, it’s often hard to scrape up the extra cash for it. Being that this is a diy community most of these labels are broke artists and friends alike ourselves that cant afford to put out a vinyl release or they are keeping diy alive and skipping on the nearly two grand in costs to put together a vinyl release and putting out 5-6 bands tapes. And that rules, and im totally for it.
Tapes are cool man, they are cheap and the sound quality is totally grim and usually turns a shitty punk band into a pretty listenable punk band from the transfer alone. There’s certain things caught in that format that are pure magik that cant be reproduced in the cheaper digital alternative.
With that said, im incredibly excited to hear this and own it on both grim formats, Tape and Vinyl and im sure each one is going to be a totally different experience and im very into that.
bk
September 6, 2011 at 1:47 pm
That’s understandable. And I see where you’re coming from.
I don’t propose all bands put out ONLY vinyl because, yes, it is VERY expensive.
..But tapes are just so darn unreliable. They sound different, sometimes drastically so, from player to player. Not to mention the artwork is squished and stretched unattractively across a small pallet.
And then there’s the players themselves. Gritty tape heads can ruin a tape, motors more often than not fail over time and are hard to repair. They’re just clumsy.
Portability was the cassette’s selling point and has since become obsolete.
The upside of course is a warm mid-boost and incredible bass response (on a good running deck and amp/speaker set up).
With all things considered I can’t help feel most of the tape resurgence is trendy retro hype.
I don’t think bands loose any credibilty with digital releases. As for DIY, nothing is cheaper.
All this, however, takes NOTHING away from this fabulous release. I don’t want my tape-hatred to detour people from listening to this band because is a rock solid album and I’m enjoying it. And I WILL buy a vinyl copy for a much more reliable mid-boost and clearer bottom end.
bk
September 3, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Excellent news.
bk
September 2, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Very interesting. But I’m hating this tape throwback trend. give me vinyl please. A much more durable and consistent media vessle.
Sean
September 2, 2011 at 12:29 pm
The vinyl edition of this release is moving along quite nicely. There is no set release date as of yet, but I’m hoping to have all of the required peices of this project very soon. As soon as I’ve got everything in hand, I’ll be shipping it all off to press and I’ll post an update on my site at time.
Check out my site for up to date info: http://www.anti-matterrecords.com and please feel free to re-post/twitter/etc.
God-speed and thank you for reading.