Hunting Lodge - Shack

It's here! I have copy 218/300 of Shack by Hunting Lodge. Even crazier, Easy Listening included a copy of Bleeding Out by Shame, Exposure, recorded in 1982/83 but never actually released until Knox Mitchell personally mixed the original multi-track tape master and published it. 

So i sent him this email: 

"Holy smokes! I definitely wasn't expecting the Shame, Exposure album included with my order, but i'm super excited to check it out! Hope life's being as kind to you as possible, and cheers from out here in Iowaland." 

If you can remember as far back as May 10, i really enjoyed the 3 albums i listened to by Hunting Lodge, and i'm super excited to check out Shack. 

First though, we should talk about Bruce Licher at Independent Project Press. He mostly uses letterpress printing on chipboard and the resulting texture and old-school craft-fair feel is pretty awesome for the ear-splittingly cacophonous nightmare the remaining 82 of you could potentially be about to listen to. Buzzes and squeals and metal clanking and the nastiest sounds a synthesizer can make while you gargle-scream into the microphone over a groovy bassline. I love Industrial. 

Rip You To Shreds is a pretty classic Hunting Lodge track that appears here in its original 6 and half minutes of audio agony. 

Carnivora! sounds like half-speed Primus, and that is undeniably fun. Atum is probably my favorite track, but 1947 is pretty spectacular, and their Crowbar-style cover of 96 Tears is pretty special. I'm listening to the accompanying CD, by the way. It also has the Carnivora! EP, and previously unreleased demos. 

The samples are especially creepy and enjoyably unintelligible half the time. 

But Bottle, you interject, this review isn't any good at all. It's not up to your usual standards of humor or particularly insightful, or anything. 

Well, you gotta remember, i just like this kind of stuff. I don't have to defend it, or explain it, or give it an interesting perspective. I can just sit here for and hour and eighteen minutes and enjoy it because this is me. 

What's crazy is that this album, which not many people will ever actually get to hear the way i just did, highlights just how Industrial the p(nmi)t discography actually is. Not that any of those EPs are actually Industrial, but they're built from looped textures and dishevelled playing and often caustic or uncomfortable timbres and occasionally a thing that qualifies as pretty much a normal song pops out. Industrially motivated Western Tonality. Plus, like i said, you basically can't go hear it for yourself unless you actually buy one of the dwindlingly available copies, so there isn't really much of a conversation to pretend we're having. I freakin' love it though. I could bring it over to your house and we could enjoy it together, but i'm technically a hermit who's currently heading to bed. It's like Ace of Bass said, i lead a lonely life, except that i'm a cis white bearded dude who's actually quite happy, doesn't want another baby, and gets along with pretty much everyone, so basically only like Ace of Bass said in a tangentially similar way if you squint just right. G'night everybody, we'll try again tomorrow.