Recorded a long time ago and finally out now after a multitude of delays:
Changing the label it was originally going to be released on when it was about to go to press.
Deciding to change the mix, then not having access to any of my equipment for five months, followed by a further three months of not having anywhere to set up a new home studio.
Classic cover art delays.
New normal bullshit pressing plant delays as Record Store Day, deluxe Fleetwood Mac reissues, and Horace Goes Skiing video game OST crush all. Hey, did you hear that vinyl is back? What next, eight tracks cassettes? LOL! (kill me)
Anyway, it's here, enjoy.
Pay what you want download whilst Bandcamp gives me credits (200 per month), please don't pay less than $2 otherwise Paypal and Bandcamp take over 90% of the money.
There's also this:
And this:
RIP Column of Heaven, finally dead forever. No more releases.
My first physical release under my own name, this was originally intended to be a Wolves of Heaven tape, but i just wasn't able to make vocals work on it at all so i edited all the harsh sections out and added some new layers. It's not Wolves of Heaven, but it fits into the same lineage as that project (and Column of Heaven to a much lesser extent)
It's mostly edited and composed field recordings with some synths appearing on side B.
99 copies on cassette via Absurd Exposition, available to order here, take advantage of the shit Canadian dollar and get it at a vastly reduced price if you're not Canadian.
Intensive Care are on the Invocation of Obscene Gods comp on Backwoods Butcher Records along with Ride for Revenge, Fossil Fuel, Goatpenis and a slew of other family friendly rock and roll acts.
Intensive Care - Pay Pig five song tape out sometime soon (i know i keep saying this, but it's been finished since October…) and we just recorded four songs that will be on a 7" later this year via Iron Lung Records.
New Scalp Elevator tape, Reenactment, out now on New Forces. Junk metal abuse.
Intensive Care - Pay Pig tape out on Survivalist sometime around the end of the year, the recording is complete, my first post-Column of Heaven music. A handful of live shows in Toronto and the US are planned for 2016.
I approved the test pressing for the Column of Heaven/ Suffering Luna split LP back in May or June, out in time for the next power violence revival, scheduled to hit sometime around 2023.
Recently i've spent most of my time studying the work of Pierre Bourdieu. If you're not particularly academically minded, but still like to think about music - in particular our various intentionally isolated genres of choice - in terms of a set of overlapping/ interlocking approaches and not just single releases by single artists that float outside of time and space, as contemporary music criticism tends towards, then i would recommend you read the editor's introduction to Bourdieu's The Field of Cultural Production, it's definitely worth an hour of your time.
In news that really wasn't much of a shock to anyone close to us Column of Heaven gave up the ghost in May, boring adult responsibilities, inertia, and the usual reasons bands stop doing things were the cause of death.
We had a decent four year run considering none of us really had the time to be in a functioning regular band situation.
Eric is busy with Black Iron Prison (download their demo from the link). Billy is gone fishin', Dave continues with Abyss, their LP just came out and it's excellent.
Former member Tyson (guitars on Ecstatically Embracing…) is busy as a tattooist. And Mike, well, Mike is doing this:
I await his Mortuary Drape live looping cover with baited breath.
In terms of my own output, age and academia have curtailed most avenues of activity for me, but Scalp Elevator has destroyed piles of garbage in front of an audience five times in the last four months with only two minor audience injuries reported. There's a second tape due out on New Forces sometime in the near future.
One day i will finally put vocals on the next two Wolves of Heaven releases that i've been sitting on for months.
I'm currently in the slow process of getting ready to record a project that was born out of Scalp Elevator called Intensive Care, it's me on bass and Ryan Bloomer on drums, with possibly a third person on noise and vocals, but we'll see if that comes to anything or if i'm going to end up singing. Expect something by the end of the year, expect no blast beats.
To finish this with the usual lists, reading wise nothing beyond academic work and comic books to cleanse the palette, follow me on Goodreads if you do that kind of thing, link somewhere on this page.
Music:
Been on a big Conrad Schnitzler trip for a while
Amorphis - The Karelian Isthmus
Loving everything Ajax is doing
Martin Gore - MG LP
Slaegt - Ilsdvanger LP Clean
Enjoyed the G.L.O.S.S. demo a lot, couldn't see them last night even though they played close by. Such is life.
Watching:
Mr Robot has been bringing the eye rolls and inadvertent lols in my household, though it's not awful.
Rick and Morty
Mimic 3: Sentinel
The Guest
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
Escape from Tomorrow
Scalp Elevator - Ontario cassette on Total Black, available here
Scalp Elevator is myself and long time friend Ryan Bloomer. Minimalist live with no overdubs junk noise and industrial landscape field recordings. Nothing fancy, just two guys hitting amplified pieces of metal very hard, no concepts, no reinventing the wheel, no HNW.
