Progressive drone project, BLACKWOLFGOAT, will release the fittingly titled Drone Maintenance full-length late next month via volume powerhouse, Small Stone Recordings.
BLACKWOLFGOAT is the solo vessel of guitarist Darryl Shepard (Black Pyramid, The Scimitar, Hackman, Milligram, Roadsaw). Shepard’s previous two outings, 2010’s Dragonwizardsleeve and 2011’s Dronolith, established BLACKWOLFGOAT‘s modus operandi of looped guitar movements, building and layering upon each other to create compositions of dense distortion and delicate lines, as well as purely ambient pieces. Engineering and mixing duties were handled by Glenn Smith (Tired Old Bones Ehnahre, Ichabod et al) at his Amps vs. Ohms studios in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
A quasi-concept album, the ten-track Drone Maintenance sends Shepard into the future as a drone repairman, fixing and servicing rogue drones. Musically, BLACKWOLFGOAT‘s palette has been expanded to include acoustic guitar and judiciously applied vocal parts, but the main focus remains the electric guitar itself — without any other instrumentation or ulterior motives, and frequently captured live in one take with minimal overdubs of carefully considered embellishments added to the base layer. Inspired by early-’70s fusion, Krautrock, (Randy Holden’s Population II) and suffocating doom, each song could serve as a soundtrack for an as-yet-unrealized film, yet they stand on their own and transduce their own moods. Drone Maintenance urges listeners to leave all preconceptions of traditional music at the door and take an audio journey to places both bathed in sunlight and cloaked in darkness. Additionally, Drone Maintenance boasts another otherworldly creation from renowned artist Alexander von Wieding (Karma To Burn, Monster Magnet, Trouble, etc.),
Drone Maintenance Track Listing:
1. 1-Bwg8 8 9
2. Notausgang
3. Sunfall
4. Fahey
5. 3-Bwg5 6 5
6. Axxtrokk
7. Night Heat
8. White Hole
9. 1-Bwg0 0 6
10. Cyclopean Utopia
BLACKWOLFGOAT’s Drone Maintenance will be released via Small Stone Recordings August 26th, 2014 with track previews to be unveiled in the coming days. Stay tuned.
“Progressive is the name of the game as his music creates a shifting landscape of fuzzed out guitars/ambient noise. His creative use of atmosphere is most striking of all…” — Heavy Metal Time Machine
“Each sonic structure has a distinctly modern and minimalistic texture established on firm but simple foundations, soon evolving, almost organically, into towering edifices and labyrinthine Complexity…” — Sea of Tranquility
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