Hollow Branches - Anchored In Sleep

Today is the official release date of Hollow Branches debut album, "Anchored In Sleep." It is being released through Strix Records free as a high quality download at either 192KB or 320KB mp3s or at 44.1 16bit .wav files for CD quality.

Hollow Branches is the product of my old friend Robert Hunter, formerly of Conversations About The Light. Helping him with this endeavor is Marius Sjoli and myself on bass guitar. Please also take notice of the DONATE button on the Strix Records site. Here is the official press release:


Thematically inspired by dreams, insomnia, nostalgia and morning, “Anchored in Sleep” finds Hollow Branches expanding their sound with elements of progressive and post rock, as well as glitch.
Many, many thanks go to Bernt Karsten Sannerud for giving the album so much attention in the mixing process.
If you like what you hear and want to donate, we have set up a donate button through Paypal. You can also help us out by letting us know what you think, or just sharing the album with others.

Download HERE

Susurrus Inanis - The Shadowless Shining Demo 1997

This is another old demo of mine. The band was formed by myself and Daniel Breyer in 1997. This was right before and somewhat concurrent with the formation of Agalloch as well. We released this one demo in 1997, limited to 200 copies if I remember correctly, and then got signed to Cold Spring Records out of England. It was my first record contract and we were all very excited.

After that, Daniel's life in academics took precedence over music, and Sculptured, Nothing and Agalloch took precedence over Susurrus Inanis for me, and the project collapsed with only the one demo to our name.

Many Agalloch fans fell in love with Breyer's work on "Pale Folklore" and "Of Stone Wind, and Pillor" and have wanted to hear this demo. Few mp3s have surfaced, and no downloads of the entire demo have surfaced as far as I am aware. For those who loved Breyer's work in Agalloch, this demo will be a welcome treat as it further continues and refines that style. Yes, I am on the demo too, but my portions are amateur at best. A lack of ability and equipment at the time made my contributions more of a hindrance than anything.

Enjoy this rare look into the past of Agalloch.

Download HERE

V.B.G. - Compilation

V.B.G. stood for Victimized By Gypsies, and it was my first proper band. We were teenagers in Bozeman, Montana and played shows around the Bozeman area for a few years. We were a grindcore/death metal band that worshiped at the feet of Napalm Death, Obituary, Carcass and Pungent Stench.

We released two demos "Staff Infection" and "Auntie Christ" both in 1992. At the time, and in our area especially, death metal was totally unknown, local kids thought we had invented it. Adam Jelinksi and I shared song writing duties, and we each sang on the songs we had written, later, Joe Ulvi joined us on second guitar, and he then started writing as well.

The line up was:
Jason Walton - Bass/vocals
Adam Jelinski - Guitar/Vocals
Ladd Rutherford - Drums
Joe Ulvi - Guitar

Most of our songs had a bit of humor in them, and many didn't have lyrics at all, just rhythmic growls. Here we have both of our demos, and some live tracks. The photo here is all of us except Joe in an art class. Me, with an Entombed "Clandestine" shirt, Adam with a Ramones shirt, and Ladd with an Entombed "Crawl" shirt.

Download HERE.

Designed 2 Fade - "Cheze" Demo 1994

I recently found this in my box of old demos. I had completely forgotten about this cassette. In 1994 I was out of High School for about a year, and living in Bozeman, MT after having lived in Minneapolis, MN since graduating. I stopped by my old friend's apartment in downtown Bozeman, he lived above Miss Kitty's Adult Store, and he was recording this demo in his apartment.

It was mainly my friend Chris Lekan's project, he wrote most of the music, played most the instruments, and had a pretty impressive project studio in his modest apartment, so he recorded everything as well. He ended up asking me to play bass for the recording, and we worked out the lines right there on the spot, and recorded them in a couple hours.

Then we walked down the street and ran into local punk Mark King. Mark was best known for having the first septum piercing in Bozeman, at least that we knew of. He never seemed to have a place to stay, or work, he perpetually couch surfed and wandered the streets. We asked him to sing, and he sang most of the songs without ever hearing them beforehand, and made up the lyrics as he went, save for a few corrections here and there.

I think only a few copies of these existed in the first place, and I don't have a scanner, so I just took a picture of the cassette. Musically, its kind of a nod to the first Mr. Bungle album. Enjoy.

Download HERE.

Necropolis - Descent

Attention Agalloch and Sculptured fans.  Don Anderson, guitarist for both bands, had a band in high schoool.  They were thrashy, melodic and probably wore high top sneakers.  Today I have their "Descent" demo, which was recorded at Soundtracks studios with Ronn Chick, as were all Sculptured albums, and most Agalloch albums.  

This is definitely an interesting listen for Sculptured fans especially, as you can hear Don's trademark style shining through, as well as his growls and even a couple Sculptured riffs in their infancy as well as Don's penchant for using samples.  

Also on these recordings are Tom Walling on lead vocals, who also joined Don on the lastest Sculptured record "Embodiment."  So, download this HERE and listen to what Don was doing when he was 14.  Were you this good at 14?  Yeah, I didn't think so.

P.S. The photo above is actually a really old Sculptured photo since I don't have any Necropolis photos.  That's Don in the middle, with Necropolis drummer John Schlegel to his right, all the rest featured in the photo were not in Necropolis.  From the left it is Brian Yaeger (ex-Sculptured), the tall guy is Nick Wusz (ex-VOID, Sculptured) and myself on the far right, and yes we are in an elevator.