Wolf Eyes - Difficult Messages '2023

Tracks list

By the early 2020s, Wolf Eyes consisted of the core duo of Nate Young and John
Olson, in addition to numerous occasional collaborators. Difficult Messages
isn't a proper Wolf Eyes album, but a compilation of tracks recorded by their
countless side projects and initially released through a series of very limited
7" single box sets with hand-painted wooden artwork. While the box sets included
tracks credited solely to Wolf Eyes, this compilation only includes other
projects, each with a different name and lineup. Alexander Moskos (Drainolith,
AIDS Wolf) appears on several of them, with "Dank Boone," the first of two
tracks by Short Hands, coming unexpectedly close to abstract funk and hip-hop.
Crisp drumming and tremolo fuzz guitar riffs are surrounded by the shadowy
vocals and noise skizz one might expect from Wolf Eyes, but usually not attached
to this type of groove. Another project with Moskos, Time Designers, presents a
rhythmic exploration with drum machines ticking out mutated juke and techno
patterns. Animal Sounds graft a stuttering, techno-ish half-bassline to
chattering noises that either sample or imitate a Michigan red squirrel. Young
and Olson's mutated blues duo Stare Case, which seemed to be their most
productive venture for a short time during the early 2010s, return with the
stark, skeletal "Lost Head." "Tulsa Once" is by Wolf Raven, the duo's
collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning Native American experimental artist
Raven Chacon. The brief track makes stunning usage of distorted, mangled
frequencies that sound like radio waves splashing into each other. Universal
Eyes, the merging of Wolf Eyes and Universal Indians featuring Aaron Dilloway
(former member of both groups) and Gretchen Gonzales, navigate through a
treacherous storm, with bleak foghorns calling out during the murky "Tense
Lapse." Difficult Messages feels a bit more scattered than most of Wolf Eyes'
main releases, but it's a nice sampler of the many constellations of the group's
vast universe.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Wolf Eyes - Phone Intro (1:02) 
1.02 - Short Hands - Dank Boone (3:19) 
1.03 - Time Designers - Passive Tempos (3:39) 
1.04 - Gretchen - Locked Rivers (3:15) 
1.05 - Stare Case - Lost Head (4:24) 
1.06 - U Eye Trio - Courted Reverb (4:17) 
1.07 - Short Hands - 3rd Night Tax Edit (4:01) 
1.08 - Animal Sounds - Michigan Red Squirrel (5:55) 
1.09 - Wolf Raven - Tulsa Once (2:48) 
1.10 - Universal Eyes - Tense Lapse (3:39) 
1.11 - Invisible Thread - Feedback 6 (4:39)

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