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Surface Hoar: Sin-Eater

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Artist: Surface Hoar
Title: Sin-Eater
Format: CD
Label: Galloping Foxley Recordings (@)
Rated: * * * * *
I was unfamiliar with this artist, as well as the radio show on which this is based, but when I read that the album was mastered by Andrew Liles of Current 93 and Nurse With Wound, I was hopeful. According to the label, this album was 'inspired by Bob Corcoran's radio play, 'The Sin Eater,' which originally aired on the Suspense program in 1962. Sin-Eater plays homage to that work and also serves as a tongue-in-cheek rumination on time spent living in the Appalachian foothills.' I'm not sure how faithful this is to the original, but I'm also not sure that it matters too much. If the goal is to recreate the feel of old time radio dramas, the overture that opens the disc is a good start. Synth and erratic snare drum set the mood well. There is a sinister feel to the music that goes beyond the knowledge that it is called 'Sin Eater.' Throughout the album, we hear weird, disembodied voices that have been pitch-shifted up and down buried under the sounds of wind and synth and walls of sound that border on noise. Some of the high points on the album include 'Warm Velvet Mystery,' which is an odd grooving track, with a synth line over staticy ambiance, and 'Kveis,' which is general weirdness with pulsing bass, analogue noises, and dissonant synth. 'Appalachian Snail Trail' very well could feature voices from the original radio program, but we never would know because the voices have been processed beyond the point of recognition. Overall this is a weird disc, but an interesting listen. This album weighs in at around 39 minutes.

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