Hooker Vision: January 2011 Batch.

January 21, 2011, 1 comments

Hooker Vision is a tiny imprint that specializes in small runs of cassettes and CD-Rs, run by Grant Evans of Quiet Evenings and blessing the world since 2008. The wonderful, literally d.i.y. label is about to drop the January 2011 batch, its biggest one yet in terms of release number and edition size.

The batch includes five releases, four cassette tapes and one double 3 inch CD-R, by the likes of Afterlife, Thoughts on Air, The North Sea, Dry Valleys, Hostage Pageant, Mannequin Hollowcaust, and Mark Bradley, showcasing some seriously quintessential underground experimentalism from start to finish. The Afterlife/Thoughts on Air split is purest breathtaking ambient music, with Brooklyn’s Afterlife choosing dual synth, while Hamilton’s Thoughts on Air approaches the other side of our consciousness with some slow-burning guitar picking. The North Sea is Brad Rose of Digitalis from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who offers dark and noisy electronic distortions that’ll just suck you in, not intending to release you anytime soon. Fort Wayne, Indiana’s Dry Valleys is equally captivating yet somewhat more gentle, slow synth soundscapes that evoke an almost contemplative feel. The latter might eventually not be said about the Hostage Pageant/Mannequin Hollowcaust split, as both projects deliberately intend to simply blow the listener away with rolling clouds of harsh electrostatic noise from another world. Finally, things return to smoothness with Portage, Indiana artist Mark Bradley, who creates pretty patterns of ambient synth work. To say the least, every release is mind-boggling in its own right, but getting them all neatly put together is nothing short of bewildering. Listen to two minute excerpts of each artist below, and then head over to Hooker Vision to make sure you don’t miss a single second.

Also, watch out for Hooker Vision’s first vinyl release planned for later this year by Grant’s own project Quiet Evenings.