Noise Hurts Babies

Solo experimental noise work by Seattle artist Slug Vandal, a guitarist with deep roots in the early Tucson hardcore punk era of 1980 and beyond. Slug uses tape loops, treated voices, percussion, analog sounding synths, and guitar to create soundscapes that smack of a George Romero soundtrack, late night ghost visitations, nightmares. Nothing harsh or abrasive, instead its deep disturbing qualities stem from a late-night feel, 3am quiet empty streets where only creeps and serial killers wander. Beautiful stuff, well recorded mixed and mastered. All FCC clean, play any as they are all great.

1)* (6:17) sick sounds loop and layer in upon themselves, many creepy and organic, evolves to a chill subtle soundtrack to the desolate post apocalypse nuclear poisoned landscape 2) (5:55) creepiness continues but theres more of noise fuzz guitar element, ventures into synths 3) (3:35) “tribute to Neu” lovely synth tone takes center as tones evolve swirling – tile comes from some cool use of wah on noise guitar, something the infamous Krautrock band did distinctively, as well as some groovy funky weird synth tones 4) (2:32) aquatic quality, very soundtracky, with cool amplitude modulated Moog pulses, organic 5)* (7:15) begins quite atmospheric, balmy, quieting, then big church bell samples appear, fade midway, and a disco’y sample/song appears out of nowhere juxtaposed adding to strangeness, with a crow/raven call (wtf?) 6) (2:02) “oh baby” chiming synth tones, somehow a brighter feel in the darkness, despite creepy vocalizations 7)** (5:05) “my head hurts”, looped treated line with disturbing sounds and layers of treated vocalizations 8) (3:29) heavier on the treated guitar, this has a huge hollow tone to it 9) (5:06) revisitation of first epic track, this grows pretty heavy and dense 10) (0:58) brief exit, nice looped string tones, with looped simple synth waves