Kuwaiti Airforce 2LP

The rarest of all Vatican Shadow’s tape releases (only 25 were made), ‘Kuwaiti Airforce’ now appears on double vinyl alongside obscure cuts and previosuly unreleased collaborations with Silent Servant and Demdike Stare on the fourth in a series of first-time vinyl editions for Vatican Shadow’s sought-after early tapes.

Back at the start of this decade the underground conversation between noise, techno and ambient music manifested definitively thru Vatican Shadow’s eerily evocative glut of tape releases for Hospital Productions in a manner that resonated with the subversive post-industrial music of Muslimgauze and Whitehouse – who were both key touchstones for Dominick Fernow (Prurient, Vatican Shadow, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement).

The ‘Kuwaiti Airforce’ tape which lends this set its title was only available in an edition of 25 copies at Vatican Shadow’s September 29, 2012 show in LA with Silent Servant, Demdike Stare, Andy Stott, and Kangding Ray. Its two bombed-out blasts of rhythmic noise are now available on the first disc here for the first time, backed with two previously unreleased works written in 2012: a deep, rolling techno collaboration with Juan Mendez, lodged somewhere between his Silent Servant output styles for Sandwell District and the seminal ‘Negative Fascination’ LP; and a more messed-up, subbass-mired rework by Demdike Stare, who were still clearly in the mood surrounding their classic ‘Elemental’ LP.

The second disc however highlights cuts from earlier and more obscure releases, rounding up two powerful, even darkly romantic pieces of sturm und drang from 2010’s ‘Around The Dragon’s Broken Neck…’ 2 x cassette, plus his opiated half of a split with Contrepoison, and a cranky grinder that was only found on the ‘White Eye Of Winter Watching’ compilation, both issued by Hospital Productions in 2011.