An exclusive and outstanding Regis collaboration appears on the third volume of vinyl premieres for Vatican Shadow’s early and highly sought-after tapes, as originally dispensed in 2011 during the peak years of the ‘War On Terror’. Holding all six sides from 3 x hard-to-find tape “deck” issues of Washington Buries Al Qaeda Leader at Sea, plus the previously digital-only track He Ambled Down the Dirt Road For Visits To a Market and the aforementioned Regis exclusive.
The third instalment of the series definitively compiles Vatican Shadow’s impressionistic take on a turning point in 21st century U.S. geopolitics. Coupled with track titles lifted from the media and official government communiques on the subject, plus a full length portrait of the Twin Towers prior to 9/11, the stark music suggests a perceptive void of detachment between reporting of the events’ objective reality and Vatican Shadow’s subjective response, beckoning listeners to read between the lines in a way that was previously deployed by two of Dominick Fernow’s (aka Vatican Shadow / Prurient / Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement) key historic influences; Muslimgauze and Whitehouse.
From the offset clatter of drums evoking marching boots on People In the Compound Kept Themselves To Themselves, to the furtive pads that bleed thru Supplying the Compound With Food and Medicine, and the elegiac gloom cast by Peace Be Unto You, there’s a nerve-edged tension to the music which surely evinces its subject in an allusively classic style. And the two new parts succinctly fall in line, with the dusky stroll of He Ambled Down the Dirt Road For Visits To a Market marking out one of the project’s finest trip hop downbeats, while his collaboration with Regis on See You Again Always provides the project a new highpoint of guttural, militant, technoid pressure.
With original tapes selling for triple figures on the second hand market, this expanded definitive 2LP edition is unmissable for anyone with their head in the belly of modern electronic gloom.