Vatican Shadow – Remember Your Black Day – CD

Vatican Shadow, a project of Hospital Records founder Dominick Fernow (who also records and releases under the aliases Prurient, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement and so on) has offered up a more complex response to 9/11 and the subsequent so-called War On Terror. Refusing to do interviews, Fernow has attracted controversy for using militaristic and terrorist imagery for cover art and naming tracks and albums after newspaper headlines, as well as sporting US military fatigues during aggressive live sets. After innumerable cassettes and several vinyl records of distracted abstract noise grating against techno, Vatican Shadow now releases Remember Your Black Day.

None of the 8 tracks included have been released before on any other format. At a time when the scene is saturated with “Noise Techno” the album is almost celebratory by contrast, balancing caustic licks of distortion and oppressive bass with cleanly mixed synth tones and ricocheting claps in a shell-shocked, surreal soundsphere. WIth production assistance from Juan Mendez (Silent Servant), the album includes the most direct and propulsive Vatican Shadow material yet, continuing an evolutionary shift away from the complex, collage-based narrative of those cassette releases into more visibly direct contact with the listener. There is a functional connection to dance music here, honing in on the human element embedded within a subject matter so fraught with inhumanity.

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