WOLF EYES

Drawing from such disparate sources as Throbbing Gristle, Black Flag, and King Tubby, the Michigan trio create harsh and hypnotic electronic landscapes that merged the frenzied energy of hardcore with the nihilistic menace of early industrial and noise.

'96 to '98: Wolf Eyes begins life as a single individual residing somewhere in the sprawling Metro Detroit labyrinth. Nate Young is Wolf Eyes, generating noises with electronics, programming, voice and whatever instrument he can (re)construct. Aaron Dilloway releases a few near-extinct cassettes of this initial Wolf Eyes incarnation on his Hanson imprint then he joins the group full-time, generating noises with guitar, tapes, electronics, horns, mouth and whatever instrument lies within an arm's reach. Wolf Eyes (as two) tour and record incessantly. A steady stream of quick-to-vanish cassettes, split LP's, lathe-cut records, and CD-R's, flows into the general population.

'99: Wolf Eyes become a fully integrated industrial-hardcore-noise hybrid generating waves of broken guitar riffage, boiling electronic percolation, blasts of feedback like black boots snapping bone, and Young's animalistic howl. It is absolutely the toughest sound emitted from a human's mouth since John Brannon's. Check out the Wolf Eyes/Nautical Almanac split LP (Hanson), Fortune Dove 12" (Bulb), and Wolf Eyes' self-titled CD (Bulb), to hear what I am talking about.

'00: Young and Dilloway relocate to Brooklyn, and Andrew Wilkes-Krier joins Wolf Eyes. His exact role remains unknown. Vice magazine publishes a photograph of Wolf Eyes (as three) but little else is known of this short-lived phase. New York's concrete and bullshit prove antithetical to Wolf Eyes' larger evolutionary concerns. So, Young and Dilloway head back to Michigan while Wilkes-Krier remains in New York and becomes a successful motivational speaker. Wolf Eyes (as three) return to Wolf Eyes (as two). Then, with the release of the With Spykes CD-R (Hanson) a hulking, sweaty figure called Spykes (AKA John Olson, manipulating tapes, electronics, horns and more) emerges as Wolf Eyes' perfect third collaborator.

'01: Olson's effects on the group are dramatic. Wolf Eyes (as three again) dramatically increase their recorded output. In just under a year, the hyper-productive Olson releases over 20 Wolf Eyes cassettes and CD-R's via his American Tapes imprint including their first major statement, the Dread LP (Hanson/American Tapes). By this stage, Wolf Eyes have evolved into a single super-organism. A rich tapestry of wires and pedals inextricably link Young, Dilloway and Olson, and their respective towers of homemade electronics, guitars, horns, gongs, etc. It all has fused into a single, monolithic machine-entity. Wires even slither up into their mouths for sonic purposes just like that old bitch from Superman III who is turned into some freaky fucking cyborg by Richard Pryor's totally out-of-control self-conscious super-computer.

'02: Olson releases dozens of Wolf Eyes cassettes and CD-R's. Dilloway releases the ultra-lean Slicer, and the Troubleman Unlimited imprint releases the lavish Dead Hills picture disc LP. Wolf Eyes are now traveling without a map. Every new release reveals new forms comprised of pounding inner-space reverberations, snippets of slowly crackling 'sub-atomic' feedback, and glass-shattering shrieks that slowly rise and fall until a rattling pulse clobbers the tops of sweaty heads and hundreds of flailing fists puncture the air in compliance with Wolf Eyes' commands: THE WOLF EYES RULE.

'03: Dilloway releases the Mugger CD-R (Hanson), a small cadre of indie labels releases the expansive Wolf Eyes/Panicsville "Stabbed in the Face" split 12", and you know how busy Olson is. Wolf Eyes' distinctive stomp dissolves into sheets of microscopically crafted feedback like lightning bolts shattering immaculately blown stained glass. It is over-amplification of the humming spinal cord and the chatter of a billion cells sharing information.

'04: The machine-entity that Young, Dilloway and Olson, have brought to life sprouts limbs and runs roughshod across America. The recently released "Stabbed in the Fac"' 12" (Sub Pop) scratches, tears, rocks, claws and moves with the precision and clarity of quantum uncertainty. Their new full-length for Sub Pop, Burned Mind, will molest you. That is statistically for certain. But, you can say nothing of the how and when until it actually happens - unpredictability by design. Wolf Eyes' trademark boil-bursting thud has evolved into the roar of a lithe panther with rattling jackhammers for claws. Agility and quickness are now this beast's most lethal attributes. Placed on the evolutionary charts, Burned Mind appears as the progeny of Throbbing Gristle's Heathen Earth sound-model. But, the complex of muscularity and emotional range found in Wolf Eyes' new sound-model has rendered its apparent ancestry slow, clumsy and rather limited in comparison. Fuck, man, cite all the top-shelf noise and power electronics bands until you're blue in the face - Whitehouse, New Blockaders, Nurse with Wound, whatever - but none possess the internal being of Wolf Eyes. The former were performance artists flirting with the dire circumstances of the human condition in the abstract. But, Wolf Eyes just fucking ARE the dire circumstances of the modern human condition. Ever watch a movie about the future and the future is so oppressively grim, violent, foreign and insipid, that even a romance with nihilism seems way too quaint and inappropriate of a response? And then you realize…We live in drastic fucking times, and Burned Mind is drastic fucking music.

--Justin F. Farrar

Burned Mind was recorded from October 2003 through June 2004 primarily by the band themselves. Parts were recorded at Key Club in Benton Harbor, MI by Bill Skibbe and Jessica Ruffins. Mixing help came from Brendan M. Gillen.