https://obsidianskyrecords.bandcamp.com/track/variac
https://www.instagram.com/kenwohlrob/
https://www.facebook.com/obsidianskyrecords

Performed and produced by Ken Wohlrob
Recorded at Quatre Cagne, Mohegan Lake, NY
June-July 2024
Obsidian Sky Records #010
© 2024

niku-zuki-no-men (肉付きの面, mask with flesh attached)

Our brains are a strange lockbox. What we choose to keep in there is inexplicable. I was watching Kaneto Shindō’s Onibaba. The soundtrack by Hikaru Hayashi utilizes a sharp sound to heighten the tension, possibly a bow being drawn rapidly across a violin or viola for a quick instant, especially when a character appears wearing the demon-like Hannya mask. The velocity of that single note was strangely compelling. It stuck, much like the flesh to the mask in the film. I don’t know why. But at odd moments it would rise up from my subconscious. I would hear that high-velocity note. And I would see the mask from the film…

“Variac” started with that sound. Or rather, creating my own version of it. Can we be haunted by a musical sound?

But like all the soundscapes I’m creating, it grew into something else…

Memories are not like movies. They don’t have story beats. Or a three-act structure. They’re more fluid. One bleeding into the next with no rhyme nor reason. Layer upon layer triggered by the devil knows what. Ever found yourself saying, “It’s weird, but I just thinking about…”?

I can’t tell you what you should feel when listening to “Variac.” It’s probably going to be different because I haven’t lived your life. And I don’t know what you’ve got tucked away in the subconscious behind the mask.

Variac

Four hours and 20 minutes recorded at Es Claustre, Maó, Menorca (May 30, 2025). Pulled out a lot of all-time faves. A tiny bit chagrined at putting so many "big" tracks into one set, but hey. Sometimes you just wanna hear what you wanna hear.

Philip Sherburne Presents Claustrephilia #1

A Strange Loop

Oscillate

https://obsidianskyrecords.bandcamp.com/track/william
https://www.instagram.com/kenwohlrob/
https://www.facebook.com/obsidianskyrecords

Performed and produced by Ken Wohlrob
Recorded at Quatre Cagne, Mohegan Lake, NY
March and October 2025
Cover Image by Melissa Pracht
Obsidian Sky Records #012 © 2025

A song is a stubborn thing. It’ll resist you with all its might. As you try to bend it and twist it, it will reject your strokes of genius, leaving you feeling like a damn fool for thinking they would work in the first place. A song will tell you, in no uncertain terms, what it wants to be. Only a jackass would ignore it.

“William” was a confounding son of a bitch. I wanted it to be more. So I kept throwing different layers at it. But none of them worked. What was there was all it wanted. And the more I listened to it, the more it reminded me of William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops. Basisnki could’ve done so much more with those decaying tape loops. But he was confident enough as an artist to listen to what the music was telling him. It didn’t need more. There was such a journey in those slowly decaying repetitions. To smother them in other things would’ve dragged them down.

What I had was a single take of a repetitive guitar riff, played live through a reverse-echo feedback loop for 11 minutes. The feedback loop created oscillations and repetitions that took on a life of their own, extending past the riff, even re-absorbing it. There was a compelling journey in that single guitar line.

The soundscape is named after Basinski since he inspired the approach and after my father, who is also named William, because he’s had an interesting journey himself. Give it a spin and see where it takes you.

William

HOLLOW UTOPIA

CONTRARIAN ERA

NOISE SYNDICATE

Words from the artist:  RY-Z is a track that has been collecting dust on my hard drive for some time. I wrote it a few years back and I have kept coming back to it.

Buy: https://parry-btn.bandcamp.com/track/ry-z

PREMIERE: Parry - RY-Z

Noisemaker. Guitarist for End of Hope (endofhope.bandcamp.com), Northern Heretic (northernheretic.bandcamp.com), and Eternal Black (R.I.P. -- eternalblack.bandcamp.com). Creator of un-ambient experiments (obsidianskyrecords.bandcamp.com). Bike rider. Salty dog.

Variac

Ken Wohlrob

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