"...it’s a mistake in the first place to try and find rules where for the most part there aren’t any, and that High Noon Kahuna‘s sundry divergences throughout This Place is Haunted are most of all linked by the fact that it’s all part of the band’s overarching scope. And as in the best of scenarios, it works because they make it work in pieces that aren’t trying to be defined as weird or outside this or that common ‘heavy’ expectation so much as they are a realization of the personalities behind the songwriting. A good bit of instrumental chemistry and breadth of production don’t hurt either, and This Place is Haunted benefits from those as well."
- JJ KOCZAN, THE OBELISK
HIGH NOON KAHUNA "THIS PLACE IS HAUNTED"
BANDCAMP LISTENING PARTY !
https://crucialblast.bandcamp.com/merch/high-noon-kahuna-this-place-is-haunted-listening-party
May 15, 2024 at 7:00 PM EDT
Come and join Crucial Blast and the members of MD/WV noise rock / occult desert rock / phantasmagorical psychedelic punk power-trio HIGH NOON KAHUNA as we hang out next Wednesday (7pm EST) and listen to the upcoming full-length album "This Place Is Haunted". We will all be in the chat, and would love to hear from you and blab with ya!
We will also be doing an online raffle + trivia question for free HIGH NOON KAHUNA shirts, hoodies, and copies of the new album, only for participants in the listening party chat. Come and get it!
RSVP HERE: https://crucialblast.bandcamp.com/album/this-place-is-haunted
HIGH NOON KAHUNA -
UPCOMING LIVE SHOWS (EAST COAST TOUR)
May 23 – Asheville, NC @ The Odd
May 24 – Richmond, VA @ Another Round
May 25 – Staunton, VA @ The Brick
May 26 – Lexington, KY @ Green Lantern
May 28 – Washington, DC @ The Pie Shop
Jun 23 – Frederick, MD @ Maryland Doom Fest (Local Release Party)
HIGH NOON KAHUNA This Place Is Haunted CD / CS / DL (vinyl LP tba)
OUT MAY 17, 2024
Crucial Blast is stoked to announce that we are joining forces with longtime friends HIGH NOON KAHUNA on the release of their second album, This Place Is Haunted. Harder, darker, but also brimming with haunting melody, the Maryland band features former members of Internal Void, Vox Populi and Admiral Browning, executing an incredibly infectious mix of classic noise rock and psychedelic crunch.
The twelve songs on Haunted are on a whole new level from the band; this rumbling riff-beast brilliantly evokes everything from pummeling Am Rep abrasion, soaring Hawkwindian space rock, haunting post-punk, Dick Dale-on-acid licks, doses of massive doom-laden crush, and even wisps of classic Morricone moodiness and some hammering QOTSA-esque groove.
Easily one of the most unique bands ever to emerge from the DC/MD area, KAHUNA is weirder, heavier, and catchier than ever before, and C-BLAST is incredibly excited to bring this banger to your ears.
This Place Is Haunted will be released May 17th, 2024.
Stay tuned for the first single from the album, coming in early March!
crucialblast.net
crucialblastshop.net
SOON FROM CRUCIAL BLAST:
CULTIC "SEDUCER (EXPANDED EDITION)” CASSETTE + "WHIP SEDUCTION" SHIRT
Release Date: February 9th, 2024.
The 2023 "Seducer" EP from synth-drenched, battle-ready death metal barbarians CULTIC is reissued on cassette by Crucial Blast, pairing the original three-song EP (self-released in mid-2023) with bonus demo tracks and rare live recordings of the band in all their filthy, bulldozing glory.
This PA trio features the husband-and-wife team of Brian and Rebecca Magar (the latter an acclaimed visual artist and force behind the Wailing Wizard design house) on vocals / guitar and drums respectively, joined by new bassist Andrew Harris (ALMS).
Together, the band delivers maximal tripped-out deathcrush, blending atavistic doom-death a la Hellhammer / early Frost with dungeon synth and martial industrial elements, fueled by their wildly imaginative dark fantasy narratives. Nearly forty-minutes of deadly DUNGEON METAL.
This release is accompanied by the exclusive "Whip Seducer" shirt design, illustrated by Rebecca Magar. GET SEDUCED.
Available individually or as tape/shirt bundles from Crucial Blast.
All orders will begin shipping early in the week of 2/9.
Pre-order now at:
www.crucialblast.net
www.crucialblastshop.net
crucialblast.bandcamp.com/album/seducer-expanded-edition
NOTE: THE CRUCIAL BLAST PSYCHOTRONIC CATASTROPHISM LIMITED EDITION SHIRT WILL BEGIN SHIPPING AFTER 02/01. ANY ORDERS THAT INCLUDE THIS ITEM WILL SHIP ON OR AFTER THAT DATE.
Printed by FOREST PASSAGE PRINTING
For the twenty-fifth anniversary of CRUCIAL BLAST, we are stoked to
present the first in a series of Crucial Blast shirts featuring
brand-new commissioned art from our favorite visual artists. This design
features the gnarly collage art of Cody Drasser, guitarist for the
acclaimed New York prog-death outfit AFTERBIRTH and grave ambient
project CAULBEARER, as well as a highly skilled visual artist in his own
right; we've been longtime fans of Drasser and his music/art, with
several releases from him in the C-Blast catalog..
Amazingly, this is actually the first time ever that we've issued a CRUCIAL BLAST design. After 25 years, the time is now!
The "Psychotronic Catastrophism" design is an accurate glimpse into the
neurologic strategies behind the art, music, film, and literature that
we release here at Crucial Blast. Issued in a limited printing, on black
Gildan 100% cotton short sleeve t-shirt, two-color print, with the
Crucial Blast sigil on the back of the shirt.
ORDER HERE:
CRUCIAL BLAST SHOP:
CRUCIAL BLAST Psychotronic Catastrophism (SMALL) SHIRT
CRUCIAL BLAST Psychotronic Catastrophism (MEDIUM) SHIRT
CRUCIAL BLAST Psychotronic Catastrophism (LARGE) SHIRT
CRUCIAL BLAST Psychotronic Catastrophism (EXTRA LARGE) SHIRT
CRUCIAL BLAST Psychotronic Catastrophism (XXL) SHIRT
CRUCIAL BLAST is ultra-stoked to collaborate with GRAVE GNOSIS on a limited-edition cassette release of their latest album Pestilence Crowned.
This searing psychedelic blast of Southern USBM is issued in a hand-numbered edition of 100 copies, and is packaged with an 11" x 17" poster of the Pestilence Crowned artwork and a twenty-four page supplemental booklet of liner notes, ritual system, and artwork, previously only available as a .PDF download with the album's late 2023 digital release.
This acid-soaked outrage will begin shipping on or around 01/17/24.
AVAILABLE AT:
Here's my sprawling review of the album:
The swirling, sweat-soaked psychedelic black metal of Grave Gnosis first infected me when I discovered the band's 2021 album Lux Nigredo and 2022 EP Towards the Nameless Darkness
a while back. Both of 'em are terrific and terrifying blasts of
incredibly chaotic and mind-bending black metal that likewise caught the
attention of many that follow the USBM underground, despite only being
available as digital downloads and super-limited cassettes. Slick with
swamp slime, the band's music is a smoldering torch in the darkness,
mutating the raw matter of black metal into nightmarish and exuberant
ritual. There's a distinctly marshy Southern stench that permeates their
blend of raging black / death metal, psych, and neo-classical, wafting
off the triumphant galloping riffs, harsh and blazing blackened blast,
and miasmic trippiness that completely enshrouds their music. But on
their latest, Pestilence Crowned , all hell fully and truly
breaks loose as the band ascends to a new level of Satanic savagery and
twisted, psychotronic violence. This shit is wild . Possessed with a powerful shamanic presence, the nine songs on Pestilence
are thoroughly tangled with specific formulae of ceremonial magic and
violent adoration, a direct continuation of the themes running through Nigredo
related to the band's system of Vedantic Nihilism. Each song becomes a
paved stone on the honeysuckle and kudzu-covered footpath to a
particular transcendental state; no mere soundtrack to patchwork
blasphemies, this album directly interacts with the nervous system and
the third eye.
From the ghoulish ambience of opener "Amidst the Rotten Coils of
a Great Centipede" with its ghostly cello, tribal percussion and eerie
experimental electronics, and the subsequent blast of feverish churning
chaos that is "Carnivorous Darkness", this stuff undulates in some
seriously crazed ways. Moving through passages of solemn funereal
chamber strings and traces of rustic folk music tradition in the
gorgeous acoustic strum that appears on tracks like "Ragziel", this
album strikes a balance between inchoate madness and progressive
intricacy that doesn't really sound like anything else going on in the
US black metal field. It all explodes in kaleidoscopic forms, heavily
layered with rabid howls echoing into oblivion, strange almost sitar -like
ragas spinning in blackness, Moog-like spaced-out synthesizers snaking
around the darkly majestic melodies and fractured riffs; you've got
moments here that echo the weirder symphonic bombast found in later
Emperor and Aspera Hiems Symfonia-era Arcturus , others that
hint at classic death metal influences, but Grave Gnosis is so much more
chaotic and convoluted, beautiful and monstrous. They've delivered one
of the best American occult black metal albums I've heard so far this
decade. Drown in the fires of its spiritual intensity.
This cassette edition of Pestilence Crowned is
complete with the band's supplemental material: while the tape comes in a
traditional case, it is presented in a re-sealable sleeve that also
contains an 11" by 17" foldout poster of the scorching, lysergic cover
art, and the band's twenty-three page Pestilence Crowned
booklet. The latter is an essential piece of the experience, not just a
collection of expansive liner notes pertinent to the album, but a new
grimoire written by Grave Gnosis frontman Caine Del Sol ( aka Ø ), with
explanations both "mundane" and "esoteric" for each song. The liner
notes go into intimate detail about the creation and recording of the
album, but pairs that with dense occult text, ritual practice, and
extensive sigil art that is all as feral, impenetrable, and liberating
as the music of Pestilence Crowned itself.
The cassette / booklet / poster edition from Crucial Blast is limited to one hundred copies, hand-numbered.
As 2024 begins, it marks the 25th Year Anniversary of CRUCIAL BLAST. Thank you to all of the bands, artists, labels, distributors, promoters, publicists that have worked with me and who have supported my efforts over the past two and a half decades to present the music and art that I love. And an extra nuclear-strength thank you to all of the customers and fellow weird music fans that have supported Crucial Blast. After a period of great personal difficulty that I'd posted about last year, I am awed and honored by the positive support and encouragement that I have received from so many. I am as inspired now as I was in 1999 when the label and shop began to support the bands and artists I love and share them with the world.
Thank you. Here's to another 25...
- Adam Wright / CRUCIAL BLAST
crucialblast.net
crucialblastshop.net
Until very recently, there’s been a considerable length of time since any kind of official update or news announcement came from Crucial Blast, which is obvious to anyone who has followed the label, store, and my other associated projects in the past. Up to this point, I have not publicly discussed the situation that caused this "radio silence", and the only people that are fully aware of it are those in my immediate circles. But I feel that I owe everyone an explanation, as for all intents and purposes, it appeared that I had fallen off the face of the earth in 2017 and taken C-Blast with me.
I don't expect anyone to concern themselves with this information. I don’t expect anyone to read this. But some individuals have asked me what happened, so here it is.
What occurred was this: I had been trying to coordinate care for my elderly father for years, as he lived alone in a city eight hours away from me, and operated a business there. At the time, he was my only surviving parent, and was nearing 90 years old. I was already dealing with various challenges in regards to this, trying to oversee his safety and well-being remotely while also operating Crucial Blast as a label and store with its own various obligations and challenges; it should be no surprise that like most small independent labels, C-Blast is a one-man operation.
In 2017, my father’s health began to decline further and certain troubling issues regarding his safety required my attention. Then he suffered another heart attack, this one more severe than ever before, and my wife and I flew down to his location to see him and assess the situation. It became immediately apparent that my father required a level of care and specialized follow-up that he would not receive if he remained in his current location; my wife and I made the difficult decision to have him fly back with us to our home, and proceed from there.
In a short period of time, the situation declined to the point where I had to take on full-time, 24-7 care of my father, who by this point was suffering from assorted complications relating to congestive heart failure and vascular dementia, along with a host of other age-related health issues and additional disorders. I also had to become his POA. For reasons that are unimportant to this explanation, I was the sole family member engaging in his care and oversight. This, as you might imagine, made a difficult situation that much more complex and problematic. As I did my best to manage his declining physical health and all of the demands of living and caring for a parent with dementia in my home, there was the additional quandary of his still-operating business. This obviously needed to be resolved in some way, with the intention of shutting it down, but the process and details of that particular element of our situation developed into an extremely acrimonious problem, a rabbithole of issues and conflicts that I was entirely unprepared for, and which consumed as much of my time and effort as everything else going on. The accumulation of these problems and challenges took a gargantuan toll on me, in all regards: mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially.
While all of this was happening, I was also still attempting to operate Crucial Blast, manage orders, and do what I could, with as much as I could, with the shrinking personal resources left to me. But navigating all of the various issues was incredibly difficult for me. And despite what I thought were my best efforts, I fell out of touch with people, some orders were screwed up, and it became increasingly demanding for me to manage the typical day-to-day challenges and obligations behind running a business.
Circumstances inevitably led me to take over end-of-life care for my father, with new issues and new difficulties arising on a weekly basis. Endless nights spent in emergency rooms. Countless ambulance calls to my house. The duration of this full-time end-of-life care turned out to go on for much longer than we had anticipated. I did my best to provide my father with as much safety, care, and respect as I could, and this is where I finally came face to face with the ruinous nature of both the U.S. health care system and the field of elder care. For various reasons, there were very few resources available to us. I discovered the reality that, unless one is of great wealth and means, the health care system is an abject failure, and that there is no one out there to step in and assist an individual with the immense responsibilities and concerns of being a full-time caregiver and advocate to a parent with dementia and major health and mobility issues. The Medicare / Medicaid system was difficult to deal with, to say the least. I do not know how we could have managed my father's health issues if he had not been a veteran, and received health care from the VA system. And if it had not been for the Herculean efforts of my wife to assist me in everything, I do not think that I would have been able to get through this process.
At the very end of his life, I was dealing with Hospice, and I had managed to get him a higher level of care than I could provide in my home, through placement in the best Assisted Living facility we could manage. Again, there were numerous problems and logistical issues that I was battling on a daily basis. But I had a small degree of peace of mind knowing that he was in capable hands, that he wouldn't suffer some terrible accident in my home, and that I could visit him regularly.
The final weeks were very tough, very, very tough, but my father ultimately passed away peacefully in bed.
In the wake of this, I completely spiraled out. I was ruined. Years of mounting stress, exhaustion, self-loathing, and guilt had reached a terminal point. It was catastrophic. I had a complete and total nervous breakdown. I became completely dysfunctional as an adult, and sunk into a long and bottomless depression. I had constant, almost hourly panic attacks. I was incapable of communicating with anyone outside of my house. What had already been the most difficult period of my life shifted into what I can really only describe as a vast, black hole. With no hope of exit. This situation had devastated me and shattered me on every level. Additional issues arose, such as losing my day job due to the company permanently shutting down due to Covid. The stress of the concurrent lockdowns. An accident that left me with a broken leg and dislocated ankle, followed with six months of physical therapy and a permanent injury. This personal breakdown went on for some period of time, and it was only through the perseverance and persistence of my wife that I finally found my way into the mental health care system. That proved to be a nightmare of its own, but after months, years of effort, I made my way out and back to basic functionality. This in and of itself has been a long, arduous process that is still ongoing. But I found a way out, to a semblance of normalcy. I still currently cope with severe depression, panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, but I cope.
This leads to now. I am deeply embarrassed and regretful that I allowed my various commitments with Crucial Blast to deteriorate over that period of time. The totality of this situation had all but destroyed Crucial Blast, an entity that I had been creating since 1999. But now that I am on the other side of this terrible experience, I am energized and enthusiastic to rebuild and correct, to make sure that all of my obligations are fully resolved. Because working with musicians that I admire, and talking and sharing music and art and literature that I am excited about, trying to expose people to art and ideas that strike a nerve in me, it is my favorite thing to engage with in this world, aside from family. In spite of the difficulties, and the problems, and the pitfalls. Over the past year and a half, I have been working hard to fully re-activate Crucial Blast in all of its forms, to respond to anyone and everyone that has contacted me for whatever reason, and to fulfill every promise that I have made over the years. I feel momentum. I feel motivation. And I have ideas spilling out of my head.
And I thank every single person, be it musicians, artists, customers, labels, distributors, friends, acquaintances, anyone and everyone that has been waiting on a response from me during this period of time for whatever reason, for their incredible patience. I am humbled by your patience. I appreciate it so much more than you can know.
And I'll be talking to you as soon as I possibly can.
I am hoping to announce some very exciting projects, reissues, and more from Crucial Blast in the coming months.
I know I am not alone in experiencing these intense pressures and predicaments. The entire elder-care system is a labyrinthine nightmare. And no one is sounding the alarm.
I have posted some important links below that helped me navigate my situation and find resources that I desperately needed. I share them here in case there is anyone out there experiencing a similar situation as mine.
- Adam Wright / CRUCIAL BLAST
(USA) SAMHSA CRISIS LIFELINE: www.samhsa.gov/suicide
(WORLD) IASP CRISIS SUPPORT: www.iasp.info/suicidalthoughts/
AGING CARE - CAREGIVER FORUM: www.agingcare.com/caregiver-forum
U.S. GOVT SITE ON CAREGIVER RESOURCES: www.hhs.gov/aging/long-term-care/index.html
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