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THE TUNNEL- "CD COLLECTION"

by Forbidden Place Records

  • Compact Disc (CD)

    Six Curses of the Blackout Witchcave" is a sleazy, bio-mechanical beast, brutal and ecstatic. This EP is a compilation of six online singles released by San Francisco band the Tunnel over 12 months roughly spanning 2016. Each was bashed out and recorded entirely direct by the stripped-down duo of Sam Black (bass, electronics) and Jeff Wagner (voice, guitars). The trashy, Queenadreena-esque on/off bursts here are a deliberate departure from the organic, roomy ambience of the Tunnel's previous record, "Apparition Overdrive." Drum sounds were handmade using a castoff Moog Rogue and Akai MPC sequencer. The tight, primitive rhythms sound like a thicker version of The Normal or Big Black, punching through alien flesh and relentless vocals. Black and Wagner played several 2016 shows with their cranky machine pounding through a dedicated PA + subwoofer, but since mid-2016 they have been joined on stage by excellent human drummer Michael Jacobs (pOrch).

    credits

    released January 7, 2017 

    Recorded by Sam Black in San Francisco. All music by The Tunnel. 
    Sam Black: bass, electronics. Jeff Wagner: guitar, words, art.

    Listen here: thetunnelsf.bandcamp.com

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  • Compact Disc (CD)

    Northern California-fog-colored artwork featuring front/back views of the unearthly couple and their unruly coupe on the outside, band photos and complete lyrics on the inside.


    San Francisco band the Tunnel makes spooky art punk blues, a blend of noisy noir (e.g., Swans, Young Widows, Dead Rider) and haunted sensuality (Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Kaleidoscope,” the Birthday Party’s “Mutiny”). 

    More intimate and spacious than the Tunnel’s previous record, “Sultry Daggers,” “Apparition Overdrive” was written collectively by two new collaborators, drummer Jon Weiss (Jello Biafra, Helios Creed, Horsey) and Rowland S Howard-esque guitarist Gregory James, along with the returning Sam Black (bass/electronics) and Jeff Wagner (vocals/guitar). 

    Dark melodies insinuate themselves through these spare songs, alternately driving (“The Visitant”, “Curse of Winter”, “Restless City”) and cinematic (“Crooked Arms”, “What Can Never Be.”) The 
    unhinged title track, “Apparition Overdrive,” sounds like a one-off collaboration between Gene Vincent and Al Jourgensen. Prowling post-punk rhythms evolve into eerie, electric fever dreams (“Binary”, “Phantasmic”) and American nightmares rear their pretty heads (“The Hills”, “Lights”.) Throughout, Wagner’s tales of love and loss are disguised as lurid pulp: Dark Science incantations, demon-chasing hot-rods, and doomed outer-space rivalries between...  more

    credits

    released June 9, 2015 

    “Apparition Overdrive” was recorded and mixed in San Francisco by Sam Black and mastered in Chicago by Carl Saff (Unsane, Grails).

    Listen here: thetunnelsf.bandcamp.com




           



      

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  • Compact Disc (CD)

    Full color digipak CD with pristeeen sound and exotic collages featuring cosmic 1920s pinup under the CD tray. 
    The protagonists of the lurid stories of Tunnel vocalist/ guitarist Jeff Wagner may be grifters, but nihilists they are not. Riding possessed upon the feral, hypnotic rhythms of bassist/noisemaker Sam Black and drummer Patrick Crawford, Wagner’s anti-heroes grasp at transcendence and howl in ecstasy. 

    Many of the song demos for SULTRY DAGGERS were created by a reclusive Wagner healing multiple broken bones after a bike accident, a gestation wrought with peculiar visions. The band then reconvened and collectively devoured the demos, reanimating them along with three songs from the vaults of Wagner and Black. 

    The resulting album is the first by the San Francisco band to openly admit to a love of the future-punk visions of Chrome and Killing Joke, as well as the dark, pretty melodies of studio alchemists like Cranes and Tones on Tail. These elements build upon the twisted drones of SULTRY DAGGERS’seafaring predecessor FATHOMS DEEP (2011) and the sparse, gothic ballads of the debut, CARVER BROTHERS LULLABY (2009). 

    Opening with a propulsive lurch into the grimy space-surf tones of "Shed the Skin", Side One drives relentlessly through to Track 4, the circular-7/8-metered, Jesus Lizard-meets-Film Noir drama of "Confessor". Side Two transitions into a set of progressively deeper, more atmospheric songs, from the cacophonous, helical coils of "Trigger" to the ethereal, Club Silencio-style closer "Song of the Spectre." 

    SULTRY DAGGERS was recorded by Black in San Francisco, mixed by Chris Crawford (French Miami, Clintongore) at Death by Audio in Brooklyn, and mastered by Carl Saff in Chicago (Grails, Unsane). The recording sessions were enlivened by a delirious but tasteful indulging in Black's arsenal of vintage electronics (Space Echo, CompuRhythm CR78, Synare, a resuscitated 1940s RCA 44BX ribbon mic) and the lovely backing vocals of Elizabeth Kelley. 


    Press for SULTRY DAGGERS: 

    “Inhabits a genuinely compelling other world from commencement to termination. Stay shocked, gentlemen. This is one fuck-off of a disc.” 
    -Julian Cope, Head Heritage (UK) 

    "If you like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds during their "Tender Prey" era, you'll dig the Tunnel." 
    -Tony DuShane, San Francisco Chronicle 

    "Tom Waits meets Rob Zombie with some German expressionism thrown in...this would be my soundtrack to sit brooding in a dimly lit room late at night, plotting the gruesome demise of all my enemies." 
    -Lord Kveldulfr, Razorcake 

    "a song by The Tunnel is like a song by The Fall. You can expect everything except the expected...And yeah it hurts, but the pain is so delicious you push the repeat-button." 
    -Didier Becu, Peek-a-Boo Magazine (Belgium) 

    ""Trigger" (my favorite track on the album) is driven by a big beat, gnarly pounding bass, and a hypnotic, clanging guitar riff that could have appeared on an early album by Public Image Limited or Gang of Four, along with psychotronic noises Helios Creed would have been proud to claim as his own...The songs are all masterfully constructed and the album is completely filler-free. You must hear this" 
    - RKF, The One True Dead Angel 

    "a sweaty mess of masculine energy...creepy and atmospheric" 
    -Rex, KZSU Album Review 

    "Draped a black elegance, eight pieces glow in the night…Sultry Daggers passes securities more creepy, crooked, flashy arpeggios, cloudy atmosphere as in a David Lynch film and a hint of blue velvet, the silky hiding depravity, feel squirt vinegar, acidic flavor and latent migraine in the rhythm." 
    -SKX, Perte et Fracas (France) 

    "Sinister carney rock with swirling danger and "the creeps" steadily delivered like catalogues at Christmastime. Like Nick Cave if he actually lived in a cave. Like Gun Club if they actually lived in a gun. Like Bauhaus if they actually lived in a bat house." 
    -Flamin’ Waymon Timbsdayle, Roctober 

    "Their sound is made of clean but tortured vocals, sharp post-punk guitars and their rhythmic section are now more on the front, stressing the noise rock feel and dirty groove of the band. And it works really well. But what the band’s doing the best is creating a dark and mysterious atmosphere that evoques something like a haunted, old and smoky cabaret noir." 
    -Blasting Days (France) 

    "Between its staggering bass and compelling grooves, the post-punk of The Tunnel is alternately cold, rock'n'roll, goth, cutting, hypnotic, warlike, and crackling into a corridor also roamed by Toulouse's Otto, Swann Danger, and Love Life." 
    -kfuel.org podcast (France) 

    "metallic krautrock...It starts on deep and rocking with a growly vocalist, and only gets more and more intense." 
    -Runaway Music blog 

    "heavy rock music with a twist of lemon and salt." 
    -J Dee, WLUR FM Music Review

    Listen here: thetunnelsf.bandcamp.com

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  • Compact Disc (CD)

    Beautiful gatefold CD printed by Stumptown Printers, with tastefully bombastic artwork by the Tunnel. Also includes immediate download of 16-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

    1.

    Blackout St. 00:53

    2.

    Drop Dead Delilah 02:52

    3.

    Like a Hungry Knife 03:56

    4.

    Shifty 02:58

    5.

    Darkened 00:26

    6.

    Devil's Doorstep 04:02

    7.

    The Carver Brothers 06:31

    8.

    100,000 Phantoms 04:02

    9.

    The Generator 00:45

    10.

    This Double Cross 03:09

    11.

    The Ghost of the Late-NIght Rails 03:46

    12.

    Elevation 03:42

    13.

    Transmissionary 00:45

    14.

    Your Veins 04:38

    15.

    Last Ride 03:54

    16.

    After 01:48

    about

    recycled chipboard digipack CD / mp3 album

    credits

    released February 1, 2009 

    1. Blackout St. 
    2. Drop Dead Delilah 
    3. Like a Hungry Knife 
    4. Shifty 
    5. Darkened 
    6. Devil's Doorstep 
    7. The Carver Brothers 
    8. 100,000 Phantoms 
    9. The Generator 
    10. This Double Cross 
    11. The Ghost of the Late-Night Rails 
    12. Elevation 
    13. Transmissionary 
    14. Your Veins 
    15. Last Ride 
    16. After 

    CARVER BROTHERS LULLABY (2009)’s skeletal sound inhabits a blackened, mythical vision of the Northern California coast, located somewhere between Denis Johnson’s derelict visionary novel Already Dead and Neil Young’s Zuma. The Tunnel’s debut full length album is a noir travelogue populated by snake oil salesmen, railway ghosts, and feral fatales. Opening with an ominous burlesque, it quickly expands into spidery Phil-Spectoresque devolutions and spare Swans-scapes, interspersed with various selections from a staticky post-apocalyptic jukebox. 

    Some reviews of "CARVER BROTHERS LULLABY": 

    "I've also been mightily impressed by the scratchy and acerbic post-MARQUEE MOON death C&W of The Tunnel, a duo whose debut album CARVER BROTHERS LULLABY is a collection of epic and strung-out Chain Gang-meets-Robert Quinean Blank Generation Blues...These guys is Motherfuckers, no less." 
    --Julian Cope, Head Heritage (UK) 
    www.headheritage.co.uk 

    "both entrancing and mysterious, at times resembling the sound of the first album by the Angels of Light...The disc comes in a gatefold chipboard digipak with swell art that's every bit as good and eerie as the music on the disc." 
    --RKF, The One True Dead Angel 
    theonetruedeadangel.blogspot.com 

    "like a William Faulkner novel to Jack White's F. Scott Fitzgerald...a collection of songs, or rather tales, about all kinds of sombre, twisted, devoluted incidents with dark streets, hungry knives, double crosses, last rides and veins. A mind-twisting collection in so many ways" 
    --Georg Gartlgruber, Cracked webzine (Vienna, Austria) 
    www.monochrom.at/cracked 

    "Broken heart blues thrown spastic into the approaching night...I hear a little of that dark gothic backwoods sound that I like when it slips out of a 16 Horsepower song, but here it's like they switched out the old Americana for a slightly fresher and more concrete based skyscraper vision...Gothically punk and beautiful." 
    --Marcel Feldmar, The Red Alert 
    www.theredalert.com 

    "a collection of songs that explore the grittier elements of "sunny" California. But The Tunnel is more than just a band with a sound; Jeff and Pat are a two-man art factory. Mischievous-goodness ensues when a metal drumming graphic artist pairs up with a songwriter who brings a theater background to on-stage presentation." 
    --Matthew Monte, Ashcan Magazine 
    ashcanmagazine.com 

    "my day got quite a bit more hedonistic as soon as I played the music, for The Tunnel conjure up raw-as-roadkill modern blues, from sparse midnight atmospheres to clanging cuban heel stompers. The guitar digs its fingernails in, the vocals are all chipped flint and rough liquor. Makes the Bad Seeds sound downright AOR." 
    --Uncle Nemesis, Nemesis to Go webzine (UK) 
    www.nemesis.to 

    "the bare roots of such bands as Souled American, but with the approach of the Cramps. A comparison with "Oar" by Alexander Spence is also not very far fetched. Quite a dark work...It is, in short, a delicious shiver..." (primitively translated from the original Dutch!) 
    --John Gjaltema, alt-country-nl (Netherlands) 
    www.altcountry.nl 

    "Wagner’s raw guitar playing and spooky lyrics transport you to the days of old when gypsies roamed in packs and magic potions were sold on dust covered street corners...Drummer Patrick Crawford’s hands reach to the sky and come crashing down on taut heads like an anvil dropping off a ten-story roof." 
    --Darren Dencklau, Viva Musica Buena blog 
    solstare.blogspot.com 

    The players are Patrick Crawford and Jeff Wagner, ex-midwestern alumni of various noisy bands (4192, White Gold, Jumpknuckle, Sharking Teeth) and noisy theater (Circus Proboscis). They live in San Francisco, a fine home base from which to conduct their visceral explorations of unearthly spaces.

    Listen here: thetunnelsf.bandcamp.com

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  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 221 Forbidden Place Records releases available on Bandcamp and save 90%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of PANIKATAX - "Rise N Shine", Basic Shapes - "Low Energy", PANIKATAX - "Hand in Hand", PANIKATAX - "Rejection", PANIKATAX - "White Water Rafting", Veuve Scarron - "Thanks For Nothing Find Me Nowhere", Geishas Of Doom - "Sick(est) Music For The Sickest People Vol. 3 & 4", Land Whales - "Lib​é​lula", and 213 more. , and , .

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credits

released April 25, 2019

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Forbidden Place Records Galena, Illinois

Bringing you sinister sounds from the underground.
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CHAOS!

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