• THE TUNNEL - "APPARITION OVERDRIVE"

  Record/Vinyl

  • 
  • 
  Limited-edition, fog-colored vinyl (clear-black marble) with locked-groove lullaby and de-luxe jacket/sleeve artwork. Front/back views of the unearthly couple and their unruly coupe on the outside. Band photos and complete lyrics on the sleeve. Beautiful vinyl master and lacquer cut by Carl Saff in Chicago. Manufactured in Los Angeles, USA. The band were kind enough to supply us with some earlier albums for distribution. Limited copies available!
  Tracks:
  1.The Visitant 03:29
  2.Curse of Winter 04:56
  3.Apparition Overdrive 03:21
  4.Crooked Arms 03:32
  5.What Can Never Be 04:22
  6.Binary 04:39
  7.Restless City 03:25
  8.The Hills 04:40
  9.Phantasmic 04:10
  10.Lights 04:20
  about
  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 aristocratic snake and rat creatures.
  
  
  Press for "Apparition Overdrive":
  
  "I can’t remember the last time I had this much trouble describing a band...Musically, it is as if you’re able to combine The Jesus Lizard with Portishead and it somehow works."
  –Ty Stranglehold, Razorcake.org
  
  “...like Bauhaus meets the Cramps meets Iggy meets early Pere Ubu, but more sparse than any of those...Sounds like 1982, and yet fresh.” -Peter Doubt, KFJC On-Line Reviews
  
  “Vicious and pleasurable at the same time...builds itself up from song to song and culminates now and then in a musical outburst that is actually reminiscent of a storm...dark and captivating.”
  - Christian Grasse, breitband.deutschlandradiokultur.de (Berlin public radio)
  
  “really revel[s] in the theatrical noir and swampy post-punk that is commonly associated with The Birthday Party...The Tunnel is all in on what they are doing, down to Jeff Wagner’s vocals, which undoubtedly out duel the music itself in terms of sewer dwelling seediness.” - Jonathan Harnish, boaws.org
  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).
  license
  some rights reserved
  tags
  Tags
  rock deathrock gothic americana post-punk psychedelic San Francisco
  about
  The Tunnel image
  The Tunnel
  San Francisco, California
  
  Following
  Sam Black (bass / electronics), Michael Jacobs (drums), Jeff Wagner (voice / guitar)
  
  the wind howls with vicious
  pleasure
  
  Facebook
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  Recommendations
  discography
  
  The Blood EP
  Jan 2019
  
  Exoskeletal EP
  Oct 2018
  
  Plasma Den / Overland single
  Jun 2017
  more releases...
  contact / help
  Contact The Tunnel
  
  Streaming and
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• THE TUNNEL - "SULTRY DAGGERS"

  Record/Vinyl

  • 
  Full color 12" jacket artwork, with sultry insert featuring song lyrics on one side and French postcard / electron diffraction lady on the other. The band were kind enough to supply us with some delicious vinyl. Very Limited!
  Tracks:
  1.Shed the Skin 03:21
  2.Devil's Reach 04:20
  3.Rumbler 03:46
  4.Confessor 03:32
  5.Trigger 05:27
  6.Subterraneum 04:33
  7.Sultry Daggers 05:02
  8.Song of the Spectre 03:47
  about
  Limited Edition Vinyl LP (500) / CD / MP3
  credits
  released November 20, 2012
  
  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
  license
  some rights reserved
  tags
  Tags
  rock deathrock gothic americana post-punk sci-fi surf blues caveman goth San Francisco
  about
  The Tunnel image
  The Tunnel
  San Francisco, California
  
  Following
  Sam Black (bass / electronics), Michael Jacobs (drums), Jeff Wagner (voice / guitar)
  
  the wind howls with vicious
  pleasure
  
  Facebook
  Tumblr
  SoundCloud
  YouTube
  Instagram
  Recommendations
  discography
  
  The Blood EP
  Jan 2019
  
  Exoskeletal EP
  Oct 2018
  
  Plasma Den / Overland single
  Jun 2017
  more releases...
  contact / help
  Contact The Tunnel
  
  Streaming and
  Download help
  
  Bandcamplog in terms of use privacy copyright policy switch to mobile view language: English
  
  Listen here: thetunnelsf.bandcamp.com
  
  ... more
  ships out within 7 days

  Purchasable with gift card

  Buy Record/Vinyl   $11.99 USD or more 

  Send as Gift 

• THE TUNNEL "FATHOMS DEEP"

  Record/Vinyl

  • 
  • 
  .
  Tracks:
  1 Wraithes 01:24
  2.Strange Haven 04:39
  3.King of the Impossible 05:14
  4.Fathomless Deep 03:43
  5.The Beast-Catcher 06:34
  6.Scurvye Dreames 04:41
  7.The Bitter End 03:16
  8.A Storm 04:33
  about
  Vinyl LP / 320 kbps MP3 album
  credits
  released April 5, 2011
  
  Your favorite drinking music is fierce and darkly romantic. Ragged, visionary tales of lust and loss. But you’ve already played all your Birthday Party, 16 Horsepower, and Swans records to death. You might need some new drinking music.
  
  Sam Black (bass & keyboards), Patrick Crawford (drums), and Jeff Wagner (vocals & guitar) have these intoxicating aims when they get together and play as the tunnel. Their second album FATHOMS DEEP (2011) was hammered out in various San Francisco dives and warehouses, but draws its lifeblood from the darkness of the surrounding, still-remote Northern California coast. The sounds are akin to the art-damaged noise coming out of 1970s New York, 1980s London-via-Berlin, or an 1850s West Coast harbor town damp with fog and whiskey.
  
  Some reviews of FATHOMS DEEP:
  
  “like an inspired meeting of the minds from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds circa TENDER PREY, Gun Club, mid-period Swans, and Television…How often do you stumble across an album whose every song is stunning?”
  -RKF, theonetruedeadangel.blogspot.com
  
  “The Tunnel, out of San Francisco, swaggers through a doomed and noir-ish landscape of abandoned taverns and spectral red light districts. Armed with just the basics — guitar, drums, a few keyboards and a bass — its three members transform California’s normally sunny surf rock into something dank and infected, chords hanging in the miasma, riffs clanking chains in damp, moldering basements.”
  -Jennifer Kelly, dustedmagazine.com
  
  “Jeff Wagner’s vocals ooze the type of venom Nick Cave once did with The Birthday Party. Alongside him bassist Sam Black and drummer Patrick Crawford set up the deep, ugly and unrelenting rhythmic wall of sludge we used to associate with Swans. Their new album, Fathoms Deep, is fun like waking up in a nest of snakes...The Tunnel are one of the great bands in the SF area right now”
  - Greg Barbrick, blogcritics.org
  
  "Drawing on both the decadent ambience of gothic rock and the dissonant clash of postpunk, the trio glides like a shark through eight tales of sex, death and altered states of consciousness, leaving a trail of blood and glitter behind it...Fathoms Deep burns when it goes down, but provides the warm, satisfied glow of having gotten away with murder."
  -Michael Toland, blurt-online.com
  
  “There’s a starkly raw aspect to Fathoms Deep that reaches back to the Velvet Underground while infusing elements of The Stooges and Blue Cheer, thenceforward to Television and Japan with a New York Dolls attitude...The Tunnel is recreating the difficult art of taking fairly simple progressions built from basic chords and structures but enshrining the process so that it reflects stars and shrouded night skies in museum quality architecture. Had Bauhaus figured this tricky little formula out, they’d’ve had far greater durability...Seriously, this is good shit and rarely handled so well”
  -Mark S. Tucker, Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange (www.acousticmusic.com/fame).
  
  “Sounding like the younger cousins of The Gun Club, San Francisco’s The Tunnel play dirty, gothic blues that slithers from the shadows…Relentless, brutal and even savage in spots, Fathoms Deep isn’t afraid of anything—hellish tangles and bitter ends have never sounded better.”
  -Alex Green, caughtinthecarousel.com
  
  “a worthy successor to the Birthday Party/Swans/Gun Club sound. I look forward to seeing what these guys do next.”
  -Adam Bubolz, reviler.org
  
  “digging the scraping mayhem of THE TUNNEL’s distraught, deconstructed gonzo-rock, “Fathoms Deep.”
  -John Noyd, maximumink.com
  
  “When you hear the dulcet tones of Jeff Wagner’s ominous guitar straining through your speakers and threatening to break a cone or loosen some solder, you just might have the same reaction I had: Fuckin-a right on! From the misty havens of Northern California this band comes like hot rod in a Quentin Tarantino movie: Sexy, cool and all full of bad assery.”
  - Jamie Sweet, themusicswamp.com
  
  “After listening to this album, you’ll come away from this feeling a little dirty and probably a lot drunk.”
  -Tim Wardyn, blogs.ink19.com/straightnochaser
  
  
  FATHOMS DEEP was recorded at Studio SQ in San Francisco, produced by The Tunnel and engineered by Chris Crawford (drummer for French Miami & The Downer Party). Jeff was previously a bassist in noise-rock bands in North Carolina and Illinois (Jumpknuckle & Sharking Teeth,) and performed abrasive, Foetus-eque theater in San Francisco (The Tunnel of Love & Circus Proboscis). Pat was a drummer in punk, metal and hardcore bands in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh (Aus Rotten & White Gold). Sam played bass in the San Francisco dark rock bands (the Guilty Party & If Ever).
  
  CONTACT: send email to (info at thetunnelsf dot com)
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  all rights reserved
  
  Listen here: thetunnesfl.bandcamp.com
  
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• THE TUNNEL - "PLASMA DEN/OVERLAND" 10" LP

  Record/Vinyl

  • 
  • 
  • 
  Tracks:
  1.Plasma Den 03:37
  2.Overland 04:34
  about
  "Plasma Den" / "Overland" single by San Francisco band The Tunnel, recorded with Jai Young Kim at Feast or Famine April 2017.
  
  New flesh from the Tunnel, expanding on the primitive darkness of the "Six Curses of the Blackout Witchcave" EP, released earlier this year by the duo of Sam Black (bass/electronics) and Jeff Wagner (guitar/vocals). These two songs are the first to be written and recorded as a trio with new Tunnel drummer Michael Jacobs (pOrch), who transforms the earlier EP's alien machine beats into a much more inviting, dynamic proposition. "Plasma Den" is a sinuous roller coaster of backbeats and barbed wire, while "Overland" oozes seductive, spidery Giallo dreams.
  
  In addition to the digital single, a limited edition of 250 x 10"/45rpm vinyl with full color jacket art + photo insert was released Fall 2017.
  credits
  released June 25, 2017
  
  Listen here: thetunnelsf.bandcamp.com
  
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credits