Shadows of the Forgotten- an album by Static Apparitions

 

Shadows of the Forgotten

An Album By Static Apparitions

Album #5 by Static Apparitions.

This blog post is a write up of an album called Shadows of the Forgotten.

The album is by our audio project Static Apparitions. The idea behind Static Apparitions is to make something without intelligible speaking, wordless singing, and make it sound like the soundtrack to an experimental Euro horror flick from sometime between the 1960s- and the late 1970s.

This album is horror experimental art.

Static Apparitions is:

Baroness LeStrange: Woodrow, Tibetan bowl, melodica, wah-wah tube, wooden floor, vocals, synth, FX, cigar box dulcimer, electric guitar, clapping

Ravna Ghaul: zither, monotron, duo-tron, Aztec death whistle, kazoo, metal, vocals, violin, FX, test oscillator, genometer, microphones, recordings

Mostly recorded in the Powder Magazine room on George’s Island Fort Warren Saturday 6/24/23 

If you ever go to Fort Warren and really want to explore the space, I really recommend going on a rainy day. It’s a lot less crowded and gives you a lot more time to take in the place without having to deal with a lot of people. Plus the rain sounds deeper there than most anyplace I’ve ever been.

Also recorded in Edinbourgh Scotland, London England, and Weirdfield MA

Everything created by Static Apparitions 

Copyright 2026 Static Apparitions

Art isn’t static, art is an apparition. This is our official tag line for Static Apparitions.

1. Artillery Spirits 4:36 -It starts with a zither being struck. This was in the Powder Magazine room in Fort Warren. The sound in there is incredible. 

If you feel the production on this album is any good, it’s more down to the astounding acoustics of the space we recorded in. Listen to the glimmering echo of the Tibetan bowl. That is all down to the space we were in. Sweet vocals delivered by the Baroness. Tasty Woodrow playing by the Baroness too.

2. Gentle Monster 4:22 -Melodica washes over strings. Some layering of separate recordings on this one. 

The low guttural sounds are some slowed down recordings. I believe this track has some of the recordings we did in Scotland on it.

The monster is coming closer. Don’t worry as long as you’re gentle so will the monster be…

3. Disgruntled Spirits 7:50 - Loads of melodica on this one. There’s also some distorted playback of recordings on this track. This has some of the bits we recorded in London blended in. Added a lot of spooky sounding synth by the Baroness on this one. Some oscillator sounds as well. 

4. Toll the Bell of the Ghost Galleon 4:02  - Title inspired by the Tomb of the Blind Dead movie, The Ghost Galleon. Not the best of the Blind Dead movies but still, its an inspiring title. We were in Fort Warren

on this rainy chilled day when out from the sea, a bell rang. Then the title came. Yes, that is a real bell from out on the water somewhere in the rain. Some of the spatial effects here are achieved rather easily by me moving closer and backing away from the Zoom H2 recorders that we used for this session, with me utilising the monotron and duotron. Zoom H2 recorders are what we use whenever recording outside. They’re reliable and easy to position.

5. The Figure Approaches 2:09 -Beware, if you listen to this song with headphones something may come to you. At least that’s what I tell myself.

Some Aztec death whistle at the beginning. The track starts off innocently enough for us with some woodrow, then veers into a dark distorted directions with a wall of strange sounds and footsteps. The figure is approaching you. A wall of sound comes rolling in.

6. They’re Coming 12:05 -First the figure approaches. Now They are drawing closer. Whoever are They? The chaotic climax builds into the arrival of They. 

The woodrow kicks us off. The exiting drone sound is courtesy of the monotron which is a hand held synth. Melodica moves in and out. The rhythmic sounds on this track is mostly the Baroness dancing around on a wooden board that was covering the dirt floor of part of the fort.

7. Shadows of the Forgotten 4:47 -And here we have the title track. I like when the title track is at the beginning or the end but sometimes due to various vague reasons, the title track sometimes lands elsewhere on the album. Some nice cigar box dulcimer and guitar here and nice vocals all from the Baroness.

This track is the coda of the whole experience. It abruptly ends leaving you alone in the empty shadow filled fort.

This whole album plays out like a horror movie. I dare you to walk around Fort Warren while listening to this album.

The cover art is composed of pictures taken at the fort then tinted to give them an aged appearance.

Total time: 38:71

The tracks are mastered with an ear towards hard rock despite the fact that most of the instruments are what you would consider hard rock instrumentation.

Yours in sonic assault,

Count Robot

Basement Techno Crud

Basement Techno Crud

Crinkling sideways into a waste of paper basket of wire discards boards of circuits as you grow board of circuits circuitry and the eulogy of condiments that offer a protean alternative to a communist driven sporting event let’s stroll back to the water car and drive to the nearest beach that’s protected by landed gentry store goodness in a corner of the basement filled with a pile of semi detached techno crud.

Yours in cruddy writing,

Count Robot

Astro Al Presents: Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show

 

Here is a write up of the album,

Astro Al Presents Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show.

This is a recreation or a creation of a flea circus show with Astro Al acting as all the performers (musicians, actors, fleas, etc.)

Imagine you're at a Flea Circus Show. I've never been to one, but once we finished this album I sure felt like I had.

On this album we made up a Vaudeville Show, full of songs and silliness between and around the songs.

We tried to make it very vintage sounding. 

Dr. Gumdrop was a character we created on the first Astro Al album 4:20 and he has his own song on that album. In the song on 4:20, Gumdrop travels from town to town in his covered wagon from the back of which he puts on his medicine shows. His shows is basically him encouraging you to try his elixir while his unnamed female companion plays acoustic guitar.

He was a character we liked and a song we liked, so after many years we thought, why not bring him back? But is it truly him who came back?

How could he be alive in the frontier days of the wild west then be in the era of vaudeville? Well it is possible given the cross over of both ages, but is it the same person or someone just using the name?

Or does his elixir really work?

Is Dr Gumdrop really even a doctor?

If so, what kind? Medical? Philosophical? Who knows? Is it the original Gumdrop's son? The answer is up to you.

At one point we thought about doing something ludicrous. The idea was that when the album was mixed and mastered we would then play it back on a stereo and record that playback with a very old microphone then release that recording as the album, but after much debate we chose not to do something that would make the recording sound so archaic. We also debated about adding a lot of fake hiss and crackling to make it sound more vintage, but we didn’t want to make it sound artificially antique. We chose to record the whole album in an older style, no amps (mostly, had to have one for the theremin), no electric instruments (except the theremin, oh and a humidifier which we used to get some of the water sounds for Away the Good Ship), and no digital microphones. 

This really helped get the older style we went with for the production. 

We also debated about adding applause and laughter throughout the album, but we just felt that would make it feel too much like a bad sitcom.

The Theremin was created in 1920 and I have little doubt popped up here and there in vaudeville and if it didn't we did it first.

At one point we also debated about making up a thing where we "discovered" this album in a used record store and we restored it. We dropped that found sound idea. It just felt like it had been done too much.

A lot of this album was recorded live with live "foley" FX. 

I particularly like DNA Girl's job on the cover art.

Astro Al Presents: Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show

1. Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show 4:39 -Performed by Dr. Gumdrop & Heppy Beez & The All Gumdrop Orchestra  -an alternate version of the original Dr. Gumdrop song from 4:20. This track is the first part of the performance where Dr. Gumdrop comes out and gets the audience going and of course peddles his medicine. Striptease fleas?

2. Introducing Etude 1:19 -Dr. Gumdrop introduces the next song and talks about stripper fleas. Lots of dumb jokes in this one but that is what we specialise in.

3. Etude 2:26 -Performed by Fredrika & Her Flowers - A little classy classical number. A Chopin piece transposed to mandolin. Performed by DNA Girl. You go and you went girl!

4. Introducing Dancing on a Snowflake 2:38 -More song introduction by Dr. Gumdrop and more peddling of his drinks. Merrily is a bit of a nut. She might be the most nutty of anyone who appeared on the album.

5. Dancing on a Snowflake 2:38 -Performed by Merrily Mason & The Raindear - This song was originally created for a winter holiday themed charity compilation cd but for some reason didn't make it onto it, so it sat around until we realised it fit the vibe of this album.

6. Introducing Soupcase 2:40 - Savanna Smiles introduces this one. I think her smile is bigger than her brain. It's about time the Dr. left the stage for a bit. No doubt he was off making more tonic.

7. Soupcase 4:13 -Performed by Smelly Lemon Peel Johnson & The Debutante Washerwomen -Starts off soft before the inanity kicks in. This song was inspired by DNA Girl making jokes about Blues songs. She came up with the title. I love the Blues but it is easy to laugh at which is maybe part of the reason I like it so much. DNA Girl's singing on this one is classic. 

8. Sales Skit 4:07 -Introduced by Hella Petunia. Performed by Hella’s twin sister Lola Petunia & Winstone Buffright -We had to have at least one skit. We wrote a few more but this was our favorite and we decided not to include any others because we had so many songs we wanted to cram onto the album.

9. Introducing Queen Liz is the Bee’s Knees 3:25 -The Racoon was a real dance craze for a bit. We did a lot of research on early American pop culture during this album. There were a lot of fun sounding dance crazes back in the day.

10. Queen Liz is the Bee’s Knees 3:10 -Music performed by Sir Piglet & His Hambones -Piglet was the name of one of our craziest cats and this track is a tribute to him. My acting on this track is of course a parody of William Shatner. I love Shatner!

11. Introducing March of the Salem Witches 1:41 -Hazel made her debut in a dinner theater murder/mystery we wrote many years back. In that show she ran a witch academy. What's she doing here? Well, playing music of course. I bet you never knew a flea could juggle an elephant.

12. March of the Salem Witches 2:43 -Performed by Hazel Boudoir & Her All Jugs Band - This is a song we discovered at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem MA. It's thought to be one of the first songs written about the Salem witch hysteria. DNA Girl takes the prize on this one. There's some  Theremin on this one. This is only excerpt of a much longer piece of music that the composer created.

13. Introducing Away the Good Ship 2:00 -I wish I could see fleas do this stuff. I have a friend who saw a flea circus once in Germany. I have never seen one live and in person.

14. Away the Good Ship 3:59 -Performed by Winifred & The Waves - The lyrics to this one were written by DNA Girl's real life ancestor, Harold Archer. We had worked at this song for awhile before getting it right. I played water phone on this one. Seemed appropriate even though the instrument didn't exist during this time period. So, we exit the album on a serious, but fun song. Sometimes that's the best exit you can make.

Astro Al is:

DNA Girl:  vocals, voices, mandolin, octave mandolin, samples, tambourine, washboard, bottle, cowbell, tongue drum, bicycle horn

Count Robot:  vocals, voices, kazoo, slide whistle, duck call, water-phone, samples, bell, saw, theremin, ukulele, rainstick, fiddle

Produced by Dr. Gumdrop’s Medicinal Whiskey

astroal.bandcamp.com

astroal.com

Copyright 2024 Astro Al

Is Dr. Gumdrop going to return? Maybe. We have discussed another potential album for him. We'll see if we ever get around to putting it together. It could be fun, but it will have to be different.

Here is a quote about the album from the amazing author Jerry Kranitz. He posted this on Facebook. "Think Sesame Street meets Pee-wee's Playhouse at the Grand Ole Opry and the entire cast are tripping their asses off. Feeling grumpy? News depressing you? Spend 45 minutes with the flea circus show it'll cheer you up fer shore."

Yours in Gumdropping,

Count Robot

Tapes by Vincent

Tapes by Vincent

So who here read Fangoria magazine when they were a kid?

Do you remember a large ad for Tapes by Vincent? Not by Vincent Price, but by someone else.

Did you order one?

I did and it was just a home made cassette tape of a kid making sounds with his mouth while the classic Disney Halloween album played in the background and occasionally he said stuff.

I can't find much of any info about this online.

Did I imagine it?

Yes, I've Googled and haven't found anything.

Yours in possible hallucination tapes,

Count Robot

Jimi Hendrix

 

Today is the anniversary of the passing of the legend that was Jimi Hendrix.

My favorite guitarist is Jimi Hendrix.

Long may his purple haze reign.

Yours in guitars,

Count Robot

Maudlin

Maudlin

I can’t always be who I wasn’t

I can’t always care because I wasn’t

Broken down totality, hypnotic pseudo-reality

My haunting haunts me

My haunting haunts me

It’s all that’s left of me

Finite within the finite

We are no more than another beginning of another ending

yours in strange maudlin poems,

Count Robot

Sonic Ritual: Ode to a Bridge (NYE) an album by Tim Mungenast & Astro Al

Sonic Ritual: Ode to a Bridge (NYE) an album by Tim Mungenast & Astro Al

Almost the entirety of the album was recorded on New Years Eve 2021 both during the day and at night. 

This album is also a hybrid. Some of it was recorded at the amazing Echo Bridge in Newton Falls, which is a glorious space to record in as the echo is fantastic. The cover picture is an FX altered picture taken beneath Echo Bridge. 

Amplissima also recorded the album Hemlock Echoes at Echo Bridge. 

Credits:

Tim Mungenast: Electric guitar, effects boxes, vocals, spring drum, goat toy, samples

Astro Al is:

DNA Girl: Vocals, mandolin, bodhran, percussion, FX

Count Robot: Monotron, bass, Aztec death whistle, FX, bell, slide whistle, duck call, stylophone

Track by track summary:

1. Somewhere in Tibet 6:44 -Screaming goat toys and an out of synch track really help this one. This one was recorded at our home studio. I really got it out of synch to make Tim's voice say twice, twice in the beginning. This tune really takes off around the 4 minute mark. There's some empty space at the end of the track. I think sometimes that silence is as important as filling up the void.

2. The Secret Garden of Echolocation 5:13 -This track was recorded at Echo Bridge. Listen to the amazing sounds of the water. Tim does some nice subtle guitar stuff. Pastoral and relaxing after the build up of the prior track. Title by Tim.

3. The Old Busker and his Dancing Baby Goat 6:20 - This track has a voice over by Tim that was recorded later and added to the track. Tim created a nice story. This track was recorded in the studio or as Tim calls it "the Magic Basement". 

4. Beyond the Valley of Silly Sounds 3:41 - Recorded at Echo Bridge. Lots of vocal sounds. DNA Girl goes full silly. She does some fun percussion on this one too. Fun vocals by Tim as well.

5. Duckulon Gamelan 7:47 -This track was also recorded at the studio. Tim's transcendent story was added later. Some lush tones and stylings by the mighty Tim. Lots of DNA Girl percussion in this track. I think the duck call is an underrated musical instrument. The voice part of Tim is repeated just to fill out the track as it got a little too sparse at the end. Psychedelic ducks!  Good spaced out guitar by Tim.

6. Bounceback Ritual 4:40 - Recorded outside. Echo Bridge sounds beautiful. Guitar ripping by Tim! Guitar sounds offered as a sacrifice to the River Goddess. Nice vocals by DNA Girl which are paired well with Tim's goattar. 

7. He’s So Beautiful 5:06 - Recorded in the studio. Well matched guitar/mando jam. Tim's screaming goat toy is heavily affected here and spread throughout the track.

 

8. Gurdjieff Addresses the Mountains of Madness 3:49 - Another one at Echo Bridge. The echoes love Tim's guitaring on this one as much as I do. The sonic richness of this location can not be overstated. DNA Girl brings the percussion. Eep eep!

We tried to spread the outside and inside tracks out. We started with an indoor track and we end with an outside one.

Recorded at Echo Bridge in Newton Ma and at Robotzilla Studios in Weirdfield MA on New Years Eve 2021

Written, recorded, engineered, produced, mastered by Tim Mungenast & Astro Al. The album was mastered in the style of a hard rock album to help bring out some of the strength of Echo Bridge and to punch up the string sounds.

Copyright 2024 Tim Mungenast & Astro Al

Yours in album write ups,

Count Robot