Francisco López & Michael Esposito — JAALJTH
The original EVP recordings were made by Esposito at the Witches Castle in Utica, Indiana- which is a long abounded & over grown village that is said to have been deserted by the town folk after they were cursed by a group of witch sister, who they stole the original land from.
The releases odd title apparently originates from when Francisco López pulled out a Ouija Board, while listening to the EVPs from this recordings, and these were the letters given to him by the entity he connected with.
I’ve always been a sucker for a good background story behind a release, so the idea of EVPs from a witches castle, and Mr López connecting with the spirits really captured my imagination. So I was most egger to hear the results, and I’m disappointed to say for the most part this release did little or nothing for me.
First up we have eight EVP tracks, and each of these run between six & nineteen seconds a piece. Each of these tracks features three looped recordings of the same EVPs. And I’m afraid to say( for the most part) these first eight tracks really annoyed me than anything else- you see EVPs can either sound convincing & chilling, or they can just sound like snippets of badly recorded & undefined field recordings…sadly all of the tracks (to me) just sounded like the latter, and for the most part I couldn’t make out the supposed words that are meant to be spoken. Sure I can understand the need for these recordings on the release, as it’s interesting to hear were the manipulated soundscapes come from, but opening up a release with a minute or two of muffled & unrewarding field recordings isn’t really very appealing…they would have been much better stuck at the end of the disc, or even on a separate 3inc cdr.
Next up we have another eight tracks, and these are soundscapes/ dark ambient unfolds created by López from the manipulated EVPs. These tracks run between three & five mintues a piece, and they also follow the same running sequence of the original eight EVP recordings. All of these eight tracks come of as a rather uninspired mixture of quiet electro acoustic texturing, (meant to be) brooding ambient drift, and big chunks of silence…I found these none of these tracks really very appealing sonically, as the tones & textures used just seemed rather bland & clichéd. or unappealing on a atmospheric level, sure there was lots of silence then sudden sounds, but really I just found that more trying than chilling or scary.
To finish off the release we have two more tracks- first up is The Witches That Follow, which is a just under six minute track created by Esposito. It finds him manipulating some more EVPs or muffled voice recordings (the release doesn’t indicate the origin of these), along with this swaying ‘n’ bobbing electronic texture. Firstly the EVPs here seem really badly edited together. Secondly the bobbing electro texturing, which I'm guessing is meant to be purveying a sinister/ chilling atmosphere, just sounded badly conceived & executed to me.
The final track comes in the form of MMOTK, which is a just under ten minute soundscape from López conceived from a manipulations of the previous track. This track is far more interesting & rewarding than the original track, and I’d say this is the most effective thing on this release. The track is built around the very subdued & hazed out mixture of these amassed moaning textures & jittering static layer- the whole things most eerier, and really was the first( and only time) I got creeped out by this release.
I went into this release with high hopes, looking forward to a rewardingly chilling ride- but sadly I came away feeling unfulfilled and more than a little bored. Sure the last track was effective, but ten mintues of rewarding sonics out of a full length release is not really acceptable in anyone’s book.