Nightmare Castle — House On Haunted Hill

Here’s a recent pro CDR release from this Louisiana based horror themed walled noise project. It features a single track that comes in at just under the fifty four minute mark, and the ‘wall’ offered up here is a suitable dense, dusty & pummelling slice of walled noise. The release is themed around 1959 film which featured Vincent Price as an Eccentric millionaire, who invites a group of people to his house for a ‘haunted house’ party. Whoever stays in the house for the whole night will earn $10,000. As the night progresses, the guests have to endure  ghosts, murderers, and other terrors. The film was  directed by infamous gimmick loving US B movie director William Castle.

Before we move onto the sonic’s inside we must discuss the packaging as it’s some of the more pro looking & classy I’ve seen from the scene. The pro labelled CDR comes in a plastic sleeve that features pro printed double sided sleeve- on the front we get a colour collage made up the films original poster artwork & promotional material, and on the back & inside covers effective & moody overlaid black & white stills from the film.  The release only comes in an edition of 13 copies- which makes the time & effort put into it even more impressive.

So let’s move onto the sonics inside, and on offer here is a fairly standard( though no less rewarding) bit of wall-making from Nightmare Castle. This project really does have the ability to create simplistic, yet effective wall craft- that is fixed & unrelenting in its attack, but monochrome, and aged in it’s feel; which of course fits the projects mostly old horror movie themes like a glove.

The track begins with a sample from the film which takes in shrill female screaming, ghoulish groans, and evil male laugher.  With-in a minute or so the sample ends, and we move into the ‘wall’- this brings together a mixture looped ‘n’ stuck wind whipping tonalities, & a meaty & murky juddering pattern; these are all topped off by an consistent tight pepper grinding like static grain. Though the whole thing is fixed, at times you get this effective feeling of slowing or thickening going-on, and on the whole is an enjoyable 'n' pummelling ride.

All told House On Haunted Hill is another worthy release from Nightmare Castle- as the listener is presented with a suitable dense, rewardingly unrelenting, and theme fitting atmospheric wall.