AUXILIARY PRIEST
“In the Last Days of the Sutro Fog” C30
(Spring Break Tapes)



The mystery of the Sutro Fog has been solved! My instincts, as usual, haven’t let me down, and while stumbling through the clues at first, all has been revealed. My old friend and sometime nemesis, Dr. Internet, decided to help me on this one, and for that I am eternally grateful. Dr. Internet, I salute you!

Sutro Tower is located in San Francisco, and is apparently covered by fog at times. There, I did your work for you.

Auxiliary Priest, a person, presumably, hiding behind the veil of a pseudonym (although if AP’s mother named him/her that, awesome job, Mrs. Priest!) has crafted an absolute exact approximation of what it likely sounds to be caught in this fog. Disorienting drones and feedback and tone manipulation drift through side A, “The Sutro Fog,” enveloping the listener in its dank embrace. Side B, “West Portal,” does similar things, wafting miserably in tense patterns and instilling an unsettling vibe of pure paranoia. Sometimes we want gorgeous nostalgia in our drone records. Sometimes we wanna be freaked the freak out.

Wait, this fog is a “lifeform,” a living entity? And it’s from another planet circling a star in a distant galaxy? And it’s captured within the audio contained in the 100 copies of this tape that were pressed? And it’s only released when the tape is played through a cassette deck? And it’s super frigging hostile? And when it’s released it overtakes your body and renders you a lifeless husk? And maybe I should press stop on the tape player?

We’re all doomed.



--Ryan Masteller