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