WILT has been the main project of James P. Keeler (sometimes solo, sometimes with others) since 1998. Keeler is a graphic designer, visual artist, writer, and multi-instrumentalist, all of it dark always, and as WILT, they rightfully refer to themselves as "Masters of Depression and Decay".
Although they have had their work referred to as "noise ambient" or sometimes simply "dark noise", which is poignant enough, WILT are especially nuanced. Keeler has collaborated with some heavy-hitters; Cornucopia, Skin Crime, Gruntsplatter, The Rita, and Prurient, to name a few, but it's hard to compare their brand of industrial-infused, "bleakened" noise, in addition to what often, if we're honest, inevitably traverses "horror soundtrack" territory, to anything else.
"Horror" alone wouldn't be sufficient, because what goes on here blows a lot of midi keyboard warriors out of the water, by sheer range and depth. To call this work "dark ambient" would understate the attention to detail and texture that permeates most of WILT's work, even when it is itself ostensibly minimalist and understated.
After 25 years, WILT continue to not only reinvent the wheel, but show that there is an ongoing intellect and subtlety to their widely cast, yet intricate web of perpetually evolving sound. With "Crypt Gloom", an unmistakably gothic trajectory continues on into the mist of coffin-smoke synths and foggy swamp organs.
"Crypt Gloom" is Part Three in a trilogy inspired by the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, an early 19th Century English poet who risked "political and religious libel" for his atheist/materialist philosophical views in his time. Part One of WILT's trilogy is "A Deep Reflecting Gloom" and Part Two is "Crypt Hymns", both released on cassette by Self Abuse Records.
wilt314.bandcamp.com
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The Dirge
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Old winter was gone
In his weakness back to the mountains hoar,
And the spring came down
From the planet that hovers upon the shore
Where the sea of sunlight encroaches
On the limits of wintry night;—
If the land, and the air, and the sea,
Rejoice not when spring approaches,
We did not rejoice in thee,
Ginevra!
She is still, she is cold
On the bridal couch,
One step to the white deathbed,
And one to the bier,
And one to the charnel—and one, oh where?
The dark arrow fled
In the noon.
Ere the sun through heaven once has rolled,
The rats in her heart
Will have made their nest,
And the worms be alive in her golden hair,
While the Spirit that guides the sun,
Sits throned in his flaming chair,
She shall sleep.
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To the Moon
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
I
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth, —
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?"
II
Thou chosen sister of the Spirit,
That gazes on thee till in thee it pities ...
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Remorse
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
AWAY! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:
Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.
Pause not! the time is past! Every voice cries, 'Away!'
Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood:
Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay:
Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.
Away, away! to thy sad and silent home;
Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth;
Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come,
And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.
The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head,
The blooms of dewy Spring shall gleam beneath thy feet:
But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead,
Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou and peace, may meet.
The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose,
For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep;
Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows;
Whatever moves or toils or grieves hath its appointed sleep.
Thou in the grave shalt rest:—yet, till the phantoms flee,
Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile,
Thy remembrance and repentance and deep musings are not free
From the music of two voices, and the light of one sweet smile.
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Dark Spirit of the Desart Rude
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Dark Spirit of the desart rude
That o'er this awful solitude,
Each tangled and untrodden wood,
Each dark and silent glen below,
Where sunlight's gleamings never glow,
Whilst jetty, musical and still,
In darkness speeds the mountain rill;
That o'er yon broken peaks sublime,
Wild shapes that mock the scythe of time,
And the pure Ellan's foamy course,
Wavest thy wand of magic force;
Art thou yon sooty and fearful fowl
That flaps its wing o'er the leafless oak
That o'er the dismal scene doth scowl
And mocketh music with its croak?
I've sought thee where day's beams decay
On the peak of the lonely hill,
I've sought thee where they melt away
By the wave of the pebbly rill;
I've strained to catch thy murky form
Bestride the rapid and gloomy storm;
Thy red and sullen eyeball's glare
Has shot, in a dream, thro' the midnight air
But never did thy shape express
Such an emphatic gloominess.
And where art thou, O thing of gloom? ...
On Nature's unreviving tomb
Where sapless, blasted and alone
She mourns her blooming centuries gone!-
From the fresh sod the Violets peep,
The buds have burst their frozen sleep,
Whilst every green and peopled tree
Is alive with Earth's sweet melody.
But thou alone art here,
Thou desolate Oak, whose scathed head
For ages has never trembled,
Whose giant trunk dead lichens bind
Moaningly sighing in the wind,
With huge loose rocks beneath thee spread,
Thou, Thou alone art here!
Remote from every living thing,
Tree, shrub or grass or flower,
Thou seemest of this spot the King
And with a regal power
Suck like that race all sap away
And yet upon the spoil decay.
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The Waning Moon
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
And like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky East,
A white and shapeless mass.
credits
released July 31, 2020
