400 Lonely Things is primarily an instrumental studio project, with dark ambient leanings. We'll use any blend of electronic and acoustic instruments - but at the heart of 400 Lonely Things itself lies the sampler, for arranging sounds both found and lost. We tend to dwell on minor-chord structures, infrequent but hypnotic percussion and nostalgic, woozy loops that quietly drift in and out of sometimes comforting, sometimes disturbing collages.
400 Lonely Things are Jonathan McCall and Craig Varian. We began recording together after meeting in a Southern college town in 1988, using a borrowed Vesta-Fire 4-Track on loan from a friend in the Army. While many years and miles have passed between us and it's been a few years since we've even seen each other - we still manage to collaborate, and have accrued quite a stockpile of recordings.
We’ve very quietly released five full-length albums through our label,
Pimalia. However, one of our most recent albums has been generating some interest and should be mentioned first:
Tonight of the Living Dead is an instrumental collage of dreary ambiance over a year in the making, using treated audio from the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead as its only ingredients. The compact disc edition is accompanied by a 12-page booklet of photo treatments adapted from the movie as well.
Tonight of the Living Dead has been endorsed by Judith O'Dea ("Barbara" in George Romero's Night of the Living Dead) who writes "Fascinating... I found the album very memory invoking. Listening to Tonight of the Living Dead was like musically leaping back in time to relive all the nuances of my character Barbra’s struggle to survive all the horrific night terrors forced on her in Night of the Living Dead."
Bloodydisgusting.com says Tonight of the Living Dead nails "a hard-to-find sub-genre of dark music on the head, that many of us in the horror community have been yearning for, yet are unable to find. Tonight of the Living Dead ...captures the desperation-laced black & white apocaplypse and injects it into the world around you, bringing back to life an audio experience that is more than just a CD for fans of the macabre."
Tonight of the Living Dead has also been featured at Dread Central, Midnight Podcast, Killer Reviews, and we just have heard that a piece is forthcoming at Fangoria.
Downloadable editions of Tonight of the Living Dead and the other titles in our catalog (outlined below) are available now from iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Rhapsody and all the usual retailers.
Fully packaged compact disc editions with uncompressed audio are now available for $10 each post-paid world-wide from
400LonelyThings.com.
These five albums are:
400 Lonely Things (self-titled)
First digital issue of our debut album, originally a vinyl only release from 2003. It was completely remixed in 2007 and remastered in 2008. Recordings range from 1988-2003. Click image to view at iTunes store.
The Late Show
Darkish avant-jazz mashed up with narcoleptic classical ambience; recordings from 1996-2008. Click image to view at iTunes store.
A Barsoomian Lullaby Volume One | A Snow White Egg
A collection of sleepy, slow-motion exotica, inspired by the bizarre Martian landscape of author Edgar Rice Burroughs, recorded Summer 2007. Click image to view at iTunes store.
Tonight of the Living Dead
A dialog-free, dark ambient collage of treated audio from George Romero's 1968 Film "Night of the Living Dead"; recently endorsed by Judith O'Dea (NOTLD's "Barbra"). Click image to view at iTunes store.
Minutes A.D.
A vigil and memorial for Jonathan's father. Click image to view at iTunes store.
To visit Amazon's selection of Pimalia recordings, please click
here.
We should also mention that 400 Lonely Things would like to contribute sound design to a weird little movie, video game, website, or any other multi-media project that has a feel environmentally similar to ours. Contact us here, or at 400LonelyThings at gmail.com.
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