To Live and Shave in L.A.’s Tom Smith organizes 69-track compilation Approach to Fear: Regeneration, feat. Wolf Eyes, Aaron Dilloway, Andy Ortmann, many more

Halloween is almost here, and this year, we all have something truly spooky to be afraid of. I’m of course talking about the proverbial FOMO, because this year’s All Hollows’ Evening brings with it a massive, super-limited new compilation from To Live and Shave in L.A.’s Tom Smith called Approach to Fear: Regeneration, and while that title may sound like the 15th direct-to-video iteration in a forgotten 90s slasher franchise, that’s not actually the scary part! Stay tuned, loyal readers, as I keep you in… suspense…

The compilation features tracks from Smith himself, Wolf Eyes, Aaron Dilloway, Andy Ortmann, Keith Fullerton Whitman, and, like, way too many others to list here. The package, which is out right now digitally through Smith’s Karl Schmidt Verlag label, is ALSO out physically October 31; and the corporeal version includes “two C90 cassettes encased in a snap-front bag with double-sided A3 poster, microzine, and more.” According to Smith, the project “was born of sheer disgust with the election of a certain spray-tanned and catastrophically incompetent shitheel.” I don’t know about you guys, but I have no idea who he could be talking about…

But now that we’ve met all the characters, gotten through all the bullshit exposition, and planted our Chekhov’s gun, let me drop the first major jump scare on you: oooooooonly 100 copiiiiiies of this bad boy will be available in the first ruuuuuuuun! That’s right, ONE-HUNDRED COPIES (I told you it’d get spooky!). So start getting in those pre-orders over at Bandcamp, where you can also read the entire list of contributors because, I’m sorry, but I’m not typing that out.

You can also celebrate Halloween early by previewing some of the tracks below. Think of each sound nugget like a little piece of bite-size candy given to you by your experimental composer/producer neighbors, and your inevitably blown out headphones as that horrible stomach ache you’d get as a kid after eating, like, 50 Reese’s cups. You’ll feel miserable, yes, but also undeniably fulfilled.

More about: Aaron Dilloway, Andy Ortmann, Tom Smith, Wolf Eyes