Reference points for the album’s dozen instrumental tracks may or may not include John Fahey and Leo Kottke. It’s essentially Conner finger-picking an acoustic with occasional (and sparse) drumming by Ronald Armand Andruchuk. Last but not least, there’s hardly any electric guitar. Beyond the fact that it’s the same musician and takes its moniker from Xasthur’s debut full-length, Nocturnal Poisoning has almost nothing in common with Conner’s previous work.

Earlier this year, Conner reemerged as Nocturnal Poisoning and released Other Worlds of the Mind on his own Disharmonic Variations label. That it would be Xasthur’s swansong was announced in advance by its creator, Scott Conner, who abandoned his longtime alias “Malefic” and used his real name in the credits for the first time in a career that spanned 15 years and 20-plus releases. 250 on cassette, vinyl record available at Appalachian Noise Records.In 2010, one-man black metal outfit Xasthur released its final album, Portal of Sorrow.

DIGITAL NOT AVAILABLE ON DAY OF PURCHASE. The overall feel of the record is akin to waking up in an asylum with no memory of arriving it is disconcerting at times, unnerving at others, but occasionally tricks the listener with subtle reprieves from the gloom only to be pulled back under all over again.

Both men titans of black metal, each in their own right living pillars of dark music in America, have distilled their creative methods into this innovative approach to dark synth music. 'The Hallucination Tunnels' pairs Xasthur's unmistakable gift for macabre, discomforting soundscapes with the melody-writing and structural genius of Casket of Dreams. This record is an homage to the slow, downward spiral of man into chaos-the troubled mind's plea for the relief of permanent silence death. The long-awaited moment is finally here! For the first time ever, Xasthur and Casket of Dreams have paired up to produce this 40-minute crawl through haunted and discordant corridors.

Xasthur bandcamp