Biography
Alex Cuervo operates Espectrostatic as an outlet for music modeled on horror movie soundtracks. Though chiefly recognized from his longstanding involvement in punk and garage bands such as the Hex Dispensers, A Feast of Snakes, and Blacktop, Cuervo works weekdays as a composer and sound editor. Two 2011 EPs issued under his own name—Hallo Mein Name Ist Alex Cuervo on Red Lounge and 4-Song Solo EP on Trouble in Mind—first exposed a darker, synthesizer-centered facet of his output. He advanced that direction with Espectrostatic’s debut EP, Skeletactical, released in 2012. Paying tribute to John Carpenter, Goblin, and Tangerine Dream, its unsettling atmospheres prepared the terrain for a self-titled full-length that appeared in November 2013. The following year brought two further EPs, Daemonum and Phantominom VGS, the latter an ’80s video game music collection whose proceeds supported medical costs for Cuervo’s Hex Dispensers bandmate Rebecca Whitley; October then saw the album Escape from Witchtropolis. Several Espectrostatic pieces featured in the 2015 horror film Last Girl Standing. A leaner, more foreboding method shaped the 2016 release Silhouette, which Burning Witches later pressed on vinyl.