Valium Aggelein

Valium Aggelein emerged as a side project of Duster, issuing two scarce albums during the late 1990s that shared the sparse slowcore-meets-space rock aesthetic of the primary band. While multi-instrumentalists Clay Parton and Canaan Dove Amber shaped Duster’s approach, they simultaneously tracked comparable material under the Valium Aggelein banner. Their 1997 cassette Dweller on the Threshold came across as scattered sketches for Duster songs alongside a few more finished pieces. Shortly afterward the pair added drummer Jason Albertini, enabling freer improvisation in a group context. The follow-up album was tracked during the same sessions that produced Duster’s celebrated Stratosphere, yet the tracks remained largely spontaneous and without vocals. Hier Kommt Der Schwartze Mond surfaced in 1998 to minimal notice, even as Duster generated modest interest with their own release. The trio never issued further recordings as Valium Aggelein, and Duster disbanded soon after. Over the ensuing decades the three musicians sustained collaborations or moved within overlapping circles, though their Valium Aggelein work slipped into obscurity. Renewed attention arrived in the late 2010s once Duster’s catalog reached a new audience, sending original LPs and CDs to extravagant prices on the secondary market. Hier Kommt Der Schwartze Mond followed the same trajectory. The Numero Group responded by releasing the Duster box set Capsule Losing Contact in 2019, then issuing the complete Valium Aggelein recordings as Black Moon in 2020.