============== = = = History = = = ============== PREHISTORY The label started really not as a record label at all. It started as a Radio Show. Before there was even a Radio Show though, there was Monowolf. Monowolf was my noise project that I started as a solo project in 2011, when I was 21 years old. My first show was on Jan. 21st 2012 in a basement at a punk house called TVland just off the campus of North Dakota State University, where I was going at the time. I was the opening act and I burned out the PA system, which coincidentally was mine and I just happened to be loaning them at the time. They still got pissed off at me about it though. I played a few shows through that year, a few of them fundraisers for the local Occupy group. There was also a CD-R almost right away called “Battle For Planet Earth”. It sucked and I gave them away for free at shows. In 2012 I also put out a tape called “Industrial Collapse” that was better but still pretty primitive experiments with noise. I actually played a lot in 2012, probably once or twice a month. At the time in Fargo I was only one of three Noise acts doing shows, the others being Manchester Bulge and Braindeer. In 2013 I put out a CD called “Authority” that came with a poster and played a lot of shows. One show in particular I remember was with a bunch of metal bands and when I started playing literally everyone in the venue left to stand outside and I played a 20min set to an empty room. Around this time I created a zine that was an introduction to noise music and I started handing them out at shows to try and get more people interested in the genre. In 2013 I also added Luke Safely to Monowolf and it became a duo. This was really when everything started to kick off and we recorded an EP, Pareidolia and played a bunch of shows, including one notable one with Canadian grindcore band Fuck The Facts. 2014 was the year that the radio show started. Luke had contacted KNDS 96.3FM, which was the local college radio station, and somehow managed to get us a very late night two hour slot on Thursdays for a Noise and Industrial themed radio show. The radio was a lot of fun, especially in those early days. It was broadcasted from the USPS building actually. On campus theat building was half post office outlet and half college radio station. After a couple years, 2016 I think, the college station kicked the community DJ's off the station and pivoted to student only formatting. This was the birth of Radio Free Fargo 95.9fm, which was the radio shows home from then on. THE RECORD LABEL BEGINS In 2015 I decided to start Black Ring Rituals Records after struggling to find a label willing to put out the Monowolf/Vitriol Guage split. It's not that it wasn't any good, I just did not have the connections at the time. A Monwolf full length CD was next in line, "Total Information Awareness". We worked on that album for over a year and I am still really proud of it. Fingers crossed that it will see a 20th Anniversary vinyl release. It all cascaded from there. The ability to write a full list is beyond this page but you can find that on another part of this gopherhole.