By the early 2020s, Wolf Eyes consisted of the core duo of Nate Young and John Olson, in addition to numerous occasional collaborators. Difficult Messages isn’t a proper Wolf Eyes album, but a compilation of tracks recorded by their countless side projects and initially released through a series of very limited 7″ single box sets with hand-painted wooden artwork. While the box sets included tracks credited solely to Wolf Eyes, this compilation only includes other projects, each with a different name and lineup. Alexander Moskos (Drainolith, AIDS Wolf) appears on several of them, with “Dank Boone,” the first of two tracks by Short Hands, coming unexpectedly close to abstract funk and hip-hop. Crisp drumming and tremolo fuzz guitar riffs are surrounded by the shadowy…
…vocals and noise skizz one might expect from Wolf Eyes, but usually not attached to this type of groove.
Another project with Moskos, Time Designers, presents a rhythmic exploration with drum machines ticking out mutated juke and techno patterns. Animal Sounds graft a stuttering, techno-ish half-bassline to chattering noises that either sample or imitate a Michigan red squirrel. Young and Olson’s mutated blues duo Stare Case, which seemed to be their most productive venture for a short time during the early 2010s, return with the stark, skeletal “Lost Head.” “Tulsa Once” is by Wolf Raven, the duo’s collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning Native American experimental artist Raven Chacon. The brief track makes stunning usage of distorted, mangled frequencies that sound like radio waves splashing into each other. Universal Eyes, the merging of Wolf Eyes and Universal Indians featuring Aaron Dilloway (former member of both groups) and Gretchen Gonzales, navigate through a treacherous storm, with bleak foghorns calling out during the murky “Tense Lapse.” Difficult Messages feels a bit more scattered than most of Wolf Eyes’ main releases, but it’s a nice sampler of the many constellations of the group’s vast universe.