Biography
Jason Jason R. Wallach

The Unquiet Void
The Unquiet Void began in 1989 when Jason Wallach, the band's sole member, was 15 years old. The first two years were primarily spent writing songs on a small Casio keyboard in the basement of his parents' Long Island, NY home.
   
In 1991, along with a friend named Joe, Jason joined what became a trio known (by very few) as The Conscious Of. During the band's only jam session the three members: Jason, Joe, and Roy, began trying to flesh out three songs Jason had written and even cut a low quality live demo. Jason, at this point, was introduced to the Korg MI synthesizer with which he became fascinated. Later that year he would acquire one of his own and spend the following years forging and evolving his own sound. However, back to his session the three songs were “Fiendish,” “Precious” and a solo piece entitled “The Statuette” which became the very first Unquiet Void song. The band ceased to exist later that day.
   
In 1991, after acquiring a Korg MI, Jason began to write more songs and created muddied multi-track recordings on his dual tape deck stereo. He began to add his writings to his music with low and whispery vocals which stopped after he became a fan of the band Lycia’s first CD "Ionia" which featured a similar vocal styling. Jason began writing to Mike Van Portfleet of Lycia and they have been corresponding ever since. What began as a fan admiring a band became a mutual admiration of each other's work as well as a friendship. Also this year, a first cassette demo was pieced together and sent to Projekt Records.
   
In 1992, the music of The Unquiet Void became significantly darker and disturbed and even somewhat aggressive. The music took on this disturbing postindustrial tone due to Jason's personal situation at the time. A lot of music would be written this year including the song “Autumn Fires” which was recorded in 1993 and the song entitled “Fear” which was re-recorded in 1994 and re-titled “A Constant Looming Uncertainty”. Both of these songs in their updated fashions appear on the forthcoming (From the Alterculture label) Scorpio CD which is the soundtrack to the independent cult film of the same name from Phantom Productions.
   
In 1993 Jason acquired an 8 track cassette multi-track recorder. Another demo was put together and sent to Projekt but this time it landed TUQV a spot on the Black Tape for a Blue Girl 2 CD tribute compilation entitled Of These Reminders. The compilation was delayed and ended up being released the following year. TUQV submitted two renderings of BTFABG songs which were a somewhat apocalyptic version of “Into the Garden” and an almost processional version of “The Glass is Shattered.” TUQV has ended up turning out three Black Tape renderings. The third song was created in 1994 after Jason had established his spacey dark ambient tribal sound and was “Scream My Shallow” which has not been released. 1993 was the year in which Jason and Michael Van Portfleet established a collaboration would be in order when feasible. Another cover that came out of 1993 was a strange and slowed down version of Gary Numan’s “Cars.”
   
1994 saw the release of Of These Reminders as well as some positive feedback from Italy, France, Lithuania, England, Greece and even the United States. This proved to be a most productive and creative year for TUQV. Two more renditions of other bands' music were created: Lycia's “Down” and a pretty scary and cinematic version of David Bowie's “Ashes to Ashes.” This was an emotional time for Jason which spawned many orchestral type pieces and other songs. These were somewhat experimental but matured from the overwhelming darkness of some of the material from 1992-1993. It was lighter and much more expressive, even if some of it was a bit dark.
   
In 1995, the song writing/recording began to decline. This year found TUQV and Lycia finally collaborating on the Christmas carol “We Three Kings” from the Excelsis: A Dark Noel compilation from Projekt Records. This year the songs “Breathing Liquid Breath” and “Dust” were recorded which also ended up appearing on the forthcoming release from Alterculture. A four song promotional CD EP was released in quantity of 10 copies and sent out to friends and a magazine called Morbid Outlook. Jason never saw the review but it did send someone writing to him about his music. The CD EP was simply titled "TUQV Demo CD#1" and was put out on a label that he wanted to start but didn't, called The Unquiet Music.
   
In 1996, three songs were recorded the entire year due to a rapidly deteriorating personal situation. This year saw the release of TUQV's first original composition on the compilation called Alleviation from QRD/Silber Records. The song is entitled “What is Gone is Gone” which was created in 1994. TUQV received quite a bit of feedback from this track, more than any other he had released or has since released, and continues to. During the summer of 1996 was what Jason describes as ‘the dark period’ during which time he wrote and recorded “The Burning Razor Like Thoughts.” This song was a departure from how he normally approaches writing his music being that this was one of the few songs of TUQV that had vocals and the lyrics written for it were the most open and explicit he'd written. At the beginning of this year Jason had created a song called “Awakening” for a compilation called Subnation Volume 2: An American Darkwave which was delayed and released in November of 1997. The third song that was recorded back to back with “Awakening” and is entitled “Reconnaissance.” Both songs were and still are designated to appear on a project that TUQV has not yet completed but has been working on for five years called Meridian, which according to Jason will see the light of day. “The Burning Razor Like Thoughts” was very much inspired by the above mentioned personal situation crashing. However, shortly thereafter he met the woman who was to become his wife in 1997 which changed directions in both his life as well as with TUQV (same thing practically).
   
1997 kicked off with the song “This Heaven Breathes” which was written for and about his newly found love and was even played at their wedding. New songs were pouring out of TUQV and this material is also designated to appear on the above mentioned "Meridian" project. Subnation 2 was released with a minimal amount of feedback from people although what feedback there was was quite positive.
   
In early 1998 Jason Wallach was approached by his friend John Brodie (former owner of Phantom Video & Phantom Productions) about doing some make-up fx work for a film that John was planning to make based on a script he had written which was called "Black Opium Graveyard Man." Jason accepted the task and also exposed John to his music in hopes to end up providing the film's music. Jason played "A Constant Looming Uncertainty" for John and it was that song which made John insist that Jason create the music for the film. Four older songs from The Unquiet Void's archives were re-mixed for placement on the CD and Jason was compelled to create new material for the release. This page is to inform anyone interested of what exactly inspired the material that ended up on the finished CD.
   
The rest of 1998 was spent sending out CD-R copies of the completed material to labels. That drawn out journey came to an end when AlterCulture Records displayed interest in Scorpio and Jason decided to sign with the small indie label. At the end of the year Jason contacted Tony Lestat of Wreckage Productions and was given a shot at appearing on what is to become the sequel compilation to A Goth Oddity which is a tribute to David Bowie... one of Jason's favorite artists. Jason recorded a new cover of "Ashes To Ashes" that has a somewhat newer sound from what he normally does and the inclusion of vocals is a rarity in TUQV material. This CD will be released in the Spring of 2000 around the time (hopefully) that the second TUQV release is due.
   
I saw John's offering me the shot to do the soundtrack as an opportunity to put together a full-length CD's worth of material and have the post production costs paid for. Even though I entered into creating Scorpio with the idea of creating music for a film, it evolved into something different and much more personal. The concepts that run throughout the film are different from those that run throughout the CD and the connection between the two, thematically, is really that both contain the purging of some kind of inner darkness and certain mystical occult references. All I will say is that try as I may to ignore any connection between the disc and the film... there is a connection. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of the film you can contact John Brodie at: [email protected] or via snail mail at: po box 16-3604, Miami, FL 33116.
   
In 1999, Scorpio was released in early May just after the appearance of "Breathing Liquid Breath" on Cleopatra Records' The Unquiet Grave, Volume One compilation which has given TUQV a strong exposure to South America as well as in this country. People began e-mailing Jason on a regular basis about the track and the track as well as Scorpio have been met with much acclaim. Jason also began scoring short computer animated films for friends of his in the field as well as submitting some unreleased material for some compilations coming up in late 1999, early 2000. That information can all be found on the Releases page of this web site.
   
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