Vuzh Music Blog

2011, my 20th year in music, was a very active year for me, even given the fact that I began a hiatus from creating music after the first third of the year.
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My releases
I re-released Crook’d Finger vs. Harlan / Crook’d Finger vs. D.Rhythm:O early in the year…
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Not long after that came the massive compilation The More Unknown C. Reider, a collection of artists using sounds appropriated from my work to compose their own music.
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Then there was what I consider to be my ‘major’ work of the year, Owning Extinctions, a response, in sound, to the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Modisti was kind enough to release my experiments with sine waves, Formerly Sine Drones in June.
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I re-released a very early collaborative work featuring myself, Carrie from Auzel and Terry from Histatic Charge. We called ourselves The Unseelie Court, and our one off release from 1995 titled Fall also came out in June.
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Finally, I released the inaugural track for the Dystimbria netlabel, a difficult slab of calming drones and sharp noise titled “A Strange Seed”, which used sounds donated by Thomas Park of Mystified, Dave Seidel of Mysterybear and Miquel Parera Jaques.
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New Labels / New Projects
As mentioned, I also began the new netlabel Dystimbria, which is now up to its sixth release. It explores the area between ambient music and noise music with each new track drawing source material from the music that came before.
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I also created a new subsection of Vuzh Music called Vuzh Underground Editions for releasing classics from the cassette underground into the CC netlabel underground.
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My biggest project of the year won’t come into fruition until the Spring of 2012, it’s an exhibition of sound art which I am curating as a student project for Front Range Community College. I have a new website for it here: Sound Through Barriers.
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Releases on Vuzh Music
This year, my netlabel Vuzh Music released a varied lot of cool music, all of which is licensed in the Creative Commons, and is free to download:

• The Implicit Order – They Live in the Sky
• Apollon – Nox
• Auzel – Old
• Histatic Charge – Histatic Charge
• Saffron Slumber – Piano Drones

Posted by C. Reider

Some of you may be aware that I’m working on a collection of music by various composers using samples from any of my musical releases, in celebration of my 20th year of releasing music.
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The call-for-submissions post is here:
http://www.vuzhmusic.com/blog/2010/11/28/20-years-of-strange-sounds/
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I have so far received contributions from nine artists, some friends and some brand new acquaintances. The process has been really fun for me so far, and I’m looking forward to releasing the compilation.
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I am going to extend the deadline for a couple of weeks at least. This is due to a delay – on my part – with the artwork. There are quite a few artists who expressed interest in contributing, but haven’t yet submitted a track, so this should give those artists some more time to complete a work.
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The new deadline, then, is February 11.
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Please get in touch with any news on your end if you’re planning on participating in this project! Leave a comment here, or hit the ‘contact’ link at Vuzh Music, or tweet me.

Posted by C. Reider

Remixes for my 20 year anniversary remix compilation are coming in!
There is still a month to get tracks ready for it!
Check out the details here if you are an underground / netlabel musician:
http://vuzhmusic.com/blog/?p=541
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Japan’s minimal tech master Taisougao contributed the first beat-oriented track:

Vuzhmusic TB303＋TR626 Psychedelic micro acid house mix fix by taisouegao
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It’s pretty fucking great, as you can tell!
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So far most of the remixes I’ve received concentrate more on the drone aspect of my work… this is awesome too, check out Mysterybear’s track:
Deep Structure (for C. Reider) by mysterybear
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Yeah!
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So far then, lots of kick ass drone stuff, a couple of keen noisy tracks and now I’ve got one good beat mix. All of these are important aspects of my work.
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I do hope the Taisougao isn’t the only track to be rhythm oriented though! After all, some of the work on the Electret Quintet is the best stuff I’ve done, in my own opinion.
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Posted by C. Reider

A list of some of the stuff planned for (the first part of) 2011.
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• Promote the new Crook’d Finger release! It’s out now! It rules! Go HERE!
• School: Cad Inventor & Museum Studies this semester.
• Listen to more Giacinto Scelsi, Morton Feldman & Keith Fullerton Whitman, because I am not as familiar with those artists as I would like to be.
• Listen to LOTS more netlabel music.
• Make beautiful objects.
• Re-release an album previously released on CDr in EXTREMELY limited quantities by a guy who collaborated with Muslimgauze, (details forthcoming in the next months)
• Finish the 20 year anniversary compilation (there’s still time to contribute if you’re a musician: go HERE for details)
• Maybe get that handheld recorder for site recordings?
• Finish the major release for C. Reider… consider the big collaborative project that may or may not go along with it. If the collaborative project is decided against, then I need to find some way to move Vuzh Music more into the realm of curated netlabel featuring many other artists and not just my music.
• Complete the re-master for the Unseelie Court & re-release that.
• Mix & master & release the Tarkatak collaboration (following up from 1998′s the Druser Pricid)
• Finish & release the cassette release that I have in the works. Take that cassette, when done, and TRADE with it.
• Consider the ‘Pulsa’ project idea. There are a couple of directions it could go in.
• Consider the follow-up Crook’d Finger that’s been moldering on the hard drive for years. Also consider the ‘compilation tracks’ release.

Posted by C. Reider

The year 2011 will be my 20th year composing strange music and releasing it mostly for free (previously I released on cassettes, now on the internet).
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To mark this milestone, I kinda thought it’d be a fun thing to do to ask my comrades in underground music (whether you’re familiar with my music or not — whether we know each other or are not yet total BFFs) to extract sound samples from any of my releases over the last twenty years and tweak them however you like and re-assemble them into a musical work of your own invention. I’m looking less for “remixes” and more for imaginative and individual expressions made with collaged bits and chunks of my work (whether recognizable as such or not — in fact, manipulation, editing & effecting of source sounds is to be encouraged).
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Most of my downloadable releases are CC licensed allowing derivative work, so you’re only limited by what you can think up. You can find links to almost everything I’ve ever done on my netlabel’s front page: http://vuzhmusic.com. A more comprehensive discography (including links to my work with Drone Forest) can be found on my bio page.
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I guess this project is a bit like tooting my own horn, but what the hell? No one else will toot the damn thing. I may even just name the compilation “An All-Star Gala Tribute to the Enduring Genius of C. Reider”
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I haven’t yet decided if that threat is a joke or not.
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Particulars:

• Compilation will be a free-to-download release on Vuzh Music netlabel. It will be CC licensed (probably Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike)
• Submissions should be in high bitrate mp3 files (DON’T FORGET ID3 TAGS)
• Send me a link to where I can download the file when you’ve got one ready. My email address can be found at the contact link at the Vuzh Music website. You could also direct message me on Twitter, you can find me there as vuzhmusic.
• Keep your track(s?) under 10 minutes in length.
• Hoping to release in early 2011. Deadline maybe February 1??? EXTENDED to February 11.
• Everything is negotiable, including this sentence.
• Leave me a comment here if you want to participate… unless you like surprises, in which case just get the track to me before the deadline!
• Guys! I’m already thinking of extending the deadline, and no one’s even asked me yet!

Posted by C. Reider

Please listen to my new piece of music. I recorded it today!
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It’s completely, intentionally derivative (of Steve Reich) but I’m still really happy with how it turned out, and with the emotional / political impact of it!
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You know you want to listen to this, come on, the title alone should compel you!
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Socialism is Evil by vuzhmusic

Posted by C. Reider

I’ve begun work on a second collaboration with Tarkatak this weekend. Some of the work I’ve come up with so far sounds pretty good. I just hope this one doesn’t take three years to be completed, like the last time we collaborated!

Posted by C. Reider

From January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2009… the Zeroes…
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This was the second decade of Vuzh Music (officially twenty years in 2011). Here are the best bits of what I did in the last decade, almost all of these are available for free download, so check them out!
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• Crook’d Finger – Aft 2000
• Crook’d Finger – vs. Harlan / vs. D.Rhythm:O 2000
• c. reider & Tarkatak – the Druser Pricid 2000
• c. reider – some things i did when i lost my mind 2001
• Various Artists – El Tafkeera: Remixs in Remembrance of Muslimgauze 2002
• c. reider – Aughtet 2003
• c. reider – the Long Defeat 2003
• c. reider – i’d've (not yet released) 2003
• Drone Forest – our ghost in her wood 2003
• Drone Forest – point 2006
• Drone Forest – Amy’s Arms / metacollage 12″ 2007
• Drone Forest – Wormwood 2007
• C. Reider – fine failures 2008
• C. Reider & Friends – Long Defeat Variations 2008
• C. Reider – Inconstant (Treetrunk Records) 2008
• C. Reider – Linguism (Treetrunk Records) 2008
• C. Reider – unnamed minimal techno record (not yet released) 2008
• C. Reider & Desohll – Falling Into Disrepair (Drô6n Records) 2009 Ltd. to 66
• C. Reider – the Electret Quintet, parts 1-5 2009
• PBK & C. Reider – Discorporate (Impulsy Stetoskopu) 2009 Ltd. to 120
• C. Reider – Steam Inspector (Just Not Normal) 2009
• C. Reider – Buddha Reduction (not yet released) 2009
• C. Reider – Fragment Three Reworks (not yet released) 2009

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Happy New Year!
Happy New Decade!

Posted by C. Reider

A sneak preview of the centerpiece of Electret Quintet 5, which is rumored to be the last release of the ZEROES.
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December24x TB-303 by vuzhmusic
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Posted by C. Reider

Embedded in this post is new track hosted by SoundCloud called “White Cube Drone” It was recorded for the White Cube project, and for it I used sound sources from my friend and peer Gurdonark, who is one half of the team curating the sound portion of an art installation at the RAM Gallery in Wisconsin. Enjoy!
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White cube drone by vuzhmusic

Posted by C. Reider