Vuzh Music Blog » recommended listening

A Surprise Set of Remixes from Fosel

C. Reider — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:14:31 +0000

This afternoon, I received a surprise email from someone I don’t know and had never up ’till now heard of, with the subject line “remixed your tracks”. This is what the email linked to:
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My downloadable tracks are released under a Creative Commons license which says, basically, that as long as you are not making money off of it, and give me credit, you can sample and appropriate anything I do to your heart’s jolly content. It’s just that this happens quite infrequently!
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The tracks by the New Mexico artist Fosel are really stupendous. The title of the work is “problem of universals: c. reider remixes“, it’s an atmospheric reworking of some tracks from the Electret Quintet blended with some ambient guitar noises from Long Defeat.
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Listen to them and/or download them and THEN listen to them here:

http://fosel.bandcamp.com/album/problem-of-universals-c-reider-remixes

Drone for Oil

C. Reider — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:03:34 +0000

Brand new track, a SoundCloud exclusive:
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Drone for Oil by vuzhmusic

Despite the Downturn

C. Reider — Wed, 05 May 2010 02:57:33 +0000

Despite the Downturn: An Answer Album
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Marc Wiedenbaum of the incredible online magazine Disquiet invited me a couple of weeks ago to contribute to a compilation of new music. The compilation is a “non-verbal response” to an article written by Megan McArdle that was published in the May 2010 issue of the Atlantic (still on the racks as of today).
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The idea was to use the illustration by Jeremy Traum that accompanied McArdle’s article as a graphic score for a new piece of music. As Marc describes it:

There are at least two major traditions in the intermingling of visual art and music. One is when musicians pay homage to an existing artwork, as in Morton Feldman’s musical tribute to the Rothko Chapel, or more recently Ted Nash’s “Portrait in Seven Shades” (a Jazz at Lincoln Center commission based on works from the Museum of Modern Art by Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack, and others).
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The other is when musicians treat a graphic image as a score, an approach with a strong avant-garde lineage. Among the best examples is Christian Marclay’s “Graffiti Composition.” It involved setting up musical notation paper all around Berlin, and then — after the blank staffs had been scrawled on, layered with advertisements, and otherwise damaged — collecting them and selecting those most redolent with musical potential. The pages were later collected as a book and are used as scores by musicians.
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This project, Despite the Downturn, is a mix of those two traditions: it’s an homage to a work that wasn’t intended to be read as music, and yet the homage involves treating it as a proper score.

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I was honored to have been asked to contribute, intrigued by the artistic protest angle of the concept and inspired by the ‘graphic score’ by Traum. I contributed a track called “StaffGrabbing” which mangles some appropriated samples of solo piano and hip hop drumbeats.
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Download the compilation for free from the Internet Archive here:

Despite the Downturn: An Answer Album
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Please also check out Disquiet’s new article announcing the release:
http://disquiet.com/2010/05/03/despite-the-downturn/
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and his original article responding to the McArdle piece:
What, After All, Is the “Music Industry”?

Squeezing Being

C. Reider — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 01:42:20 +0000

My friend Anthony Washburn of the Implicit Order has re-released two compilations that he released back in the ’90s featuring a ton of stars of the hometaping underground in its last years before the internet took over. I appear on the first release with a track that is currently unavailable elsewhere.
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Squeezing Being
(featuring: De Fabriek, Anlage, Kirchenkampf, C. Reider, Yuri Jossa, BRF, Tom Allen Cox, Brutum Fulmen, The Implicit Order, Adam Bohman, Mothman, Antibody, The American Tract Society, Zan Hoffman.)
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Squeezing Being issue 2
(featuring: Big City Orchestra, Sveen, AMK, Grace, Doc Wor Mirran, Hjalmer Geiger, Turkey Makes Me Sleepy, Richard Ramirez, AMDF, The Implicit Order, Post Prandials, The Haters, Dieter Muh, Stream Angel, Blonde Jane 26)

Red Fog ambient mix

C. Reider — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 02:47:46 +0000

I know it’s been a while since I wrote anything here, I promise I’ll be back! There are many items cooking on the Vuzh Music stovetop, but not much is ready to serve yet!
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In the meantime, please enjoy this soft and spacious ambient mix by Red Fog, which features the “White Cube Drone” by C. Reider:
Red Fog Ambient Mix Part I by Red Fog
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Tracklisting:

0:00……Numb Silence… The Air Of Bright Nights
5:25……Seetyca… An Exercise In Sonic Despair
9:00……Bagryanii Schliach… Ultima Thule
13:00….Stars Of The Lid… The Atomium Part III
16:55….Aim 23… Encounter
18:00….C. Reider… White Cube Drone
24:00….Mogwai Fear Satan… Mogwai (Surgeon Remix)
26:30….Henrik B…. Drifting
30:40….Inner Struggle… Night City Dreams
33:00….IOK-1… Dense Particles
37:50….Lustmord… Metastatic Resonance
45:00….Red Fog… Electric Skulls In The Frozen Sea
51:30….Seetyca… Vielleicht Erlischt Das Licht
54:20….Rick Hawkins… Impulse
57:00….Monokit… H-Drone
61:00….IOK-1… Spores
64:30….Lull… Time
69:25….Porzellan… Anaximander Gardens
74:20….I.M.M.U.R.E… Somnia

Favorite Net Releases 2009.

C. Reider — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:39:52 +0000

You know how you’re like a netlabel and stuff, and you release some new recording, and you can see from your stats that only one guy listened to it? I might have been that guy!
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Here were my favorite netlabel releases of 2009, all are freely downloadable, so maybe YOU can be hit number TWO on someone’s statcounter!
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1. Gurdonark – Seven Virtues
At a time when it would have been much more fashionable to put out an album dedicated to the seven deadly sins featuring dark and gloomy doom sounds, this charming collection of light musical fancies celebrates what’s to be admired about the human spirit. (some of Gurdonark’s thoughts on making this album)
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2. Hannah M.G. Shapero (a.k.a. Altocumulus) – My Name is Marietta Cashman
Not many of us can claim to have recorded experimental music on a Buchla modular synthesizer in the late sixties when merely an adventurous teenager, but Hannah Shapero can. Culled from forgotten tape reels, unheard for 40 years, this treasure of naive noodling sounds fresh and innocent, a stark contrast to modern noodles by hipster cognoscenti. At the moment the accompanying photo of Hannah was taken in 1970, in her futuristic silver jumpsuit and glasses in front of the synth modules, she looks like she may have been the coolest nerdy girl in the universe. Modern Noodles by Hipster Cognoscenti would make a damned fine band name.
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3. Mystified – Collusion (with PBK, the Implicit Order, KR-Ohm & Kwalijk) – A collection of guys I admire working with sound sources provided by another guy I admire. This is a collection of the kinds of sounds I love, loopy and squiggly and gritty and crunchy. Quietnoise of the highest order!
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4. Various Artists – No-R-Mal
Oh, hullo! What’s this? FIVE FUCKING HOURS of top notch weirdness from 50 underground artists? I keep coming back to this and finding new gems all the time. Stunning.
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5. Chubby Wolf – Meandering Pupa
A brief collection of smooth ambience, dancing slowly, exactly in-between light and dark. The prolific artist behind Chubby Wolf, Dani Baquet-Long, (also one half of celebrated ambient artists Celer) passed away in July, suddenly, at the age of 26. The entire underground network was saddened by the loss.
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6. Pavonine – Pavonine
Dark, vaporous, mysterious, alluring? Sure, all that and more.
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7. Dexp Lab – Sectors LP
A fine collision of rhythm and noise.
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8. PBK – Asmus Sources (plus pretty much everything else on soundgenetic)
I have to admit, somewhat embarrassedly, that when I bought the Asmus Tietchens / PBK collaboration from Realization way back in the early nineties, it didn’t entirely gel for me. I loved both artists apart, but this album just didn’t quite get there. This year, PBK released the sound source files that he originally sent to Asmus for their collaboration, and upon hearing these imagination-pricking sounds, I decided a re-evaluation of the actual collaboration was in order, and now I find that it all makes sense. I’m not at all sure what I was thinking back in the 90s. I may simply not have been mature enough to get it! Now, I love both the collab, and these raw, stripped down sources equally. This is a rare chance to compare and contrast the working methods of two great minds in abstract music.
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9. Olifaunt – Three Crows Become Four
Slow growing drone ambient with stringy textures and melancholy tones.
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10. Zondagmorgen – La Fin du Monde
So apparently the end of the world is slow, blurred and extremely melancholy. The world ends with us gazing at our shoes. Alright then.
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Don’t forget to also check out my blog post about all the stuff I did this decade, including my own big project for 2009, the Electret Quintet.

Earth Incubator & Dichotomy Engine

C. Reider — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:28:31 +0000

The admirable Russian netlabel Rus Zud has released a new spooky ambient release on the Internet Archive called Time Anomaly. It is a collaboration between Earth Incubator, who lists himself as being from Antarctica, and Serbian artist Dichotomy Engine.
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The floating and grinding synth compositions on this release remind me of Jeff Greinke and Eduard Artemiev. Quite nice, but a bit short at 23 minutes long. I hope for more from these artists, but for now I’m enjoying this release.

The White Cube Experience

C. Reider — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:59:43 +0000

My friend Robert, a.k.a. Gurdonark has written in his blog about the experience of a teleconference with the artists and attendees of the White Cube art installation, for which he curated a collection of music from the ccMixter community (here’s the website of the music collection portion of the show). (I contributed a White Cube Drone to the mix, even though I’m not involved with ccMixter)
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Here’s the money quote from his blog post:

You see one man sit back against a wall and just take in the sound—and you realize that in all your life, all you ever wanted, was for one person to listen, really listen.

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Here’s a link to the rest of it:
http://gurdonark.livejournal.com/849526.html

Dark Planet, by ‘kirchenkampf’

C. Reider — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:45:39 +0000

John Gore’s ‘kirchenkampf’ project has long been known and admired by me for producing consistent, high-quality conceptual electronic space music. The characteristic ‘kirchenkampf’ release draws on influences from early electronic pioneers such as Subotnik, Parmegiani, the Barrons and Tangerine Dream, composing vast experimental sound-paintings with a strong central theme. His releases often follow a story structure hinted by the song titles and fleshed out with abstract, yet evocative electronic sounds. He is in top form on the new ‘kirchenkampf’ release “Dark Planet”
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The CD opens quietly with a long drifting drone titled “In Transit”, suggesting an awakening ship coasting through open space, and by the second track “Homesick”, a human element is introduced suggesting a deep melancholy in the crew after a long, cold voyage.
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The mood changes considerably on the title track. It seems that they’ve drifted into the orbit of an extraordinary planet, one that demands to be explored. The remainder of the CD explores the planet’s mysterious and frightening geography, its hungry caverns, its hissing fumaroles, its monoliths and volcanoes, “Terrorform” finally suggesting that they are not alone in this world. Serpentine figures lash out of the fog, etching curlicues in the air. As the story resolves, Gore describes, “The moon rises and bathes the planet with reflected light. Now they sit and wait for the first sunrise.”
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Another accomplished release from this venerable artist. I highly recommend it.
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It is available through Cohort Records as a physical CD, or a download.

Mystified – Collusion

C. Reider — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:13:33 +0000

One of my favorite releases of the year has been put out by Mystified on the Clinical Archives netlabel.
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Mystified’s “Collusion” collects the work of three of my friends and peers into one densely packed work of abstract quietnoise. I could be subjected to criticism for being biased in this recommendation, because my much admired friends and collaborators Phillip from PBK and Anthony from the Implicit Order, and Patrick from Kwalijk (also known as Desohll, with whom I collaborated on a recent release of darkambient) have contributed some remixes of music by my equally admired friend Thomas from Mystified for this release. Given the participants, one could almost expect nothing but the finest of challenging soundwork that exists on the quiet and calming edge of noise, that weird hybrid area that has been described elsewhere as “noiseambient”. Perhaps I am biased, or perhaps I have managed to make the acquaintances of several extremely talented composers on the outskirts of musical exploration. I tend to think the latter is more the case.
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On “Collusion” you will find an admirably cohesive set of gritty, yet calming collection of music that treads the border between ambient music, with its calming background qualities, and noise music with it’s upfront challenging qualities.
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Also contributing some remixes to this collection is KR-Ohm whom I don’t know personally, but who holds their own in very respectable company. For that she/he gains my respect.
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It’s nearly a perfect music, this.
I could not recommend it more.
http://www.archive.org/details/ca308_m