Vuzh Music Blog

Disquiet, the essential website for ambient / electronic music, has published an article called “Time of the Sines” about my latest album “Formerly Sine Drones” with some interesting commentary about how it was made:
–
http://disquiet.com/2011/07/11/c-reider-modisti-sine-wave/
–

The sine wave is arguably the most rudimentary building block of electronic music. It is the source for various forms of synthesis: a simple sonic object that can be tweaked, prodded, processed, and layered to create new sounds. Simple as its sonic makeup is, that undulating up and down cycle, it can be, in the hands of some musicians, an object of intense aural attention unto itself. C. Reider has made a prolific habit of using constraints as a means toward creative ends, perhaps most notably in the employment of early drum machines in the production of music for which rhythm is not the main point. On his recent freely downloadable album Formerly Sine Drones, released by the Modisti netlabel, Reider makes several different sine waves do marvelous things.

The tracks range from wildly active to deeply sedate. The latter is the case with the album’s final cut (MP3), titled “777 Hz.” All the tracks are named for the frequency of the sine wave from which they are built, ranging between “12 Hz” to “3456 Hz,” as chosen by followers of his twitter.com/vuzhmusic account when he put a call out for random numbers.

–
There’s more explanatory info, a streaming track and a graphic illustration at the article:
http://disquiet.com/2011/07/11/c-reider-modisti-sine-wave/

I’ve been pleased to come across a couple of reviews recently, the first from the inimitable David Nemeth of Acts of Silence blog, who reviewed C. Reider’s “Formerly Sine Drones“, the new release on the Modisti netlabel.
–
In his review “Multiple Functions” (nice pun) he says:

As Marc Weidenbaum wrote about C. Reider last year in the Disquiet review of Steam Inspector (2009), Reider is a ”deeply curious (and curiosity-inducing) musician”. Maybe it’s this curiosity for both musician and listener that makes C. Reider such a daring and admired experimental sound artist. On this blog, I’ve reviewed several works by Reider from his collaboration with Desohill, Falling Into Disrepair (2010); his recent solo work, Owning Extinctions (2011); his Crook’d Finger remixes (2000); and the community remix of C. Reider’s work (2011). But even if you listen to his other recent releases: Inconstant (2008), Linguism (2008), and the Electric Quintet series (2008-2009), one would experience an artist who doesn’t retread the same tired experimental hooks that were successful in previous releases. It is always something new. There are hundreds of electronic artists who call themselves “experimental” or “Avant-Garde”, but in reality they just are continuing in some sort of post-Commodore electronic noise genre that they are comfortable in. Reider does not do that. He produces work that always seems outside his comfort zone — something all experimental artists should being do. For his listeners the only thing we can expect from a C. Reider release is that it will be different from the previous C. Reider release.
Even though my dogs did not like is latest release on Modisti, Formerly Sine Drones, my curiosity as well as that of Reider’s makes this record a great addition to the musician’s discography. More than just tones and sound manipulations, Reider takes an atypical and almost deviant exploration into electronic frequencies.
http://www.actsofsilence.com/album-review/multiple-functions/

–
The Agier blog’s feature “Recent Music Heroes” reviewed the 2011 Vuzh Music re-release of 2000’s “Crook’d Finger vs. Harlan / Crook’d Finger vs. D. Rhythm:O“, saying:

C. Reider is a unsung hero of darkly brooding electronic music who has been involved in music for about two decades, being very prolific as solo artist (under his own name; Luster; Crook`d Finger), having loads of collaborations and split albums, and having participated in such collective as Drone Forest. He has worked as musical reviewer and headed up a label titled as Vuzh Music. However, the initial release of this remastered version was issued 11 years ago. Someone called as Finger (ha-ha) has re-worked the versions of such artists as Harlan and D. Rhythm:O, respectively. The first side of the album (or the first side of the cassette release initially) is a bit more joyous industrial-based appearance mixing it up with Latin breaks and heavily stomping cadences and riffs. The flip side of it, however, it will be revolving around the axis of ominously sounding industrial techno, profound dystopiac reverberations and murky dub progressions. For instance, if you are deeply get involved in music of Justin Broadrick`s projects or the similar kind, this album must be heard at least as well.
http://agier.blogspot.com/2011/06/crookd-finger-vs-harlan-vs-drhythmo.html

–

Fellow Coloradan Jeff Sampson of JeffSampsonMusic.com has unexpectedly written a review of this year’s Owning Extinctions by C. Reider. In the review, he suggests listening to the music while viewing a powerful set of photographs by J. Henry Fair at Industrial Scars of the BP Macondo oil spill.
–

“Using a wide variety of sound sources, he’s created pieces that emphatically describe various parts of the heinous crime to our environment, and the lackadaisical reaction to it by the corporation directly involved and the government we’ve charged with protecting our way of life.”

–
The review can be found here:
Jeff Sampson review of “Owning Extinctions”
–
While there, be sure to hit his music player, sounds like this fellow has some pretty fine ambient music to enjoy.
–
Meanwhile, enjoy again the SoundCloud track from this album:
–
Underwater Plume by vuzhmusic

Acts of Silence, the blog of steadfast netlabel booster David Nemeth has written up Vuzh Music’s May 2011 release of C. Reider’s Owning Extinctions…
–
Check out that review: Acts of Silence: Shame – Despair – Anger

The large compilation on Vuzh Music called “The More Unknown C. Reider” has been a very revealing way for me to observe the processes of some of the composers and artists that I count among my peers and comrades in the musical underground. How does a composer approach and utilize a sound? This question is very interesting to me. Each of the artists who contributed their work to the compilation were tasked with selecting sounds that I had authored over the course of my creative life and assembling them into new shapes & forms. Since the original sounds were so familiar to me, I had a unique perspective for attempting to understand how each artist chose which sounds to use and how to use them. This kind of analysis is fascinating to me, and is part of the way I listen to music in general, aside from pure holistic enjoyment.
–
A few of the contributing composers have made this analysis more accessible by having written some descriptions of their processes and thoughts about their own work. I’ve read each of these with consideration, and I recommend reading them!
–
Steve Burnett of Subscape Annex talks about working with the entire Drone Forest album .Point, on his cleverly titled “Qutub” which appears on part 3 of the compilation. He includes a screenshot of his multitracker during his working process at his LiveJournal post.
–
Perennial internet pal LokiLokust of Keziah Mason talks about how he forged that swirling electronic maelstrom that appears on part 3 of the compilation by extracting sounds from the run-in & run-out grooves and physical manipulation of my vinyl release “Amy’s Arms / metacollage” in his tumblr post.
–
Dave Seidel of Mysterybear described his use of a tiny fragment of Noam Chomsky’s voice from my 2008 release “Linguism” at a CSound forum.
–
John Ingram from Intelligent Machinery suggests that he secretly and pseudonymously contributed to the comp at his blog.
–
Comrade & peer Robert Nunnally, a.k.a. Gurdonark provides a thoughtful and accurate analysis of my music before discussing his own music and his piece “Where” on his blog.
–
A few quotes from that last one:

Perhaps the unifying thread of his varying music is that rather than being “music-as-sound” in the ambient formulation, it is “sound-as-music”. The sounds are interesting, and somehow, a bit improbably, they add up to music. His pieces rarely cause one to float away on a sea of melody, nor do they paste one against the wall in the way of noise. They happen in their own little created universe, aware of but not entombed in anyone else’s universe, and they are their own thing. I listen to C. Reider music for some of the same reasons I read science fiction–it offers me a kind of escape into different ideas, all served up with a kind of unpretentious earnest grace.

–
From his vantage point as a listener, Robert has gleaned some of my own working processes and goals and summarized them very astutely in this paragraph.
–
This kind of listening can be very rewarding. Are you listening?

A brief break in my school-induced blog silence to point to a review of the new freely downloadable release of my 2000 cassette release Crook’d Finger vs. Harlan / Crook’d Finger vs. D. Rhythm:O. The review appears on the Acts of Silence blog, reviewing netlabel music (and hooray for that!).
–
It reads:

Before dubstep, there was a C. Reider remix and all was well. In listening to the Crook’d Finger remixes of Harlan and D.Rhythm:O, Reider destroys the concept of labeling music from way back in 2000. These nine tracks were released as a limited edition cassette with the artists each taking a side as Reider’s alias Crook’d Finger puts his remarkable remixing chops to the test. Versus truly defies any label as the tracks easily span several genres of electronic music, for example the remix of Harlan’s “Hence” (mp3) and the remix of D.Rythm:O’s “Slow Flow / Volt Spur” (mp3). I realize that this review might not be of much help in discerning whether you should download or not — you should by the way —, but I’ll let C. Reider have the last word:
–
“The Crook’d Finger stuff is, without a doubt, the most approachable music I have ever done, and I always thought it could reach a wider audience. Maybe now that it’s available in such a free and open format, it can.”

The Disruptive Platypus blog has offered up a brief, but positive review of my recent collaboration with Desohll “Falling into Disrepair” out on the Dark Winter netlabel.
–
Read the review here

Disquiet posted a review of Steam Inspector.
–
http://disquiet.com/2010/09/20/c-reider-steam-inspector/
–

If the title summons up some Hayao Miyazaki vision of a homunculoid cartoon character making its way through a realm equal parts fantasy and dessication, you aren’t far off.

–
Read the entire review here

I ♥ Noise posted a selected discography of C. Reider, including a pre-beard photo AND a beardy photo, so you can contrast and compare. Also looks like there’s that cool video of the track Gurdonark did with some of my sounds:
–
C. Reider Selected Discography at I Heart Noise.

Marc was interviewed about the brand new music compilation “Despite the Downturn”.
–
Here’s a pretty great quote about some of the contributions, including my own:

What made this project so natural was that the illustration by Jeremy Traum suggested itself as a score because it had a score in it. Some of the musicians on Despite the Downturn interpreted the music in the score literally, especially Tom Moody, who fed the notes into MIDI and took it from there — the result to me sounds like Scott Joplin and Conlon Nancarrow getting along quite nicely. Others used the score as a canvas that only by coincidence had notes in it; they took it as a narrative, the way C. Reider has the hip-hop appear at the end, an aural symbol of the urchins that is, compositionally, like something Paul Dukas might have done if The Sorcerer’s Apprentice — perhaps the great work of narrative music about the unintended consequences of systems — had been about filesharing.

–
Here’s part one
and part two.
–
There’s also a cool writeup of the compilation at Flavorwire here:What “The Death of the Music Industry” Really Sounds Like.
–
In case you missed earlier opportunities to download this cool compilation of new experimental music, here’s the link:
Despite the Downturn: An Answer Album