Weekly Twitter Update

Sunday, 29 January 2012

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Two New Pieces at Dystimbria

Thursday, 26 January 2012

Two new tracks have just gone live at Dystimbria, the new netlabel devoted to a continually evolving community discussion in sound of the grey areas between noise and ambient.

The two new tracks are really heavy and incredibly good. These are some of my favorite entries yet! Don’t miss them.

Dystimbria #8 – Mutant Beatnik’s “Rainbow Vomitorium” is a constantly evolving composition of entrancing and exciting textures and noises. Incredible. This will take the top of your head clean off.

Dystimbria #9 – Post-Avantist’s “Vasiform Rima” is a slow-burning, slow-churning piece of quasi-doom-metal DROOOOOOOONNNNNNEEE. Grrrruuuuhhhh!!!!

Get them both right now for free at http://dystimbria.cc


Weekly Twitter Update

Sunday, 22 January 2012

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Weekly Twitter Update

Sunday, 15 January 2012

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Sound Through Barriers

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

News to some, and a reminder to others:

I am curating an exhibition of sound art that will be open April 20-29 of 2012 at Art Lab in Fort Collins, Colorado.

There is a call for entries, if you’re into sound art at all, please run to the website – http://soundthroughbarriers.com – and either read the call for entries on the site, or download a PDF of it.


The Euphoric Hum – Flow

Monday, 9 January 2012

The new EP from Germany’s the Euphoric Hum is an exciting mix of prickly electronic noises and powerful bass rumbles. Check out this new work that was created specifically for Vuzh Music by special invitation.




The Euphoric Hum – Flow
http://vuzhmusic.com/releases/flow.html


Weekly Twitter Update

Sunday, 8 January 2012

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Collarado

Saturday, 7 January 2012

The seventh track in the Dystimbria continuum is by Utah’s AODL, and is titled “Collarado”.

Artist statement: “I took Dystimbria 6 and chopped it up, shuffled it, re-joined it, chopped it up, and shuffled it again, and had a couple of tracks built from all of that, all on the computer. I did some computer distortion of one of the generated tracks, and chopped the non-distorted and distorted ones up into two batches of samples of 2 seconds each. I then loaded those samples into MPC500 programs and plugged the MPC500 into two MoogerFoogers (Ring Modulator and FreqBox) and a Metasonix TM-1 Waveshaper and played a live set using only this gear and these samples (in pairs of noise and non-noise, one with “note-on” play, and one with “oneshot” play). “


Download it here: http://dystimbria.cc


Weekly Twitter Update

Sunday, 1 January 2012

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My Favorite Free Netlabel Music of 2011

Sunday, 25 December 2011

Here’s my favorite netlabel releases of 2011. What qualifies me to make a list like this? Nothing at all! You don’t need credentials in the netlabel underground. I listen to a lot of music published on netlabels, I like making lists, and I like sharing what I’ve found with other potential listeners. There’s my qualifications! I wish more people would get vocal about the stuff they like in netlabel music. A few people did, including David Nemeth, Thomas Park and Alex Stretton. I’d love to read more lists of netlabel music people have enjoyed, I love discovering new music, and checking out the tastes of people who are different from me. So why don’t you consider sharing some of the things you listened to and liked this year? If you don’t want to write a blog post, feel free to add a comment to this post, you’ll share your recommendation with me & everyone who reads this.

Before I proceed with the rest of this post, I’d like to point my readers to a blog post I wrote re-capping some of the stuff I personally released in 2011, both my own music and stuff on my label. That blog post can be found right HERE.

I should probably give a special shout-out to one artist who gets the most-listened-to netlabel artist of the year award. It’s pretty clear from this screenshot of my last.FM stats who I’m talking about:



Saffron Slumber kicks ass, and the release by his other project Earthbreather made a pretty good dent too! Well done!

A few final notes:
– I’m dividing my list into 8 releases that are especially excellent, and then 23 more that I really like.
– I limited my list to releases that were available for free. Some are “Pay what you want”, including zero.
– Not all of this stuff is released with Creative Commons licenses, though most of it is.
– For some reason most of this year’s list is ambient music, even though, to be frank, most ambient bores me to tears. This stuff defies the expectations.
– The two lists are presented in alphabetical order.


Without further ado, here’s…




Eight Essential Releases of 2011






Earthbreather – Forget the SkySkrow!media
http://skrowmedia.com/skrow/audio-releases/skrow038/

     Ambient that shakes the floorboards. Ambient that feels like heavy metal. Distortion as an element of beauty. Sometimes I download something and forget everything about it before listening to it. That happened with this album. When I finally listened for the first time, I put it on, and I was like, “Dude, who IS this, this is fucking awesome!” – and so I googled Earthbreather and realized that it’s the a collaborative project including Kevin Stephens, a.k.a. Saffron Slumber (along with Jason George of Ellipse) and I said to myself “Ah, no wonder it fucking rules.”




Ángel Faraldo – Scelsi Remix: 7 MantrasModisti
http://modisti.com/netlabel/?p=520

     This was actually released in December 2010, but I didn’t discover it until after I’d written last year’s best-of post. It surely would have made it to the list, seeing as how it’s incredibly good and all. Perfect drone music.




Gurdonark – Weights and MeasuresTreetrunk
http://treetrunkrecords.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/gurdonark-weights-and-measures-treetrunk-191/

     This is probably Gurdonark’s best work, in my humble opinion. Some of the songs remind me of something that might appear on a Boards of Canada album. Subdued melodies with round tones.




Christopher McFall – The Alpha is Strong and Amplifying BetaImpulsive Habitat
http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab033.htm

     This guy rules. Will he make it on every year’s best-of list? Only if he does something every year. Heavy clumps of lo-fi sounds.




Mystified – Remembering the Engineself released
http://mystified.bandcamp.com/album/remembering-the-engine

     Mystified always releases a ton of good stuff. This was the one from this year that I really liked the best. Motorik mechanical industrial-ambient.




Saffron Slumber – SomnogenResting Bell
http://www.restingbell.net/releases/rb092-somnogen

     Just take another look at that statistical graphic above. Yes. This is ambient music done right.




Various Artists – Dead Voices: White NoiseIntelligent Machinery / Just Not Normal
http://justnotnormal.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/imc03-dead-voices-white-noise/

     A great compilation of edgey abstract music derived from ‘electronic voice phenomenon’, and very, very sadly the last release on Just Not Normal for “some time to come”.




Wirewall / Hal McGee – Dimension ShiftCohort
http://cohortrecords.0catch.com/download.htm

     A really interesting hybrid of harsh noise and ambient, from two of my old contacts from the hometaping days. One or both of these guys ought to participate in the Dystimbria continuum.









23 Really Good Releases of 2011






AODL – Wanted ValleyRive
http://euc.cx/rive/061/

     Noise!




Sandra Boss – Seks KompositionerModisti
http://modisti.com/netlabel/?p=575

     Composed electronic sounds.




Chiodata – CoplaCocodriller
http://www.cocodriller.com/?page_id=1442

     Synth music with lingering tones a la Eno.




Cinchel – friday.deconstructionself released
http://cinchel.bandcamp.com/album/friday-deconstrucion

     Sadly this is not a deconstruction of the amazing song by Rebecca Black. Instead it’s rather good guitar-drone-loop-glitch music.




Closer Contact + Meteer – Geography 2BFW Recordings
http://www.bfwrecordings.com/releases/CloserContactMeteer/Geography2/

     A well thought out blend of chilled melodies, site recordings, rhythms and electroacoustic experiments, not all at the same time.




Reñe Muñoz Cordova – EntityPetcord
http://www.petcord.com/releases/pc1210-01-rene-munoz-cordova-entity/

     Musique concrete.




Christian Doil – MaschinenEarth Mantra
http://earthmantra.com/release-detail.php?id=185

     Full disclosure: this contains a remix of my sounds on one track. Metallic drones, loops and vague rhythmic chirps.




Gusev K.P. – Vb K.Petcord
http://www.petcord.com/releases/pc2011-16-gusev-kp-vb-k/

     In a recent review I said: “it’s minimal techno that threatens to erupt into a big beat and never does. It hovers there, all potential, unresolved – unresolvable. There’s no real beginning or ending, it occupies a limbo… The longer it goes along, the greater the tension, the greater the intensity, not because the piece builds to a crescendo – it never does – but because the enduring potential persists. The music does not repeat, and continually invents itself in interesting ways, but it refuses to progress
 instead it hovers, intensely.”




The Implicit Order – Our Haunted Planetself released
http://theimplicitorder.bandcamp.com/album/our-haunted-planet

     Our favorite appropriation artist is at it again. I’m thrilled that Anthony’s been so productive this year. His stuff is always worth the time for a listen.




The Implicit Order – Wartime Geneticsself released
http://theimplicitorder.bandcamp.com/album/wartime-genetics

     Very weirdly, some of this sounds like it could break into black metal screeee at any moment.




Kalte – FissuresPetcord
http://www.petcord.com/releases/pc0311-02-kalte-fissures/

     Drones.




Kirill Platonkin – OrogenesisPetcord
http://www.petcord.com/releases/pc2011-09-kirill-platonkin-orogenesis/

     Drones. Vaguely textural.




Marax – the Weight of Insignificanceself released
http://www.archive.org/details/Marax-TheWeightOfInsignificance

     In a recent review, I said: “The normally screamin’ noise monster Marax takes an ultra minimal approach with this release, exploring the self-noise of a wah pedal. A droning, low-frequency oscillation with a mild static wash. This reminds me, of course, of Nurse With Wound’s “Soliloquy for Lilith”, in which Steven Stapleton found that waving his hands around a certain effects set-up caused a seemingly magic sound response, creating an accidental, playable instrument. The second track is the same source material as the first, taken in a more post-production / effected direction.”




Mysterybear – Complex Silence 12Treetrunk
http://treetrunkrecords.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/mysterybear-complex-silence-12-treetrunk-133/

     Electronic drones with frequency beating. Very trancey. The release page recommends headphones, but I prefer this kind of thing out-loud so I can move my head around and hear phase effects.




Mystified – Bone Drones 3Webbed Hand
http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh200-mystified-bone-drones-3/

     Many people are referring to the ‘trilogy’ of trombone releases by Mystified, but in reality Thomas produced quite a lot of material with trombones, both solo and in collaboration, so I think maybe calling it a trilogy and leaving it at that is selling it short. I heard several of Mystified’s trombone works this year, but this one was my favorite of what I heard.




NP – Couleur ASCIIPetcord
http://www.petcord.com/releases/pc2011-10-np-couleur-ascii/

     Post-glitch, post-IDM, frantic electronic music. Rhythmic, but so unlikely to stay on one rhythm for long, it’s almost a misrepresentation to say so. A comparison would be the work of Ryoji Ikeda or Alva Noto.




Bob Ostertag – Motormouthself released
http://bobostertag.com/music-recordings-motormouth.htm

     Really cool blippy-bloopy modular synth workouts with a Buchla 200e.




Restive – Generative 2Modisti
http://modisti.com/11/2011/06/21/restive-%E2%80%93-generative-ambient-2-2/

     Supposedly this is “generative ambient music”. It’s quite minimal, sounds a bit like a guy and a sampler doing spooky loops.




Jeff Sampson – Requiem in ShallowsTreetrunk
http://treetrunkrecords.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/jeff-sampson-requiem-in-shallows-treetrunk-163/

     Best looped singing artist since Eyelight released all those amazing tapes back in the hometaping days. Jeff’s fellow Coloradan too! A fellow avant-prog fan too! Racking up the “cool” points!




SIGHUP – City PassageFeedback Loop Label
http://feedbacklooplabel.blogspot.com/2011/07/fbl016-sighup-city-passage.html

     Very interesting sonics, sounds like it might be heavily processed site recordings.




Sonorefiction – AutomatiqueMonokrak
http://www.archive.org/details/monokrak77Sonorefictionautomatique

     Vast minimal ambient-techno.




Uncertain – Amniotic Fluid EPself released
http://uncertain.bandcamp.com/album/amniotic-fluid-ep

     Goes from Coil-esque melodic play to total drone.




Wjiik og Chefkirk – We Love Ginger CandyControl Valve
http://www.controlvalve.net/blog/index.blog/2143685

     Electronic music, possibly you could call it musique concrete. Occasional blasts of invigorating harshness.


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