Vuzh Music Blog

Electret Quintet 5 Released today!
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I hope you’ll spend a little of what remains of this decade, and a lot of the new one with these sounds! My major project of the last two years is now complete and released, with the fifth and final part of the Electret Quintet seeing release on the last day of the Zeroes!
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For these five sets of five recordings each, I used a single analogue drumcomputer for all of the sounds. Here’s a track using only the Roland TR-606 from Electret Quintet 4:
3/29 r TR-606 by vuzhmusic

…and here’s one using only the Roland’s TB-303 from the Electret Quintet 5, just released today!
December24x TB-303 by vuzhmusic
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hm… wouldn’t that pair of tracks make a nice 12″?
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Check out the newest one, or download the whole bunch, it’s all free!

C. Reider – the Electret Quintet
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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

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.

Posted by C. Reider

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

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

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.

Posted by C. Reider

I was pleased to read today a nice write up of one of my tracks from the Electret Quintet 4 that I have posted on my SoundCloud page… Marc Weidenbaum writes:
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…his sole instrument is an early analog drum machine, one called the TR-606, which was manufactured by the Roland corporation in the early 1980s. Reider milks the machine for all it is worth, and what’s remarkable about it isn’t just that he’s taken a tool of percussion and turned it into a tool for space music — all wandering echoes and hallucinated canyons — but how much, to fans of his other work, it is immediately of a piece with things he’s made on far different instruments on other sonic journeys he’s taken.

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Read the entire article here:

Downstream, December 4, 2009
SoundCloud: Vuzh Does TR-606 Space Music

Posted by C. Reider

If you cannot eliminate an undesired distortion, you can amplify the distortion until it IS a desirable element.
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Didn’t Beaudelaire talk about distortion in terms of beauty?
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That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal; from which it follows that irregularity – that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment, are a essential part and characteristic of beauty

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He also said:

Strangeness is the indispensable condiment of all beauty.

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I’m pretty sure, given those two quotes, that Beaudelaire must not have been a modern American citizen.
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When working on an artwork, sometimes it’s just not possible to repair an imperfection without destroying the only valuable thing in the work. In these cases don’t forget that you have the option to amplify the imperfection.
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If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Posted by C. Reider

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

Posted by C. Reider