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.
–
My releases
I re-released Crook’d Finger vs. Harlan / Crook’d Finger vs. D.Rhythm:O early in the year…
–
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.
–
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.
–
Modisti was kind enough to release my experiments with sine waves, Formerly Sine Drones in June.
–
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.
–
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.
–
–

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.
–
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.
–
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.
–
–

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

Rescued from total unavailability into mere extreme obscurity, The Implicit Order’s 1997 classic “They Live in the Sky” was originally released in a limited edition of 35, traded amongst friends and new contacts as one did in the cassette underground cassette underground before the advent of the internet.
–
I did my own fair share of tape trading, and this tape was the first thing I’d heard from Anthony Washburn‘s project, and it made its way to my shelf of favorite tapes from my cassette days.
–
Upon asking Anthony recently if I could re-release this tape on Vuzh Music, he mentioned that he didn’t have a copy of it himself, hadn’t even heard the material in years. This re-release of “They Live in the Sky” was taken from my own cassette copy, presented here in 320±VBR kbps mp3 for your pleasure.
–

It was a good year for netlabel releases, and that is for certain!
I mean it: download everything on this page. You had better.
–
We’ll start with a brief roundup of my releases this year and then move on to my favorite releases by other artists.
–
It was a bit of a sparse go-round for Vuzh Music this year, but I did put out a really great remix of a split tape from 1991 by PBK and Vidna Obmana which I hope you didn’t miss:
–

C. Reider – Fragment Three Re-Works
http://www.vuzhmusic.com/releases/fragment.html
–
Dark Winter netlabel also put out a collaboration between me & Desohll of a longform guitar darkambient piece. Quite dark, somewhat ambient as well.
–

C. Reider / Desohll – Falling into Disrepair
http://www.darkwinter.com/dw072.html
–
I’m pretty sure 2011 is going to see a whole lot more activity at Vuzh Music, so watch out!
–
Now on to my favorite netreleases this year. All but one are free to download. They are presented here in alphabetical order, because I could not rate them, they’re all too good.
–

Andreas Brandal – Breaking a Mirror
http://andreasbrandal.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/new-mini-album/
Calm cinematic soundtrack-ish atmospheres and scenarios. It is constructed like a kind of collage music, but breaks into intimate little musical themes with real instruments. Quite lovely. I will need some more of this composer’s work.
–

Das, Jeph Jerman, John Hudak, PBK – Chain Mail Collab June 28, 1988
http://soundgenetic.blogspot.com/2010/11/das-jeph-jerman-john-hudak-pbk-chain.html
Old school looping industrial noise. This sound never gets old for me.
–

Christian Doil – Eis
http://justnotnormal.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/jnn090-christian-doil-eis/
A chilly collection of pinging synth tones, plucky percussives and arctic belltones working through fluctuating musical themes while accompanied by icy, ghostly drones. The crystal cathedral, indeed.
–

The Euphoric Hum – A Circle of Equal Altitude
http://www.archive.org/details/isor016ACircleOfEqualAltitude
Churning noisy ambience that intensifies and dissipates in dramatic ways. New sounds continually enter the mix, keeping things interesting. A sort of diffuse industrial/minimal techno throb emerges from the ambient noise.
–

Fosel – Problem of Universals (C. Reider Remixes)
http://earthmantra.com/release-detail.php?id=146
Is it bad form to nominate this as a best of 2010 when it’s a remix of my own music? Well, for me it honestly is a great album. Ambient beat music done beautifully.
–

Gurdonark – Butterflies of North Texas
http://fluttersongs.blogspot.com/2010/07/gurdonark-butterflies-of-north-texas_24.html
Gurdonark’s unique brand of sampling-synth musical fancies takes a move into slightly darker territories than last year’s wonderful “Seven Virtues”. Don’t look for scary dark ambient or anything though! Self-described “kid music” with odd modes, interesting sounds and unexpected changes.
–

The Implicit Order – s/t
http://www.archive.org/details/sPE_0049
I’ve been a full-throated advocate for the music of Anthony Washburn for years. This new effort does not disappoint. His haunting blend of looping samples alternate between creepy and jarring, and is always intriguing. “Dumb Generation” = great song title!
–

Miquel Parera Jaques – nx004_Automatic
http://www.archive.org/details/nx004_Automatic
Tinnitus drones moving along algorithmic flight paths. Computer music for hypnotizing organic life forms.
–

John Kannenberg – Oculus
http://www.wanderingear.com/we014.html
The basis of this album is a set of site recordings of various video projection mechanisms in art museums. High strength of concept and execution. Those gorgeous ultra high frequencies in “Television Monitor”, jeez, how did he do that so beautifully?
–

Christopher McFall – A Long Time Running for the Suicide Strays
http://www.archive.org/details/rb090
Sepia loops of tones & textures clustering and spreading apart. Unmissable.
–

Meteer – Unless
http://www.bfwrecordings.com/releases/Meteer/Unless/
Blocks of odd samples move in rhythmic patterns a la Biosphere or Taylor Deupree. Somehow, even with all the ring modulation and lo-fidelity and occasional distortion, (not to mention lack of overt beats) it still feels like a lush ambient techno piece.
–

Mutamassik – That Which Death Cannot Destroy
http://www.roughamericana.com/publicfiles/MUTAMASSIKThatWhichDeathCannotDestroy___.zip
Messed up hip-hop instrumental music with middle Eastern samples, the beats start off totally mutant and then they go and mutate some more. Fans of Muslimgauze will enjoy this.
–

Mystified – A Pale But Lasting Hope
http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/mystified-palehope/
Mystified puts out a lot of good stuff, and then he puts out some fucking great stuff. This release falls into the latter category. Rattling percussion elements and zigzagging synthetics form imaginary sonic structures. Loops that fall out of sync. Among my top favorite things I’ve ever heard from this artist. Please note that this release is on Magnatune, and so it streams freely, but you need to pay a $15 fee before you can download (but then you can also download everything else in their catalog).
–

Kurt Nimmo (Fosel) – Complex Silence 8
http://www.archive.org/details/complex_silence_8
No fair, Mr. Fosel made it to the list twice this year! This guy puts out some great damned percussive ambient music. Includes a remix of Phillip Wilkerson and two remixes of C. Reider. Bonus points for the Kurt Vonnegut reference. Not sure whom to credit, because the cover says Fosel and the ID3 tags say Kurt Nimmo. Ah well.
–

Olifaunt – Innocent of the Smoke and Noise
http://www.archive.org/details/InnocentOfTheSmokeAndNoise
Olifaunt just keeps improving and improving. I think this is the best outing yet from this composer. Extremely minimal, quiet, calming string work with elements of drone/trance and musical progression. Very pretty ambient album.
–

PBK – Appeal
http://soundgenetic.blogspot.com/2010/12/pbk-appeal-1989.html
A newly remastered digital re-release of a cassette from 1989. Early PBK tapes were pretty heavily loved by me, so it’s great to hear them again all cleaned up! Industrial quality machine noise that accumulates a calmed atmosphere better than most ambient music… pricks at your imagination.
–

V/A – Despite the Downturn: An Answer Album
http://www.archive.org/details/DespiteTheDownturnAnAnswerAlbum
Marc Weidenbaum’s sonic activism compilation reacting to an article by Megan McArdle in the Atlantic Monthly, in which artists used the article’s accompanying illustration as a graphic score. Nice concept, and lots of cool music on here, including one piece by yours truly.
–

V/A – No-R-Mal II
http://justnotnormal.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/jnn100-various-artists-no-r-mal-ii/
The only person that can out-do Mark Stolk, it appears, is Mark Motherfucking Stolk! His five hour long compilation of netlabel artists from last year was followed up by a SEVEN hour long compilation this year… seven fucking hours of cool underground music, as good an overview of the netlabel underground as you can get, period.

I just uploaded a track to SoundCloud from my 1998 collaboration with the Implicit Order. It’s a nice mix of noise & calming ambience… one of my favorite tracks from that project.

frtnth (c. reider & the implicit order) by vuzhmusic

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.
–
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.)
–
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)

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!
–
Here were my favorite netlabel releases of 2009, all are freely downloadable, so maybe YOU can be hit number TWO on someone’s statcounter!
–
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)
–
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.
–
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!
–
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.
–
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.
–
6. Pavonine – Pavonine
Dark, vaporous, mysterious, alluring? Sure, all that and more.
–
7. Dexp Lab – Sectors LP
A fine collision of rhythm and noise.
–
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.
–
9. Olifaunt – Three Crows Become Four
Slow growing drone ambient with stringy textures and melancholy tones.
–
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.
–
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.

One of my favorite releases of the year has been put out by Mystified on the Clinical Archives netlabel.
–
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.
–
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.
–
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.
–
It’s nearly a perfect music, this.
I could not recommend it more.
http://www.archive.org/details/ca308_m

Those of you whom enjoy using the Last.FM service ought to be happy to know that I’ve added my collaboration with the Implicit Order to their stream-able library.
–
C. Reider / The Implicit Order @ Last.FM
–
While you’re there, you could also listen to some C. Reider and Drone Forest.

It is a lovely cold day, snow is in the air. We’re in the first days of the last year of the Zeroes. I’m listening to a Last.FM stream of artists that the website has determined are similar to Arvo Pärt, selections from John Cage, Terry Riley, William Basinski…
–
I wonder sometimes about whether other musicians occupying the underground do a lot of listening to their contemporaries and peers. I know there are some musicians who claim to not listen to music at all unless it is their own. I have never been of that custom. I do listen to a lot of my music, primarily the very current material, but occasionally some older work, sometimes just to put myself back in the frame of mind of myself as a younger composer, but I also listen very avidly to underground music.
–
I occasionally become so enamored of certain musicians’ work that I veer towards becoming what Kevin Kelly calls a “true fan” in his essay 1,000 True Fans. For some very unknown artists this is probably a little strange, they may not have ever had someone with a rabid interest in their music, who wants a copy of everything they’ve ever done. I’ve long had a very strong relationship to the music that I like.
–
When I first started trading cassettes of my music with other hometapers in the Nineties I formed an especially strong bond with the music made by several artists whose work felt, to me, contemporary and strongly linked to my own… or what I wanted mine to be. I definitely saw these groups as being interrelated in some way, even part of “a scene” of microaudible proportions although most of them did not even know each other, and in some cases did not even know of each other.
–
I’m not as deeply into their music as I was for a time, but it’s illuminating to look back and remember what it was that I admired about this music.
–
In no particular order:
–
Eyelight – Jehn Cerron made magical soundscapes using her voice, crackly/grainy samples and a tape looper. She still makes music (Here’s her MySpace page). Her music now is a little more beat-oriented and leans toward song-like structures more than it used to.
–
the Implicit Order – Anthony Washburn’s grainy noise washes and hypnotic loops keyed into my brain perfectly. I think you can hear how inspired I was by his work on our collaboration Opposing Theories from 1998. I’m also happy to have just released a new album from the Implicit Order called “Disposable Outcome“.
–
the Tall Bald Grandfathers – I was intrigued by this group’s complete uniqueness, and even just straight out oddness. I was happy to re-release their first album “Incomplete Inheritances“… however I have made the album (temporarily, I hope) unavailable due to my distaste for CDrs. I do not know what the Cascios are currently up to. We haven’t written in some time.
–
Klimperei – More magic. Clangor and movement and music! I did have a release on Vuzh Music by Christophe Petchanatz’s other band Deleted, again unavailable for the moment. I was particularly obsessed with one album of theirs called “Les Plus Belles Valses”, which can actually be freely downloaded from the band’s blog right here. This is still one of my favorite records of all time… it’s beautiful and great fun. Klimperei is still active, and has a website: http://klimperei.free.fr/
–
the Drowningbreathing – I wrote with Michael Pittard for a time, and could not really understand what he was writing about much of the time. He had beautiful handwriting. His music was impossibly ghostly and gorgeous. I don’t know why he hasn’t ended up with as much acclaim as someone like Tor Lundvall. I don’t know whether or not he’s still active in music at all, or whether he’s even still alive for that matter.
–
PBK – His composed “noiseambient” work elevates me. It was through his early work that I really began to understand the beauty in some harsher noises. We’ve collaborated a few times over the years… he also contributed to the Muslimgauze Remix project “El Tafkeera: Re-mixs in Remembrance of Muslimgauze” that I curated. Sometime in 2009 there will be a full length collaborative work that will come out called “Discorporate”.
–
Kirchenkampf – John Gore has put out some chillingly wonderful ambient & space music in his time. He still puts out some high quality work from his website Cohort Records.
–
Tarkatak – Lutz Pruditsch’s work with nebulous, atmospheric ambient music is untouchable. His website is here. We collaborated on one record called the Druser Pricid, which is not currently available from my website, but may be on his. I sent Lutz some new material to work on, but I do not know if we will actually complete a new collaboration together.
–
Qubais Reed Ghazala – A genius languishing in relative obscurity. His early work in and promotion of circuit bending is maybe more well known than his music, which is of the first class. I know that he has a website, but I do not know if he is still active with music.
–
Harlan – I dig this guy’s weird spazzy approach to groove music, and I could have seen him rising to prominence in the same way that someone like Odd Nosdam did. He has made an appearance on Vuzh Music once or twice.
–
Static Insect – Kevin Paisley’s music fluctuated between a sort of industrial experimentalism and musique concrete and noisy ambience. I really don’t know what he’s up to now. I haven’t seen his name floating around the internet. We put out a split tape together one time where we composed an alternate soundtrack to the movie “Altered States”, called “Altered Statements”. I will probably not re-release that recording, since I am not really happy with my work on that tape, even if I do think it was important in my musical learning and development (I had not used samples to construct music up until that work.)
–
Cheryl E. Leonard – Cheryl was/is an extremely talented sound collagist. She sent me a tape of pretty much everything she’d ever done & I think I wore the thing out! I recently re-found her work, and, according to her MySpace, she’s done an album with nothing but rocks and water. Anyone who knows me pretty well would say, ‘Oh well no wonder C. is into this stuff.’ She’s got a website which says that her newest project is a trip to Antartica to make music there. Aaagh! Mucho admiration.
–

The last release for 2008 on the Vuzh Music label is from the Implicit Order, the recording name of the enigmatic artist Anthony Washburn from Kentucky, USA who was active in the cassette underground during the 1990s.

This new release features some of his trademarked zoned-out, looping, atmospheric drones juxtapositioned with the sometimes funny, sometimes creepy musique-concréte audio collages typical of his later work with the group the American Tract Society.

Read more about Anthony Washburn and the Implicit Order…

Or proceed directly to the download page for Disposable Outcome.