Vuzh Music Blog

yesterday i learned that my friend Ian C. Stewart died.

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Ian was a music enthusiast with a massive appetite for listening to new music. He was an obsessive fan of two bands, XTC and KISS, and participated in forums and bootleg trading networks for both.

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He was also a heavily active musician during the time i knew him, recording solo music as Samarkand, and under his own name, and playing in groups, most notably Devilcake – the Satanic metal band whose lyrics were all about food, which had some notoriety and reknown in the Columbus Ohio area – and the drone collective Drone Forest, which included me among its members.

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He wanted to do music and think about music and write about music and boost music to others all the time. He began a zine called AutoReverse for reviewing music by hometapers. this became a very valuable resource for the community, even if it didn’t have the higher profile and readership of Gajoob Magazine which was the only other publication that bothered to treat hometapers as though they were real musicians worth paying attention to. a few years after AutoReverse stopped publishing, he began a music magazine called Mouthy, for which he had higher aspirations for it to be a more professional endeavor, with greater reach. this proved a bigger challenge than he was able to manage, but he did admirably well professionally editing, printing and distributing it himself.

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Ian was an enthusiastic and encouraging presence, always pushing people to do, to create – however much of his encouragement tended to push people into projects he was working on. i don’t say that with any regret or anything, i always loved working on Ian’s projects with him and his various teams. he was an energetic force and really brought diverse people together to do things.

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we never met in person or actually spoke on the phone or anything, our whole relationship was by mail or over the internet, but it was still a pretty deep connection.

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we met by mail in the early 1990s, maybe 91? 92? i had recorded some music on tape, and had discovered the hometaping underground, and was trading tapes with anyone who sent me something. Ian was one of the earliest people who sent me a tape out of the blue, i don’t know how he got my address. he was definitely the first to be very enthusiastic about my tape, he wrote a very flattering response to it, and it was authentic on his part, because he would bring up how much that tape meant to him many years later.

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we began a correspondence and wrote each other frequent, long letters until around 2000 when i finally got a computer and could start doing email, then we emailed each other maybe even more frequently than we exchanged letters. in early years of the internet and the filesharing boom, Ian was deep into it. because we lived in the mountains well out of town, the best internet connection we could get was 128 kbps over a very, very noisy, rough phone line, so filesharing was something i couldn’t really do. when Ian found this out, about every two weeks he’d mail me 5 or 6 CDrs with mp3s he had downloaded, i’d listen and we’d write back and forth about whatever weird shit he found online.

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i wrote reviews and did a few interviews for both AutoReverse and Mouthy. i also spent four years recording with Drone Forest, that was Ian, Dave Stafford, Mike Bowman and i. we had a shared FTP where we’d upload sound sources and each of us would mangle them and make music with them. it was an inspiring and fruitful collaboration for a while.

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Ian would give really amazing, deep feedback on any of my music i sent him, it was so supportive, i always appreciated that and relied on him for that.

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if we had one key disagreement (aside from his love of the very shitty band KISS) it was about the effort i would put in to the details of music. i would work very hard to make things sound the way i wanted them to sound, maybe spending hours on a tiny little sound that was mixed low. that was incomprehensible to him, and an utter waste of time in his opinion. Ian’s approach was fast, easy, have fun and it’s done. that was never my way.

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it was sometime in the 00s that he started talking about his mother’s failing health. she had a degenerative disease called Huntingtons. if you know what this is, you know it is a horror. if you don’t know, imagine what Parkinsons disease does to the body and then add to that what Alzheimers disease does to the brain. the disease eats away at the person’s body and their personality to the point where they’re almost unrecognizable as the same person. Ian had almost no extended family, and so he ended up as the sole caregiver for his mother as she withered away and finally died. it was really rough on him.

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Huntingtons is passed down genetically, when he finally got tested, and was positive it really destroyed him emotionally. he had seen firsthand what it does to a person, and knew in his thirties that basically he had no hope for a fully developed life, no real hope for a future. i tried to be as supportive as i could, but damn, how can you help with something that heavy?

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after his diagnosis, if i remember right, he had about five or six years before he started to really show signs of cognitive decline.

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we had some disagreements about Drone Forest in the late 00s which i think made us both feel a little burned. it was nothing major, but we wrote less and less often. eventually he had some housing problems and he lost his computer i think, and we fell entirely out of touch after about 2019. he was moved into a care facility in late 2020 after a hospital stay. i only heard news of him in these final years because my partner FaceBook-followed one of the few people who still visited and cared for him in his last years. as i mentioned earlier, he had no extended family and was basically alone for those years. he lived half the country away, so i couldn’t visit.

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every person’s end is sad, but Ian really got the absolute shittiest hand dealt to him. no one deserves Huntingtons, it’s a monumentally cruel disease.

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i am thankful to have known my friend Ian, aka Icy Stew, i am grateful for my strengths that i owe to his influence.

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Ian has two bandcamps of his solo work, I don’t know where payment goes now, but here they are:

https://samarkandohio.bandcamp.com/music
https://bizarredepiction.bandcamp.com/

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I have always been specifically fond of Pitch Wheel on the SamarkandOhio page.

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Drone Forest has a bandcamp where you can hear our work together, several albums were made by him using sound sources from the rest of the group, notably the first one (Drone Forest I) the 10 hour dronefest Meta:Drone and the 28 hour Pieces of MEGA (which all i was able to recover of his 100 hour drone project). Honey is also one of his i think came out beautifully.

https://droneforest.bandcamp.com/music

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The Satanic / food themed metal band Devilcake has a bandcamp as well:

https://devilcake.bandcamp.com/album/i-cant-believe-its-not-satan

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the following WordPress site contains later reviews and interviews as a continuation of AutoReverse, done from 2011 to 2016. I am saving it at the Wayback Machine, because I don’t know what the details are of it being online, or how long it will last there:

https://autoreversetoinfinity.wordpress.com/

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Wayback Machine saved version of the AutoReverse wordpress site:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230605192429/https://autoreversetoinfinity.wordpress.com/

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Some of the contents of the original AutoReverse zines were archived on this old Tripod site, similarly i am saving to Wayback Machine, despite this being patchy

https://autoreverse-webzine.tripod.com/

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Wayback Machine saved version of the Autoreverse archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230605195455/https://autoreverse-webzine.tripod.com/

This post is for Mike. Enjoy!

This has been a decade.

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Apart from the obviously bad stuff of ongoing mental health issues, hopefully resolved physical health issues, global warming crisis and the global rise of fascism, I’ve had a productive one. Looking at my discography, I’m surprised to see that the 2010s takes up more than half the space. In this post, I’m going to link to what I think are my best releases of the 2010s. This might be a lot because I really think I did some good work this last ten years. There’s enough albums here to have a rate of almost two albums per year that I feel boastful about, that’s pretty good. Not going to have regrets shouting about my music because, as I’ve said before, I have to “toot my own horn”, because no one else will toot the darn thing.

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2010

Fragment Three Reworks was something I had wanted to do for a long time, to use some of the music that had influenced me in my early days of making abstract music to make new music. PBK and Vidna Obmana were gracious to allow me to proceed and release this derivative work based on a split tape they did in the 1990s for the ND label.

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2011

Owning Extinctions was my first artistic comment on the climate crisis and the injustice of global capitalism. It was made directly in response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, expressing my anger against the conservative voices who protected the oil industry in the face of public outrage. The title goes a lot further in condemning the raft of species extinctions that the capitalist system is directly responsible for, and damning those who profit from it. How many extinctions are in your investment portfolio?

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2012

Drone music is something I come back to again and again. In my practice, it’s a comfort zone, not something I want to constantly do, but maybe a way to hit a reset switch. This has been on my mind lately as I broke through a bit of a stagnant period during 2019 by making a new drone record. One of my favorite pieces on here is the tumbling, square-wheeled rhythmic piece Drone Control Center, titled to reference the growing prominence of the secondary meaning of the word “drone”. This track represents my thoughts about drone music, that it’s not just a static tone, that drone is itself rhythmic music, and/or that maybe the concept of “drone” as pertains to music really says more about scale of perception than about any particular style of doing music. Rhythm & drone are different ways of saying the same thing. There’s also some gender stuff going on in the song titles, just as there’s some going on in me.

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2013

In a way, Hold Music is kind of a catch-all, featuring field recordings, pieces done for the Disquiet Junto and other work that was done not specifically toward making this album. That’s one way I like to work – just doing work, not toward a specific goal, then compiling later. The title “Silenus’ Advice” references the pessimistic philosopher’s pithy dictum: “the best thing for a man is not to be born, and if already born, to die as soon as possible”.

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2014

This was a big year, so I’m including several releases from 2014 here.

I’d’ve was a collection of melancholic drone / ambient music that I’d done long before, but had never been released. I used to be more reticent about releasing what I thought was my best work, thinking maybe a label would pick it up, and release it with some care, but I don’t think that so much anymore, after being burned a few times. I held back release on this for years because a label in Germany was going to press “At the Monolith” to a 7″, then basically sat on it / flaked out. This has happened to me multiple times, and it’s beyond frustrating. DIY is the way to go.

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Another release of long-held-back music, again melancholic, but less drone based, more repetitive and melodic. This & I’d’ve represents a direction I really wanted to pursue during one period of my creative life, but I’ve now moved on from in some senses. You can still hear the sensibilities that led to these albums in the things I’m doing now, I think. The word plangent means a reverberant, melancholy sound. Both I’d’ve and the Plangents have perfect cover art photographed by my partner Carrie, I love those photos intensely. Those two releases pair up nicely.

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Detritus 1&2, (I really plan on doing 3&4 someday, I promise) is a rough-hewn selection of field recordings, voicemail and weird musical sketches all quilted together. There’s just so much in this, it’s hard not to like it.

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After Drone Forest split in 2008, ending five years of creatively conforming to the rule “No beats, no melody”, naturally I wanted to work with beats and tones. Awkward Hugs collected some of the better things I did in a sort of lo-fi, wonky, minimal techno style. Modest Phase tried to bring the idea of “minimal techno” and “minimalist composition” together by doing a Steve Reich phase technique on an amateur-hour Maurizio type beat. I dunno, I think this stuff works for what it is.

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2015

I kind of think of the music on Certainty Reducing Signals as my “classic” style of abstract noise-drone. Very similar in style to Owning Extinctions, Fragment Three Reworks et al. Lovely etching on the cover by Mara Tegethoff. This features a few collaborative pieces with respected colleagues such as the Implicit Order and Mysterybear. There are also some Junto pieces doing derivative work based on multiple artists.

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Tape Loops was almost like a visual art project. I wanted to do something physical, so I spent a long time finding different ways to cut & adhere tape to itself and I experimented a lot with snaking the loops around many different pivot points inside a tape shell. Released on the Linear Obsessional label. There should be a big ass pdf in the download for that album with an essay that describes some techniques and several photographs.

2016

A project that took forever to finish for various reasons. The second Tarkatak collaboration was a drifting, moody collage. I approached this like any album where I have a set of sound sources as a constraint. I invested a lot of work in these mixes, and its strange how it doesn’t feel really like “my” music in a sense. Definitely more approachable if you’re one of the more ambient-inclined listeners out there.

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2017

Another year with several good releases.

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This one, Chew Cinders (another train reference, out of many in my discography) released on Midnight Circles, was a particularly nice example of the collage style of composing I’ve been leaning heavily towards in the last few years.

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Young Music collects some of my very early work from the 1980s & 90s that hadn’t previously been published. The drone music version of “art in the vernacular”.

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Listening After the End was my acoustic album, made at the prompting of my friend Cody Yantis, and released on tape for his small imprint (there are still tapes available!!). I really like this one. There’s also a big pdf of descriptions of the pieces, if you get the digital download from Reno Park Press, be sure that is included.

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Another collection of older material

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2018

Sun Kinks (yet another train reference) was a creative burst of energy for me featuring several new approaches, including some sequenced synth stuff. Unfortunately, that burst of energy was dampened significantly by labels holding up this album for release for years only to finally decide it wasn’t up to their standards. I love this one still.

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More intense selections of sequenced synth music, revealing industrial, techno, minimalist & psychedelic influences. Probably my “druggiest” music, ymmv.

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2019

…a trustable cloud is the product of what I thought was a really good concept, and a rigorous application of it. All the sounds were made online with instrument simulations and other webpages that make noise in web browsers. The theme is complicated, dealing w/ climate change and the strange disassociative effects of living online.

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I’m proud of this body of work that I’ve done in the last decade, and humbled and appreciative by the people who choose to spend time listening to it. Thank you.

This has been a year.  I hope it’s been good for you.

I have been neglecting this blog, perhaps there will be more writing in 2020. I miss gathering my thoughts here.

I have a lot of new music that I’ve uploaded in the last few weeks for you to enjoy, but I wanted to give a boost to the album I put out earlier this year that I’m most proud of:  “…a trustable cloud” took a lot of work to make, and I think it turned out really well.  It was made entirely with musical instruments that you use on internet browsers by loading webpages.  It’s free to download, and there’s still tapes available:
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/a-trustable-cloud

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There is a new album of live performances now available, titled “Two Electroacoustic Improvisations for Heather Heyer and Ghost Ship”, big crackling drone structures:
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/two-electroacoustic-improvisations-for-heather-heyer-and-ghost-ship

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There is a re-release of my collab with PBK from 2009.  It was previously only available on a limited CDr from Poland, so this digital re-release may be the first time some of you hear it.  Splendid industrial-psychedelic noise-drone: 
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/discorporate

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I have done some archival work on the Drone Forest bandcamp page.  This was a group collective I was involved in from 2003-2008.  The page now includes some albums that are brand new, collecting previously unreleased material, and some things that were only released in extremely limited editions.

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The first, “A Retrospective from a single vantage point” was a continuous mix of pieces from throughout our history.  It was made as an introductory gesture, featuring some of our more “pretty” / approachable music from our large and sometimes gritty / noisy catalog.
https://droneforest.bandcamp.com/album/a-retrospective-from-a-single-vantage-point

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The next, “Sunshine and Butterflies” represents a selection of happy drones, selections from a 100-hour long project (most of which is now lost), and 15 one-minute-long pieces.
https://droneforest.bandcamp.com/album/sunshine-and-butterflies

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“snoodferret / stereofrond” features two amazing 45 minute collage pieces from Mike Bowman
https://droneforest.bandcamp.com/album/snoodferret-stereofrond

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And the grittier side of the band is represented on “Deteriorated Collection”
https://droneforest.bandcamp.com/album/deteriorated-collection

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If that’s not enough, there are a few new Drone Forest music videos from tracks found on “Deteriorated Collection”  You can see those at my youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXVvtcNJUlWcChb8BcV9IeA

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Everything is free to access, download away.
Please have a happy New Year, and New Decade. 

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C. Reider

So, I wasn’t very good about updating this blog when I had an album release this year. Sorry about that, heh heh.

Here is a catch-all post to announce each of my releases for 2018.

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In January, Dubbed Tapes put out a split release with myself and Kirsty Porter. At the time of this writing there are still 4 copies available. I really like the piece I did for the tape, it’s titled “The Science of Inattention”, it features some experiments with sine waves and some field recordings all collaged together.

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Next up, in April, there was a release called Pairs of Opposites Imply Unity containing recordings of two live performances from 2017. It’s some very intense electronic drone music. There was also a tape release of this one on Illuminated Paths.

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In May, I released a compilation of some early, mostly unreleased music, mostly from my 4-track days. It was the second volume of early music, titled Young Music, vol 2.

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In July, I released an album of lo-fi psychedelic minimalism called Sun Kinks that I had finished several years earlier and submitted to several different labels for release, unsuccessfully. People seemed to like it, though, which made me happy.

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Finally, in October, I released Disappointment Engine, a collection of new work from late 2017 & early 2018 that’s insistent, minimalist, psychedelic synth music.

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Thanks to anyone who listened to what I did this year!

I remember being astounded when I heard as a young person that Beethoven was able to continue composing after he’d lost his hearing. That he was described to be acting as though he could “hear” the music. That doesn’t astound me anymore.
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When I am dreaming there is music. It is loud, and everywhere at once, and unlike any music I’ve ever heard, it is an essential part of the dream. When I’m dreaming, my ears are “turned off”, the sounds that occur in physical space – as sound is mostly thought to operate – are not listened to, are not heard.
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When I wake up, my ears “turn on” and I can suddenly hear the ambient sounds in my bedroom again. I splash into hearing, I feel like I’ve dropped into a pool filled with sound. I feel the sound similar to suddenly being wet all over.
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There are different kinds of hearing. That kind that comes through your ears and is interpreted by your brain. That part of the brain is connected to parts that store memory, and therefore sound can be recalled without actually hearing it with your ears. That’s a different kind of hearing. I can hear the voices of people I know in my head.
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Why didn’t I ever record my Grandparents speaking? They had such unique voices.
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There’s a place in my mind where music is. I can imagine it, disc-like, branching outward, capable of vastly changing its size and shape.
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Do you ever try to make a map of your mind? How do you find your way around in there?
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The place where sound and memory connect in my brain, it delivers non-stop earworms. I used to be plagued with them. I accept it now, it’s necessary. I used to hear music that I did not want to hear, some pop song I recognize but do not like: my brain would play back a loop of it for days. Now it plays its own music. I guess it’s my music. It’s music I don’t recognize, there it is… I can hear it now. It’s just there, twisting and squirming and changing all the time. It’s not as loud when I am awake as it is when I am asleep and dreaming, but I can hear it.
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I can understand people claiming that music comes from some other place, or is given to us by some spiritual being. I don’t believe that, not even a little bit. But I can understand people interpreting it that way.
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Sometimes when I hear a piece of music – like Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, or Autechre’s Oversteps – I think to myself that this composer has gotten very close, very “close to it”. I don’t know what “it” is, but I know that certain pieces of music are closer to “it” than others.
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Sometimes I listen to my own music from long ago and realize that I was close to “it” back then. I sometimes I doubt myself, and think that music before I had certain epiphanies was lesser than the music I make now. It turns out that maybe my understanding of what I do doesn’t track directly with the work. That’s a disconcerting thought.
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If there’s a way to develop this musical part of my brain that constantly sprays out music that I’ve never heard before, music that only I can hear now, that no one will ever hear unless I do the work and make it into music that others can hear… then I must devote myself to building up that part of my brain. Building it up like a bodybuilder working a muscle group.

Welcome to this year’s list of Netlabel Music that I liked. Everything here is free to download, even if not necessarily released on a netlabel as such. To me, netlabeling involves releasing music online for free (or pay what you want)… preferably (though not necessarily) with a CC license…
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My reason for doing these lists is so that people will discover music that I think deserves to be discovered. Please share this list with anyone you know who may take an interest!
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Last year, it was too-huge of an undertaking to review every release I recommended, and I have no idea if anyone even read all of it, so I’m not gonna do that this year.
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Instead I’m dividing this post into THREE SECTIONS.
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1.) In the first, I’m going to simply list the freely downloadable releases of my own. I’m pretty proud of what I did this year, and these albums probably won’t appear on too many other end-of-year lists. If you were to take the time to listen to one or two, I’d be appreciative.
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2.) Twenty of my fave freely downloadable releases from 2017. I wrote some extremely minimal descriptions for the 18 releases that especially stood out for me this year. If you’re not gonna spend the time downloading everything on this blog post, these ones are the ones that I think were most worth hearing.
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3.) Fifty-eight other worthy additions to your downloadable music portfolio from 2017. These are also albums I enjoyed enough to recommend, but I don’t want to write little descriptions for each one, so…
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I’d be pleased if you used my recommendations to discover some new music. Download some of these! Net neutrality is dead, streaming is going to be way more expensive soon. Download this stuff now while you’ve got the chance!
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I’ve done lists like this for several years, here are previous years’ lists:
2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 part 1, 2016 part 2, 2016 part 3, 2016 part 4, 2016 part 5.
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NOW ON TO THE 2017 LIST
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1.) Everything of mine that was released in 2017
⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️
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C. Reider – Anent
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/anent
Self released, cc by nc sa
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C. Reider – Chew Cinders
https://midnightcircles.bandcamp.com/album/chew-cinders
Midnight Circles, cc by nc sa
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C. Reider – Listening After the End
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/listening-after-the-end
Reno Park Press (cassette) / Self released (digital), cc by nc sa
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C. Reider – Music for the Anthropocene
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-the-anthropocene
Self released, cc by nc sa
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C. Reider – Young Music vol. 1, 1988-1997
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/young-music-vol-1
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Alright, thanks for indulging me.
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2.) Twenty of my favorite freely downloadable releases from 2017

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Edward Ka-Spel – An Abandoned Laboratory Volume 2
https://legendarypinkdots1.bandcamp.com/album/an-abandoned-laboratory-volume-2
Self released, copyright
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The venerable Ed Ka-Spel is still at the top of his game when it comes to making unsettling, decayed, melancholy, psychedelic, quasi-ambient dreamscapes.
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Eucci – Burlington Route Everywhere West
https://sunhill.bandcamp.com/album/burlington-route-everywhere-west
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Dude,
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Hantasi – Castle
https://bedlamtapes.bandcamp.com/album/ca-s-t-le
Bedlam Tapes, copyright
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Heavily cannabinated chill-out music. Hazy drum beats buried in flanger, granulated melodies and tinkling arpeggiated synths. Echoing outward.
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Marlo Eggplant – Delayed
https://corpuscallosumdistro.bandcamp.com/album/marlo-eggplant-delayed
Corpus Callosum Distro, cc by nc nd
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Another batch of delightful lo-fi clatter. Just as likely at any given moment to sound like a polite table tennis match as like the collapse of a city under the feet of some strange angry god-monster.
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Reid Karris – Divinatio Exitium
https://lurkerbias.bandcamp.com/album/divinatio-exitium
Lurker Bias, copyright
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An arresting granulated mayhem of skritches and clangs.
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Endless Chasm – Dweller on the Threshold
https://thisaintheavenrc.bandcamp.com/album/dweller-on-the-threshold-tahrc-146
This Ain’t Heaven Recording Concern, copyright
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Twin Peaks themed drone music.
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Luis Marte – The Easy Fantasy
https://plustimbre.bandcamp.com/album/the-easy-fantasy
Plus Timbre, cc by nc nd
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Drones and sparse repetitive beats that jut back and forth between dispassionate technoid pitter-patter and meandering mechanical sounds, reminiscent of when computers had to click and whirr and “think” for a while before answering a query.
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Elsa Bergman + Óscar Santis – Errante
https://archive.org/details/pn117
Pueblo Nuevo, cc by nc sa
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I dig Santis’ brand of bassy noise brap, which at times overwhelms his collaborator’s contrabass scraping. Mostly the improvs work, altogether a satisfying album.
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Benge – Forms 6, Works on Paper
https://zackdagoba.bandcamp.com/album/forms-6-works-on-paper
Self released, copyright
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Hot minimalist stuff made on a Serge modular.
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Nacho Jaula – Hombre, Tierra, Madriguera
https://plustimbre.bandcamp.com/album/hombre-tierra-madriguera
Plus Timbre, cc by nc nd
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Nicely composed batch of distorted noise, percussion and drone that adds up to a calming, engaging listen.
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The Implicit Order – I Hear a Voice in the Room Next to Mine
https://theimplicitorder.bandcamp.com/album/i-hear-a-voice-in-the-room-next-to-mine
Self released, licenses vary per track
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Rescued from a box of lost tapes, this earlier work from I.O. contains lo-fi loops of appropriated material chosen carefully to set up a slowly churning sense of dreamy dread. A good reminder of why I liked Anthony’s work so much back then. He deserves mention in the history of hauntological and appropriation-based musics. It’d be fun to see an Implicit Order release on one of the vaporwave labels someday, there is a relation.
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Hope / Collins – Impedance
https://emerge.bandcamp.com/album/impedance-2
Attenuation Circuit, cc by
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Heavy minimalist beat music, informed by Pan Sonic and others. Steps removed from the Basic Channel school, but somehow tenuously related. I guess one of these two guys used to be in Clock DVA.
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Ian Watson & Rob Hayler – Metronome
https://invisiblecityrecords.bandcamp.com/album/metronome
Invisible City Records, copyright
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Watson recently posted a short video on his Twitter account @uhohwatson which showed a collection of metronomes set up to strike various cymbals & metal bowls. I asked him about that in relation to this album, and he says that he and Hayler used a different set-up here, but it’s related. It sounds to me like various metallic objects being struck, and then the recording slowed down and processed such that it ends up sounding like the dusty exhalation of a forgotten industrial ventilation system.
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S Hamann – Music for Day Cycle
https://sighup.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-day-cycle
Self released, cc by nc
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High caliber Modernist electronic drone music, thematically tuned to the times of day; morning, afternoon, evening, etc. Manages to be both pretty serious and seriously pretty.
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Daniel Saylor – Spring Rain
https://bedlamtapes.bandcamp.com/album/spring-rain
Bedlam Tapes, copyright
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Dang. If Dan Saylor didn’t throw everything but the kitchen sink at this record, they came close to it!
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Antoni Robert – Tape Noise Groove
https://archive.org/details/hr092
Hazard Records, cc 0
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Tape hiss and run-out grooves run through DSP. Like, yeah!
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Empty Helix – Transmissions from the Void
https://emptyhelix.bandcamp.com/releases/
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Suspended atmospheric drones made with violin and electronic processing.
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Pacific Sunlight – Vanishing
https://andtime.bandcamp.com/album/vanishing
Andtime, copyright
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Melancholy lo-fi keyboard drone shoegaze. It is narcotic as fuck.
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.mp3Neptune – A World in Your Eyes
https://mp3neptune.bandcamp.com/album/a-world-in-your-eyes
Self released, copyright
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A drone-ambient album with a slow-flowing structure. Pretty and appealing.
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Achnn – Zgomot
https://achnn.bandcamp.com/album/zgomot
Self released, cc by nc nd
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Dusty percussives and scraping whirrs with electronic bbbzzzrrrts. And stuff.
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Fifty-eight other worthy additions to your downloadable music portfolio from 2017.
⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️
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Stefan Neville / The Doll – 1974
https://thedoll.bandcamp.com/album/1974
Self released, copyright
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Various Artists – A.I.R. Tapes 1, Excavations Series 5
https://powermoveslibrary.bandcamp.com/album/air-tapes-1
Power Moves Library, copyright
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Impotent Shota Complex – Adored
https://andtime.bandcamp.com/album/adored-2
Andtime, copyright
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Cinchel – all we had were scraps to keep us fed
https://cinchel.bandcamp.com/album/all-we-had-were-scraps-to-keep-us-fed
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Margolis / Hamilton / Rowden – at Rhizome 2017-05-03
https://archive.org/details/20170503MargolisHamiltonRhizome
Rhizome DC, no license listed
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Mathieu Lamontagne & Emmanuel Toledo – Au Calme
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Mathieu_Lamontagne__Emmanuel_Toledo/Au_calme/
Self released, cc by nc nd
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Juice Machine – Baked Not Fried
https://juicemachine.bandcamp.com/album/baked-not-fried
Self Released, copyright
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Brice Catherin and Jacques Demierre – Bimo
http://www.panyrosasdiscos.net/pyr224-brice-catherin-and-jacques-demierre-bimo/
Pan y Rosas Discos, cc by nc nd
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Eucci – the Calm Left Center of Resistance
https://sunhill.bandcamp.com/album/the-calm-left-center-of-resistance
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Pie Are Squared – co(a)sts ep
https://piearesquared.bandcamp.com/album/co-a-sts-ep
Self released, copyright
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Thomas nmi Poole – Complicity with Anonymous Materials
https://thomasnmipoole.bandcamp.com/album/complicity-with-anonymous-materials
Self released, copyright
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D$ – Downtown
https://danielsaylor.bandcamp.com/album/downtown
Self released, cc by nc sa
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The Casual Distractions – Droney Islands
https://thecasualdistractions.bandcamp.com/album/droney-islands
Self released, copyright
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Darksleep – 8 Dreams
https://darksleep.bandcamp.com/album/8-dreams
Self released, copyright
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Carya Amara – Echoes
https://caryaamara.bandcamp.com/album/echoes
Self released, copyright
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Gregg Skloff – Fabled Quiddity
https://greggskloff.bandcamp.com/album/fabled-quiddity
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Jorgen Bronlund Quartet – From A Logical Point Of View
https://archive.org/details/SCM1704JorgenBronlundQuartetFromALogicalPointOfView
Sucu Music, cc by nc sa
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Thuoom – Fokus
https://archive.org/details/thuoom-fokus-thump318
Textural Healing, cc by nc nd
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Pablo Ribot – Gamma Morph
https://plustimbre.bandcamp.com/album/gamma-morph
Plus Timbre, cc by nc nd
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August Stars – The Grey Towers
https://auguststars.bandcamp.com/album/the-grey-towers
Self released, cc by nc
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Glaciære – Hammock
https://steviasphere.bandcamp.com/album/hammock
Self released, cc by
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Various – The Illest Female Rappers Volume 2
https://archive.org/details/07EnsilenceAlDumaurierBetweenTheLines
Unknown, no license listed
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James O’ Sullivan – Il y a
https://linearobsessional.bandcamp.com/album/il-y-a
Linear Obsessional, cc by nc sa
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Jimmy Kipple Sound – Information & Apologies
https://jimmykipplesound.bandcamp.com/album/information-apologies
Self released, cc by
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Phirnis / Katarrhaktes – Labyrinths
https://phirniskatarrhaktes.bandcamp.com/album/labyrinths
Self released, copyright
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August Stars – Landscapes
https://auguststars.bandcamp.com/album/landscapes
Self released, cc by nc
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Toaster – Lawyer EP
https://toaster.bandcamp.com/album/lawyer-ep
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Smellycaт – Let’s pretend we never met
https://smellycat.bandcamp.com/album/lets-pretend-we-never-met
Self released, copyright
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Juice Machine with AODL – Lost Creek
https://foreverescapingboredom.bandcamp.com/album/lost-creek
Forever Escaping Boredom, copyright
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Sergey Vandyshev & Denis Sorokin – Lullabies for Monstrous Moonshine
https://linearobsessional.bandcamp.com/album/lullabies-for-monstrous-moonshine
Linear Obsessional, cc by nc sa
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Luer – Manual Contact Points
https://pcrv.bandcamp.com/album/manual-contact-points
Fluxus Montana, copyright
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Dubbed Tapes – Māpura Music
https://dubbedtapes.bandcamp.com/album/m-pura-music
Dubbed Tapes, copyright
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Nula.cc – Midnight Sun
https://nulacc.bandcamp.com/album/midnight-sun
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Andrew Sprrw – Music Book
https://kahvicollective.bandcamp.com/album/music-book
Kahvi Collective, cc by nc nd
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Cinchel – Music for a Wedding
https://cinchel.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-a-wedding
Self released, cc by nc sa
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rr.gross – My Generations
https://archive.org/details/SSSDlp09_My_Generations
Self released, cc by nc sa
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fezayafirar – nfo
https://emerge.bandcamp.com/album/nfo
Attenuation Circuit, cc by
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Eeem [eim] – Nocturnus Musica
https://eeem.bandcamp.com/album/nocturnus-musica
Self released, cc by
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Martin Rach – Nursing Room Sessions
https://martinrach.bandcamp.com/album/nursing-room-sessions
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Martin Rach – Pentacycloops
https://martinrach.bandcamp.com/album/pentacycloops
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Eeem [eim] – Perturbed Trajectories
https://eeem.bandcamp.com/album/perturbed-trajectories
Self released, cc by
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La Corporación – Rerum Novarum
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/la_corporacin/rerum_novarum/
Pan y Rosas Discos, cc by nc nd
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The Implicit Order – Rose Clouds of Summer
https://theimplicitorder.bandcamp.com/album/rose-clouds-of-summer
Self released, cc by sa
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Sébastien Wright – Sahara Red
https://auguststars.bandcamp.com/album/sahara-red
Self released, cc by nc
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Luís Antero – Sound Places: Serra do Açor, Vol. 1
https://plustimbre.bandcamp.com/album/sound-places-serra-do-a-or-vol-1
Plus Timbre, cc by nc nd
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Pftjschute – Spatium, Inanitas
https://pftjschute.bandcamp.com/releases
Self released, copyright
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Adrià Bofarull – Speculative Rites
https://plustimbre.bandcamp.com/album/speculative-rites
Plus Timbre, cc by nc nd
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Red Kite – Sunburst 2006-2012
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/red_kite/sunburst_2006-2012/
Pan y Rosas Discos, cc by nc nd
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Talugung / _blank – Talugung / _blank
https://powermoveslibrary.bandcamp.com/album/talugung-blank
Power Moves Library, copyright
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Cinchel – Temporary Radiance
https://cinchel.bandcamp.com/album/temporary-radiance
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Alejandro Rojas-Marcos, David Area & Tomás Gris – Trails
https://plustimbre.bandcamp.com/album/trails
Plus Timbre, cc by nc nd
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Doug Seidel – two dimensional version of a four dimensional glance
https://dougseidel.bandcamp.com/album/two-dimensional-version-of-a-four-dimensional-glance
Self released, cc by nc
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Klimperei (Ch. Petchanatz) except when noticed – UnicaS, sounds & outtakes
https://klimperei.bandcamp.com/album/unicas-sounds-outtakes
Self released, copyright
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Various Artists – Watching a Cow and Swatting at Silk Pushers, Excavation Series 4
https://powermoveslibrary.bandcamp.com/album/watching-a-cow-and-swatting-at-silk-pushers
Power Moves Library, copyright
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Glaciære – Water Slide
https://steviasphere.bandcamp.com/album/water-slide
Self released, cc by
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Eeem [eim] – A Wide Continuous Area of Something
https://eeem.bandcamp.com/album/a-wide-continuous-area-of-something
Self released, cc by nc sa
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Cinchel – ztrácím čas
https://cinchel.bandcamp.com/album/ztr-c-m-as
Self released, cc by nc sa
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ねじれたスーパーグラフィックス – オーソ
https://vacuumnoiserecords.bandcamp.com/album/–2
Vacuum Noise Records, copyright
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I have a new release to announce. It is the result of a major project undertaken this past Winter / Spring.
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In Summer 2016, my friend Denver-based writer and musician Cody Yantis prompted me to do an album of all acoustic sources. Over the next many months I recorded many hours worth of improvisations with non-electric musical instruments and oddsorts, and collected field recordings. These were arranged, and multi-tracked with no processing other than EQ and compression.
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I’m quite proud of how this came out, it really feels like a marker of that time in my life.
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This new pro-dubbed cassette, dubbed in an edition of 50 on chrome tapes is available to purchase on Reno Park Press:
http://renoparkpress.com/002.html
http://renoparkpress.com/002.html
http://renoparkpress.com/002.html
http://renoparkpress.com/002.html
http://renoparkpress.com/002.html
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The label describes it like this:

“Listening After the End is a study of one’s immediate environment, of the resonant potential of what surrounds us. A frozen stream. A passing train. A ceiling fan. The wind. A cat plays; someone sneezes; an autoharp lets out a long hum. These vignettes–textural, spacious, and sonorous–are wonderfully evocative pieces that, when taken as a whole, form a vibrant sonic life, one that revels in the animus to be found in even the subtlest of things.”

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If you are unable to purchase the new cassette due to lack of funds, or perhaps you don’t have the means to play tapes, well worry not. There is also a free-to-download version that you can find right here:

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https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/listening-after-the-end
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/listening-after-the-end
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/listening-after-the-end
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/listening-after-the-end
https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/listening-after-the-end
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Each comes with a diary-like text describing what it was like to record each section of sound that you can hear on the album.
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Thank you for your attention.

The total solar eclipse was easily the most spectacular, astounding thing I have ever seen.
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Totality was so searingly beautiful it seems like it should have made a sound. A chirping, sizzling, Earth-shaking blast-buzz. A massed chorus of uncountable drifting frequencies, the most exhilarating avant-garde shit you’ve never heard.
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… so anyways, here’s what the eclipse actually sounded like for us:
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A few minutes before, during and after the total solar eclipse, recorded at Camp Wyoba on Casper Mountain, outside of Casper, Wyoming.
We had an entire mountain meadow almost entirely to ourselves, most of the people in camp were gathered together in a larger meadow about a quarter mile away, but it’s mostly their sound you can hear. I don’t need to point out when totality begins and ends in the recording, because it’s really obvious.

Present in our group were Carrie Hodges, her brother Alec, and myself (C. Reider).

The photo was taken by Carrie Hodges.

“I’m just imagining this wave of screams passing across the entire United States”
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I’m pleased to be performing on a fantastic bill of music by several of my friends & respected colleagues this coming Saturday. I’ll be playing alongside Offthesky + Radere, Stephen Karnes + Cody Yantis and the touring folk-dronester Andrew Weathers. Pretty unmissable lineup, if you ask me.
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The show will also be an informal release party for my brand new cassette release “Listening After the End”, out on Cody Yantis’ superb Reno Park Press.
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CELE pt. ZONE Full Spectrum Showcase
Saturday, August 12th @ 8pm
Bar Max
2412 E Colfax Ave, Denver, CO 80206
$10
For more info, ticketing and/or to RSVP click the link:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2063168043910739