Vuzh Music Blog

My post detailing my favorite netlabel releases of 2010 was quite popular, and led to a lot of people discovering some cool music, which is one of my main goals, aside from promoting my own music. It is my humble opinion that all netlabel artists ought to have the same goal: namely to promote the stuff in the netlabel underground that they think is really great at the same time as they promote their own stuff. That way ALL of us benefit, both listeners and producers. Right? Right.
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With this in mind, I am going to be focusing on each artist (hopefully-this will depend on if they want to participate or not) whom I reviewed in the best of 2010 post, re-running the review I originally wrote, but I’m ALSO going to ask each of the artists reviewed to recommend a few completely FREE netlabel albums that THEY have enjoyed recently.
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We’ll start off with Mystified!
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The original post read:

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).

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I asked Thomas Park of Mystified to recommend a few albums that are completely free that you can download right now.
Here’s what he gave us:
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Saluki Regicide– “The Shades To Appease”
Musician extraordinaire C.P. McDill brings back his project “Saluki Regicide” in a totally awesome way with lots of samples and science fiction-ey touches.
http://www.archive.org/details/wh143

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Rivers of Ashes – “Breaching the Fabric”
Superb instrumental dronescapes with lots of emphasis on mood and texture.
http://www.archive.org/details/wh149

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Altocumulus– “Household Apocalypse”
A mature musical mind makes mayhem with ordinary household objects and a touch of synth.
http://www.archive.org/details/Jnn115HouseholdApocalypse

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Tribe Of Astronauts– “Musick For Aerodromes”
Weird and varied pieces with a connecting theme of desert mysticism. The tribe continue their eccentric journey.
http://www.archive.org/details/eg0_029

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Fosel– “The Left Hand Of Darkness”
The excellent Fosel continues to evolve before our very ears with this great dark ambient / experimental release.
http://www.archive.org/details/The_Left_Hand_Of_Darkness

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Also, if you’d like, you are welcome to note that “A Pale But Lasting Hope” is now available on ITunes and all major services:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/a-pale-but-lasting-hope/id409595191

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There you have it!
Thanks, Thomas!

It was a good year for netlabel releases, and that is for certain!
I mean it: download everything on this page. You had better.
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We’ll start with a brief roundup of my releases this year and then move on to my favorite releases by other artists.
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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:
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C. Reider – Fragment Three Re-Works
http://www.vuzhmusic.com/releases/fragment.html
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Dark Winter netlabel also put out a collaboration between me & Desohll of a longform guitar darkambient piece. Quite dark, somewhat ambient as well.
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C. Reider / Desohll – Falling into Disrepair
http://www.darkwinter.com/dw072.html
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I’m pretty sure 2011 is going to see a whole lot more activity at Vuzh Music, so watch out!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

There are three new releases to announce!
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Just out today is a dark ambient epic, C. Reider & Desohll team up for “Falling Into Disrepair” out on the Dark Winter netlabel… very slow dark guitar drones to celebrate entropy and Autumn.
Click the link for the free release:
http://www.darkwinter.com/dw072.html
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Out this week on Earth Mantra netlabel is a new release by Fosel called “Problem of Universals (C. Reider Remixes)”. Kurt Nimmo has produced some disorienting & spacious remixes of my Electret Quintet tracks. I think they’re great.
Click the link for the free release:
http://earthmantra.com/problemofuniversals
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Finally, a compilation from Intelligent Machinery by way of the Just Not Normal netlabel, “Of Places and Moments” features 18 different compositions made using sound sources from Sighup’s site recordings. Many different takes, one unifying concept. I have a track called “Core Exit”, named after a popular oil dispersant.
Click the link for the free release:
http://justnotnormal.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/imc02-of-places-and-moments/
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Hope you enjoy these.

This new release by Fosel on the Earth Mantra Netlabel is a remix of C. Reider’s 3 hour electronic opus Electret Quintet.
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Earth Mantra #earman146
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Format: 320Kbps MP3
Number of tracks: 5
Genres: Ambient, Electronic, Abstract, Dark Ambient, Experimental
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Direct URL: earthmantra.com/problemofuniversals
Release Mirror Site: Click Here
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Download: #1 (146 MB) Download Help
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Experimental ambient alchemist Kurt Nimmo returns to Earth Mantra with an invigorating new Fosel release entitled Problem of Universals (C. Reider Remixes).
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Unlike Fosel’s previous Earth Mantra release Couriers of the Air, this new album presents a collection of remixes of original pieces composed by C. Reider, off of his 2009 release Electret Quintet, itself a study of analog drum machines and their use in experimental electronic music. Where the Electret Quintet music pulses with the energy of experimental IDM, Problem of Universals instead conveys a more subdued vibe, packaged in a gritty and yet quite beautiful collection of electronica that explores ambience as thoroughly as it exudes the avant garde.
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The music of this album simply fascinates. At first, the glitchy veneer suggests an air of almost ominous experimentalism. But in peeling back the layers, we expose a delightful heart of dreamy ambience, a delicious counterpoint to the more exotic outer shell. No doubt this originates in the dual influences of the two artists whose music went into this album, but the fusion of the two styles dovetails elegantly. Folks who enjoy the more experimental or noisy side of music will feel right at home with this release. But likewise, Problem of Universals will appeal equally to lovers of old school ambience who want their music a bit more approachable. Quite a clever balance Fosel strikes – very well done indeed.
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In particular, we are struck by the diversity of the music in this album. Some pieces meander slowly through the sounds, inviting the listener to drift alongside. Others throb rhythmically amid subtle washes of sound, getting the blood pumping again. Still others wander through a desolate landscape of electroacoustic imagery that somehow still evokes a sense of melancholic charm. Literally something for everyone to be found in Problem of Universals.
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So it is with great pride that we unveil the latest release from Kurt Nimmo, another example of his particular genius with the art of sound composition. Highly recommended to all of our listeners.
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Note: those who are interested in C. Reider’s original Electret Quintet can find it at the following link:
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http://vuzhmusic.com/releases/electretquintet.html

This afternoon, I received a surprise email from someone I don’t know and had never up ’till now heard of, with the subject line “remixed your tracks”. This is what the email linked to:
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My downloadable tracks are released under a Creative Commons license which says, basically, that as long as you are not making money off of it, and give me credit, you can sample and appropriate anything I do to your heart’s jolly content. It’s just that this happens quite infrequently!
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The tracks by the New Mexico artist Fosel are really stupendous. The title of the work is “problem of universals: c. reider remixes“, it’s an atmospheric reworking of some tracks from the Electret Quintet blended with some ambient guitar noises from Long Defeat.
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Listen to them and/or download them and THEN listen to them here:
http://fosel.bandcamp.com/album/problem-of-universals-c-reider-remixes
http://fosel.bandcamp.com/album/problem-of-universals-c-reider-remixes
http://fosel.bandcamp.com/album/problem-of-universals-c-reider-remixes
http://fosel.bandcamp.com/album/problem-of-universals-c-reider-remixes
http://fosel.bandcamp.com/album/problem-of-universals-c-reider-remixes