Vuzh Music Blog

John Gore’s ‘kirchenkampf’ project has long been known and admired by me for producing consistent, high-quality conceptual electronic space music. The characteristic ‘kirchenkampf’ release draws on influences from early electronic pioneers such as Subotnik, Parmegiani, the Barrons and Tangerine Dream, composing vast experimental sound-paintings with a strong central theme. His releases often follow a story structure hinted by the song titles and fleshed out with abstract, yet evocative electronic sounds. He is in top form on the new ‘kirchenkampf’ release “Dark Planet”
–
The CD opens quietly with a long drifting drone titled “In Transit”, suggesting an awakening ship coasting through open space, and by the second track “Homesick”, a human element is introduced suggesting a deep melancholy in the crew after a long, cold voyage.
–
The mood changes considerably on the title track. It seems that they’ve drifted into the orbit of an extraordinary planet, one that demands to be explored. The remainder of the CD explores the planet’s mysterious and frightening geography, its hungry caverns, its hissing fumaroles, its monoliths and volcanoes, “Terrorform” finally suggesting that they are not alone in this world. Serpentine figures lash out of the fog, etching curlicues in the air. As the story resolves, Gore describes, “The moon rises and bathes the planet with reflected light. Now they sit and wait for the first sunrise.”
–
Another accomplished release from this venerable artist. I highly recommend it.
–
It is available through Cohort Records as a physical CD, or a download.

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.
–

Although there is a little bit of info to pass on regarding new Vuzh Music stuff, I wanted first to delve into something I think is important about underground music. I was commenting recently to Thomas Park about how I find it odd that underground musicians don’t talk each other up very much. Everyone always talks about ‘me, me, me’. This is understandable on a certain level: underground musicians, or as we used to call them “hometapers” don’t have an advertising budget, and so many people will only ever hear about them through word of mouth, and since underground musicians rarely talk about other underground musicians, they all have to talk themselves up to an annoying degree.

This post, and this blog on the whole will occasionally point out some things I have found around the internet that I enjoyed, and maybe you will also. Clearly this will not stop me from talking about ‘me, me, me’ but it’s a start.

• Petal – the Pharisee, I heard a track from this album on Stillstream radio, otherwise I don’t know anything about this artist. The album is a fine work of pulsing drone ambient, quite pretty indeed. There seemed to be something wrong with the last two tracks and with the .zip file, but the rest of the files downloaded alright.
• Siegmar Fricke – Atemkalk. I don’t know anything about this artist, I found it via a promotional post on the ‘Experimentals’ LiveJournal community. The album is a fine, pleasant bit of gritty, swirling drone music.
• Delicious Dragon. This is a MySpace page set up by friend and peer John Gore of Cohort Records. He’s recorded ambient, avant-garde, experimental and space music for decades… and now steps out tentatively into making music with beats and melody, and… it’s pretty cool stuff.
• Velveeta Heartbreak – Future Grot. Michael J. Bowman, a friend of mine and co-member of Drone Forest, has posted on his blog a free download of “Future Grot”, a collage-like compilation of previously released musical weirdness, pop music and skronky instrumentals. Very enjoyable stuff.
• Subscape Annex – Singing Glasses. Steve Burnett, a.k.a. Subscape Annex, has posted a new thirteen minute long work where he tries to imitate the sound of the glass armonica using a Chapman Stick fed through several processors. The effect is convincing, and the piece is very calming.
• Martin Taxt – Various Improvisations. My wife found this piece while digging around the internet. I like it quite a bit. The three short pieces utilize the tuba as a sound source, but the artist plays the de-constructed bits of the instrument, blowing through them and hitting them together.