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c. reider - Abandon

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These recordings are a collection of material from several projects that were either never completed, temporarily shelved or totally abandoned for whatever reason. Some are oddball tracks that really didn't fit in thematically or musically with anything I'd planned to release, thus might've never seen the light of day otherwise... Others were set aside because there wasn't enough material to compile any kind of full release. Nearly all of these tracks, with a few exceptions, were originally laid down on an old, abused Fostex X-15 four-track, which I had bought used, and on which track bleed was bad, hiss was terrible, tape speed hopelessly inconsistent and brightness was non-existant. Tracks were restored to reasonable fidelity with the help of a lot of equalizing and Behringer's SNR-2000 Denoiser. Tracks were loaded into a Roland VS-880, hard-disk 8-track, and were then severely edited, re-arranged, chopped-up, what-have-you, and the remaining four tracks were used for effects, added instruments or other elements of related sound. What you hear on abandon will be radically different from the originally recorded, 4-track versions, but will be closer to what was originally intended.
At various points in the proceedings of this entertainment event, you will hear the inspired genius of the following individuals:
  • Eric Barnes, (ok, so not exactly genius) who was the interview subject on YCD
  • Jehn Cerron, (Eyelight) whose heavenly voices appear on Organic Machinery, cycles one and two
  • John Gore, (Kirchenkampf) who composed and performed the base tracks on digital synth for Rim of Froth 1-3
  • Ian C. Stewart, (Samarkand, FZZY PMPR, Star Pillow, etc.) whose loonatic remixing abilities, use of appropriated materials and guitar all appear on Phast Phertilizer
  • Adam Brutto, who played a brief bit of Chapman Stick on Fire (ow)
  • caerie, whose voice adorns the Statue
  • Several pre-teen girls, who also appear briefly in the Statue

Side one was re-recorded, filtered, edited, augmented and remixed during the stormy Summer (Damn! Lightning again! Turn everything off!) of 1998, and Side two during the anxious Autumn of 1998 by c. reider. Digitally re-mastered in 2002 by c. reider.
Review from Ambientrance.
C. Reider: Abandon (Vuzh Music - 2003) Abandon functions as a catch-all drawer for C. Reider's sonic odds and ends; partially-completed collaborations and otherwise disconnected experimental four-track recordings were dug up and polished off for 61.5-minutes of abstract musical art. Obtuse-as-hell, but powerful, The Slow Seed (Part One) engulfs all with its blistering vortex of deeply surging grumbles... followed by the tribal-rhythms and guitar meanderings of Fire at Ta,a'u Nahqugoa. Dueling six-strings stairstep through pleasant and otherwise un-weirded-up Study 2 which precedes the dark industrial-strength densities of throbbing, shifting Rim of Froth (Part One). Majestically sprawling environments unfurl from Rim of Froth (Part Two) , pulsing in bassy waves. Odd-but-grooving Brine (construct) oozes discombobulated femme-words, hovering synth drones, thrumming bass and, gradually, a pumping beat. Often murky and schizophrenic (I mean that in a good way!) , these 16 tracks range from noisy atmospherics to relatively musical interludes. B.
Track Notes
#1 YCD (1998)

The only "new" track recorded specifically for this release, and one of the few not culled from 4-track, 'YCD', (which stands for "you can't dance") still uses rather lo-fi source material. For the collaboration with the Implicit Order, I recorded a bunch of sound sources with an old hand-held tape recorder. During the process of editing and cleaning up the sound sources, I decided to use one of the recordings for this track. The full length version of the interview that serves as an introduction to abandon appeared in print in the final issue of Autoreverse Magazine. The tacked on breakbeat was meant as a joke. Laugh now.

Eric Barnes: Interview subject
c. reider: Makita battery powered drill, DR-55 Dr. Rhythm, Voice, "Falling Downstairs" beat, sample, compressed feedback



#2 & #13 Organic Machinery (Cycles One and Two) (1995-6?)

Incredibly impressed with her underground tapes as Eyelight, I asked Jehn Cerron to lay down some of that patented Jehnertronic audio opium to some base tracks i'd made. We ended up only finishing 20 minutes of material before Jehn became too busy with her new child to work on any music for a while. So the tracks were filed away, reluctantly. O.M. c. 4 appears on the Vuzh Music compilation "the Linked Dreams of Lonely Moons", which is not currently available. c. 3 appears on Aughtet.

Jehn Cerron: Voice, Loops
c. reider: SR-16 Drum machine, Mouth noises, Voice, Customized electronics



#3 The Slow Seed (part one) (1997)

The Slow Seed was originally a haphazard collection of improvised experiments, which I didn't actually record with the intention to release. They were only done as a way to acquaint myself with new studio equipment. After I'd messed around with the material for a while, I decided that I liked it, and wanted to try mixing it down. Unfortunately, I had made several mistakes in this first try at digital recording, and a very unpleasant distortion became apparent during mixdown, imbueing the tracks with an unlistenable, headache-generating quality. This first part of three was the least adversely affected of the bunch. I managed to clean up the distortion while re-recording the piece, and intentionally added in some proper distortion to mask the unintended distortion artifacts, which adds to the tension of the piece.

c. reider: Guitar, vocal sample



#4 Fire at Ta,a'u Nahqugoa (1997)

From the same sessions that became, (or did NOT become, rather) the Slow Seed, this track was done on 4-track. I had decided to try my hand at a more improvisational type of recording, and in the spirit of making things difficult for myself, each track was played to a click track without listening to the other tracks. Also, all instruments were played with eyes closed. Bits and pieces of improvs with now defunct band Speck (myself and Adam Brutto & caerie) were edited in as well.

Adam Brutto: Chapman Stick
c. reider: SR-16 drum machine, Guitar, Bass, Fast-Forward Chirp



#5 Haiku 2 (1990)

An entire tape of songs, noise pieces and weird tone poems was recorded for a collaboration with Jon Martinez, formerly of Naram Sin and the Ice Plants, and from whom I had bought the aforementioned 4-track that most of these tracks were recorded on. Jon ended up flaking out big time, and the tape just sat in his apartment. Eventually, I got the tape back from him, but I pretty well abandoned the whole tape. Years later, new versions of some of the songs were re-recorded and released on 809-E10's "Lesser" and "Excess" tapes, neither of which are available in any form now. Perhaps some of those songs will be re-recorded again in the future. Haiku 2 was mostly complete as it appears here on that original tape I sent to Jon M.

c. reider: Guitar, Dremel rotation tool, Voice



#6 Tapping the Hole (1993)

This track was recorded at the same time as "the Speaking Holes" from C Reider's ne quid nimis release. The same setup was used for both tracks; contact mic'ed stones, but this little sketch was totally forgotten about until I accidentally stumbled upon it while searching for some other song for abandon. This is a radical edit of the original.

c. reider: Polished and raw stones



#7 Study 2 (written 1996)

I wrote this guitar study when I was in the band Speck with caerie and Adam Brutto. It was intended as a way to help us learn to play together more tightly. It didn't help. Aside from the intro, from an old demo recording of this piece, this is an all new recording.

c. reider: Guitar



#8, #10 & #14 Rim of Froth (parts one-three) (1996)

John Gore sent some excellent tapes for me to add onto for a by-mail collaboration. all of the pieces were nearly fully realized, with very strong musical themes, and could probably have been released as they were as Kirchenkampf songs. I found it difficult to add to the pieces without seeming out of place, or without making the pieces overdense. I attempted to add some earthy and raw atmospheres on top of his spacey, clean music. These three tracks were all that we completed, and John was disappointed with the way they turned out, so we didn't pursue further collaboration, until much later as GoreHallReider (available here). Part one contains a portion of "the Slow Seed (part three)", as does "Fast Fertilizer"

John Gore: Digital Synthesizers, composition
c. reider: (1) Voice, Chimes, Hammered Dulcimer, Guitar Drone
(2) Guitar, Metal end-blown flute, Hammered Dulcimer, Bass Drone, Cat Sample, Drum machine
(3) Bass, Guitar



#9 FastFertilizer ((Slow Seed Remix) Remixx) (1997)

While the Slow Seed was still a living project, I had asked some friends to remix the material I had recorded. Ian Stewart replied with a cut-up collage using much appropriated material and a large dance beat, which presaged his later dance material on Samarkand's "Continua", and later on FZZY PMPR's several releases. I took the remix Ian did and RE-remixed it, basically using his remix as source material. Here is that material thrice removed... PBK also completed a remix of the Slow Seed sources, which appeared on his Headmix tape (an INCREDIBLE release, btw, it's available for free here!). The third remix was scheduled to be done by Little Fyodor, but I cancelled the project before he got to work on it. You'll have to imagine what that would have been like. I can't!

Ian C. Stewart: Appropriated material, samples, Guitar
c. reider: Vocal sample, Metal Tines, Guitar, Whistle



#11 DreamDroneTwo (1994) / Brine (construct) (probably 1989?)

I woke up one morning with the theme from DD2 lingering in my head from a deep dream. Dream music is totally intriguing to me, it's almost as if I didn't even write the music, it was just something that I heard while dreaming. I immediately recorded this after waking up, so as to not forget it, however the piece was re-recorded for abandon, aside from the vocal sample it's an all new recording. DreamDroneTwo seques into Brine, which was one of the earliest attempts at recording I made. Before I had a 4-track recorder, I layered sounds by bouncing back and forth from one tape player to another. The only equipment I had available to me at the time of this recording was a borrowed delay pedal, a borrowed Radio Shack dictation mic, my Guitar, and my amplifier. This piece originally appeared on some versions of my first cassette release not named, but here it is reconstructed into something a little different. "DreamDroneOne" appears on ne quid nimis.

c. reider: (DD2) Guitar, voice / (Brine) Radio, Aluminum soda can, Feedback



#12 The Statue (1994)

Originally this was an improvised backing track put together to frame a spoken dream by caerie. The main themes of the original track were radically re-arranged here to give a far more structured, cohesive "song", with excerpts from the dream reading. Other sources used were another dream reading called "bumblebeenecklaceswimmingleaving" and a covert recording of a bunch of pre-teen girls playing.

caerie: Voice, words
c. reider: Synth, Bass, DR-55, Covert recording



#15 Shimm (construct)

Shimm was never really a unified piece at all until I started working on abandon. Bits and pieces of taped sketches were found here and there, on tapes that I found in boxes, closets, here, there and everywhere. A few of these tapes were thrown together to create this construct. One tape was a vocal track that was recorded while playing around with a borrowed multi-effect processor, another was recorded to try out a new brass plate for reverberation. I later did a funny re-mix of the first track on abandon mixed together with this track and a big dance beat on Crook'd Finger's "AFT"

c. reider: Voice, brass plate











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