Collaborator Discography

“As a saxophone player and composer who has integrated electronics in my music for many years, I wanted to experiment with the reed quintet – typically a classical chamber music format – by opening it up with improvisation and electronics… it ended up as a curious assemblage at the intersection of electronic music, noise, free jazz, and modern chamber music.”

Kyle Bruckmann & Lance Grabmiller – analog electronics. Cassette (with download card) in a limited edition of 40. Featuring design by Pan Pan/Joshua Tabbia, and texts pilfered from Matt Shears’ 10,000 Wallpapers, Brooklyn Arts Press, used by permission.

“. . . There are moments in these pieces that explore the tension and interaction between noise and melody, acoustic and electronic sounds, the acousmatic blurring of sound sources, the subversion of the traditional conceptions of foreground and background events, notated structural materials that function invisibly within the music, and improvisations that can be difficult to determine where they lie on the spectrum of fixity and flux. . .”

Addleds explores timbral and textural extremes of distended instrumental technique via improvisation and open-ended compositional strategies. Their music tends towards a brutalist minimalism as informed by the noise underground as by recent developments in the field of free improvisation.

Lance Grabmiller and I have been partners in shudder (with Phillip Greenlief) since 2004, on double reeds and digital electronics respectively. In 2012, we began exploring a duo configuration employing exclusively modular analog electronics. The results have thus far been delightfully nasty, unapologetically invoking our mutual love of old-school industrial crunch. Our opening salvo is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD.

“. . . if I closed my eyes, I managed a vague, if largely false, memory of being present at a Smithsonian Folkways recording session in some obscure basement in Mumbai or Tunisia. A mad rumba line was twisting insect—like through the cabaret, driven in their frenzy by the rubber mallets and honking legbone flutes of the featured musicians. At one side of the room, a group of Fez-appareled recording technicians could be seen working diligently on some ancient machinery. . .”

“This began as an ill-tempered lowercase/eai duo recording session, and over the course of 3+ years somehow mutated into a snarling, campy hybrid exorcising some long-dormant adolescent industrial dance demons. Avant snobs with a Skinny Puppy skeleton in their closets will be delighted. . .”

“. . . Clatter and scrapes derived from highly amplified, unidentifiable sources give the music a bracing tactility, and a meticulous sound mix suggests three-dimensionality. The constantly changing array of foreground activity and subtly morphing environments produce a gripping suspense that complements the stunning tonal palette.” (Peter Margasak, Downbeat)

Various post-avant spectrums toyed with but tossed out the window for rock, except what exactly is rock? One man’s Sabbath is another man’s Butthole Surfers. One is feeling Floyd while another is feeling DNA & yet another thinking mid period Crimson & another early period Crimson & then someone is somehow thinking James Tenney… The verite m.o. of the first album is forgotten – this thing expands freely in four dimensions, becomes massive. There is no hope for this music – it’s impossible.” (Sickroom press release)

“Thick, analog-synth black-hole dronisms and metallic percussive clatter meld with assorted reeds—all swimming in the deep end of 1980’s industrial/improv sprawl. . . This is not noise as it is currently understood. Rather, Bleaks ravage with precise subtlety and a surgical moodiness that is frankly unsettling.” (Wodger press release)

“…these are musicians whose sense that conscious restraint can be enablng is coupled with a deep concern for sonic content… Their music is gradual and relatively stark. . . There’s an air of serious investigation taking place – close attention to elements combined, interacting and mutating. The sounds carry weight and are made to matter. It’s sound-led music, but the musicians are making the right choices, and from that Wane acquires its quiet intensity.” (Julian Cowley, The Wire)

“Pink Mountain improvise with impunity through anguished prog-metal, squalling jazz-rock, and the agitated, gnarled-to-hell dirges that pocked the weirder end of SST Records’ catalog. Pink Mountain’s self-titled CD is a bracing ordeal, portending an overwhelming live show.” (Dave Segal, The Stranger)

“…this pair of improvisations sound like AMM plugged into a stack of Marshall amps, a monstrous Metal/free jazz-inspired meltdown that goes beyond the usual industrialised churn by experimenting with different modes of expression. Gaping Maw spark off each other with all barrels blazing, constantly projecting and reflecting back ideas as the volume of their improvisation intensifies or subsides into a shrouded, echoing drone state.” (Edwin Pouncey, The Wire)