C67 Cassette
2013

Second volume of the annually released compilation of Sound Art, Free Improvisation, Electronic & Electroacoustic music from artists currently living and working in the St. Louis area.

Featuring:

• A1 Marble: Blood Orange
• A2 Poison Rat R.: Orbit (Featuring Kenji Siratori)
• A3 Byssus: Ampoule
• A4 Radiant Husk: Apple Uppfle
• A5 Darin Gray: Gateway for Phyllis Diller (Mouth Piece Study No. 1)
• A6 Mark Sarich: When you are not here Yet you are here; Abschied
• B7 Eric Hall: The Sight Of Without You
• B8 John Tamm-Buckle: Titan3 80-300
• B9 Wamhoda: Mentally Whipp'd
• B10 Burlin Mud: Live @ Momo 12/11
• B11 Michael Williams: Part of the Whole
• B12 Ajay Khanna: Noise Enhancement 9x5

Pro-duplication and metallic silver imprinting with full color double sided j-cards. Limited edition of 75 posters and cover art by Jeremy "Ghost Ice" Kannapell. Digital download link included. Edition of 150 on chrome tape.

C30 Cassette
2013

Two nonsectarian pieces of contemporary American electronic music utilizing a customized eurorack modular synthesizer on the Harris side and computer software on the Cook side. The composition by Mr. Harris was created in response to the composition by Mr. Cook.

Side A: Kevin Harris – NI6B^RR [Food Poisoning] {Funding for Disagreement}

Side B: N.N.N. Cook – Furuzanfar #568 w/ Sine Qua Non Memories

Pro-duplication and metallic gold imprinting with black and white double sided j-cards.

Edition of 100 on chrome tape.

C72 Cassette
2012

A compilation of Sound Art, Free Improvisation, Electronic & Electroacoustic music from artists currently living and working in the St. Louis area.

Featuring:

• Regicide Bureau: Tom Sutter; prolific 80's tape trader with an electroacoustic infatuation, self-released over 300 cd-r's and tapes
• Rich O'Donnell: Director of the Electronic Music Studio at Washington University, St. Louis, was principal percussionist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for 40 years, a percussion and electronic instrument builder, and co-founded HEARding Cats, a 501(c)(3) arts collective in '09
• Raglani: Analog synth guru, electronic music history enthusiast, OG of the STL experimental music scene
• Tory Starbuck Project: Tory Z. Starbuck; avant-garde art rocker, music instructor, adept player of ethnic drums, saxophone, violin, sitar, koto, and electronics
• N.N.N. Cook: Sound artist, improviser, graphic designer, and visual artist, runs the tape side of Close/Far Recordings
• Dr. Mabuse: Electronic instrument inventor and builder, I call him the, "Harry Partch of electronics", president and co-founder of HEARding Cats arts collective
• Dave Stone: Reeds player par excellence, Free Jazz hero, seasoned improviser
• Public Shallows: Integral promoter, writer, and performer in the local music community, Josh Levi's Flood Yr Face blog is the #1 source for underground concert listings in STL
• Brain Transplant: Chris Smentkowski's long running solo and collaborative Noise project, laptop data warper, guitar mangler
• Kevin Harris: Runs the best experimental venue in the city, The Floating Laboratories, Performs with homemade "wind turbine" signal generators diffused through a multi-channel sound system and modular synthesizers
• Dinner Music: Rick Weaver; experimental Renaissance man, restless soul, runs Human Conduct Records

Pro-duplication and imprinting with full color double sided j-cards. Signed and numbered silkscreened posters (edition of 25), signed and numbered digital prints (edition of 75) and cover art by Jeremy "Ghost Ice" Kannapell. Edition of 200 on high bias tape.

Handmade Clay Edition with printed CD-R
2011

Listen to the songs and purchase at BandCamp

CD-R
2011
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C60 Cassette
2011

Side A: Prune, by Coppice, is a 30-minute composition for tape studying foundation reduction, threshold permutation, mercurial residue, and compression techniques. Recorded in Chicago in late 2010 using pump organ, fire bellows, push-pump organ, samples, and electronic processing. Coppice (Noé Cuéllar & Joseph Kramer) is a Chicago-based duet of bellows and electronics. Formed 2009, they have produced original compositions for stage, fixed media, and performed installation settings, with a focus on adhering textural attenuation, processed gradation, the contours of instrumentation, and their multiple aspect highlights. Their variable instrumentation departs from bellows and reed instruments (accordion, pump organ, shruti box, harmonica), custom electronics (reproduction, transmission, spatialization, interference and gentle feedback), and multi-channel systems adapted in ways responsive to location, audience flow, and aural perspectives. They have recently appeared at the Museum of Contemporary Art, New Music at the Green Mill (Chicago); Music with a View (New York); Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts (Minneapolis); Dragonfly Festival (Göthenburg, Sweden); and several live radio performances.

Side B: Two new works from N.N.N. Cook chosen to accompany Prune. Wu Wei I: Repose features the texture of select materials arranged in order to accentuate the color of each while inducing horizontal and vertical spatial movement. Material (and non-material) sources include: baoding balls, brass censer, feedback, porcelain vase, tape, voice, wine glass, and wooden flute. Wu Wei II: Impulse is the first 18 minutes excerpted from a 40-minute improvisation on electric organ. The meditative state involved in the creation/listening process and the immersive quality of engaging in the perception of the beats, overtones, and shading are its focus.

Pro-duplication and imprinting with full color double sided j-cards. Featuring altered Polaroid photo cover art by Joseph Kramer. Edition of 100 on chrome tape.

CD-R
2010
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Jazz excursions into spider pits, radios left on in abandoned malls, two dummies hunching over tables full of garbage. Cringing behind their digital gate, delayed no longer, Encrypted Crypt unleash warlocks, boredom and nausea upon an indifferent public. Their debut album, Lambent Radionics, is filled to the brim with five unpleasant tracks. "Turn up the Fog!" Truly a bargain for the discerning consumer. Prepare for apocalyptic visions, mild memory loss, and/or panic attacks! Strictly Limited Edition of approximately 47.

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C62 Cassette
2010

This one is for the underground home-taping heads. Hailing from St. Louis, Thomas Sutter's Regicide Bureau project has been running strong since the mid-80s. His prolific output of heavily electroacoustic sonic alchemy has been documented on cassette by such labels as Sound of Pig, Deaf Eye, Ecto Tapes, HalTapes, and Harsh Reality Music, while releasing more than 300 recordings on his own hypermedia imprint. After delving into only a small portion of the catalogue, it's easy to see that the Regicide Bureau oeuvre fits nicely alongside such home-taping legends as If, Bwana, Hal Mcgee and Minóy. Noise heads: don't sleep on this one!

Toadflax, an unreleased noisescape from 2009, is all at once raw, refined, abrasive, and elegant. Tom's approach to sound is a painterly one—sonic chiaroscuro. One moment there is a jarring rift of noise, and the next a haunting melody fights through controlled feedback. Along the way signals abruptly cut out, as if exhausted, only to reappear after shape-shifting in silence. Documented on this tape, true to ritualistic form, is a glimpse into the Regicide Bureau microcosm of chaos and contemplation. The atmosphere here is a disorienting one, like being in a deep fever dream wandering lost through an endless field of purple toadflax.

Duplicated at Close/Far headquarters: Type I to Type I. Black and white j-cards with color labels on white shells. Edition of 100.

C20 Cassette
2010

On the A side is a new track commissioned specifically for close/far recordings. Sig. to Ether Error seems to channel a distant astral oratorio. Slowly your mind's eye is activated and begins to build its own temple. Reconciling the synthetic with the organic, Raglani coaxes a state of concord between himself and his circuitry.

On the B side the primary sound source is an electronic unit, the Meridian Box, custom designed and built by Joseph Kramer. It consists of six oscillators with independent pitch controls and electrodes controlled by body resistance. Otherness Figments immediately sweeps you into its current, enveloping your body with hum and crackle. Punctuated by blasts and tears in time, jarring moments begin to smear and stretch. As you pan across your barren destination, mirages dance across the landscape. Abruptly, your Dionysian journey ends in repose.

Pro-duplication and imprinting in black ink on clear shells with gold foil liners. Edition of 200 on high bias tape.

Albums C/F 001 through C/F 012 are currently out of print. Special orders may be produced upon request.

3" CD-R
2009
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CD-R and Jewel Case
2009
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CD-R and Digipack
2004
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The entire album was made on my computer using soft synths and samplers in 2004. Over the course of a year I worked on it in solitude. The primary focus of the album is of personal understanding and fruition through deep listening, meditation, and reflection. A sine qua non is something that is essential or absolutely necessary. The essential in positive human thought and behavior is what I am seeking. I believe that empathy, honesty, patience, and humility are the most important archetypal concepts in humanity. They have the power to heal and prevent many of our problems.

Throughout my life as a music lover and obsessive collector my favorite albums have prompted me to investigate the meanings and messages of their titles and lyrics. Because of the curiosity and inspiration they have created this has allowed me to gain some understanding of many individuals' perspectives through their art, stories, and music. By this very natural process between creator and listener the album becomes an evocative and emotive vehicle for communication and learning. The purpose of this work is to utilize these aspects of the album as a cultural catalyst and to encourage personal reflection on what empathy, honesty, patience, and humility mean to each of us in our lives. This album is a sonic enzyme for contemplation.

CD-R and Jewel Case
2007
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CD-R and Jewel Case
2006
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CD-R and Jewel Case
2006
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CD-R and Jewel Case
2006
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Formally, the music is comprised of improvisatory selections taken from various recording locations. In addition to the advent of sparse collaboration, we have at times become compositionally focused on the rawness and intimacy of acoustic instrumentation. The documentation of these performances has enabled us to better understand our reactions to the spaces that we have encountered. The overall tone along with fleeting lyrics suggests ideas about resolution and objectivity, duality, cosmology, responsibility, and aural flux rather than any sort of musical virtuosity. The Halcyon and The Mendicant is ritualistic.

3 x 3" CD-Rs
2004
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These three "twenty-minute pieces" are solo, written compositions created to explore our interests as individuals versus our norm of group instant composition. The fixed duration as an initial objective functioned first as an equal allocation of time to use as individual composers, with regard to our average group improvisation length of one hour. Second, the timeframe sensitivity forced the compositions into temporal works not only by their explicit nature but also through the acuteness of our intentions. This time regulation undermined a completely expressionist approach to the works, which was important because the timeframe requisite pushed us to design and develop the pieces with a unified intention without cornering us into predetermined themes and emotional attributes. Calyx is an exercise in separation.

CD-R and Jewel Case
2004
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This release is an hour long, continuous improvisation presented as an example of a live, real-time composition, free from edits and alterations. Although it is somewhat atypical of the bulk of our session recordings in general, the work has a consistent mood over its many fluctuating movements. As we are engaged in an ongoing musical dialogue with ourselves and our listeners, this is to be taken as an excerpt within our body of work, the implicit metaphor within the title, Blade of Grass Single is Mass--a documentation of the vocabulary forming as we continue to improvise together.

CD-R and Jewel Case
2004
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Throughout the course of 2004 we were happy to have captured so many hours of our improvised music. That winter we decided to carefully listen to those recordings and select the most interesting and/or cohesive moments. This reminded us of the extraction process that many resources go through in order to become a finished product or unified whole, if you will. We found the parallel between our sound selection process and the extraction process of tree sap to be an appropriate analogy: both procedures utilize materials created naturally, and each refines them through specific processes in order to manifest a desired outcome. In order to put the focus on the essence and the process, not just the finished product, we chose Sap as the title and named the movements after trees, tapping tools, soil levels, and sap gradients--after all, it takes forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. Likewise, all of the tracks were extracted from live, real-time takes to an eight-track with minimal alterations made for more fluid movements. Sap is excerpt appropriate.

CD-R and Sleeve
2004
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CD-R and Sleeve
2004
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