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Topaz Discreet

by Cecyl Ruehlen

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"Topaz Discreet"
By Cecyl Ruehlen (formerly Ryan Wade)

Released On
Never Anything Records (Seattle WA) / No. 065 / Autumn 2020
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To Purchase A Cassette Tape:

neveranythingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/topaz-discreet
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Topaz Discreet was composed by Cecyl (Ryan Wade) Ruehlen between summer 2018 and winter 2020 in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. The two, 20 minute, pieces are a collection of improvisatory actions woven together to create a singular work that, at its root, performs secrets the artist kept from them-self. Most of the actions ended up in unheard digital folders with no inherent notion as to what would become of them. Using an array of instrumental objects, both traditional and unconventional, Ruehlen recorded countless tracks in numerous settings. Such sites of composing were the edge of a forest river, several small closets, a warehouse, a basement radio station, lying across a trash filled floor, open pastureland, at a desk, a quiet Adobe house in the Sonoran Desert, and on and on. Throughout the album’s creation there is a romance with, and simultaneous indifference about, space and location, which is reflected in the attitude and gestures towards the recording process.

The album takes inspiration from the Bruce Sterling short story, “Cicada Queen” which finds post-human anarchist Hans Landau “floating to the very doorstep of the infamous Topaz Discreet”; one of several “citadels against surveillance”. These deep space, gravity free, autonomous spaces in which, “anything, anything at all, could happen” became the catalyst on which this album’s free form movement rose up from.

Unbeknownst to Ruehlen at the time, the compounded objects of (extra)musical sound began with a recording taken at the twilight of dawn from happenstance. He came across a derelict upright piano resting on the sandy shoreline of a river, meandering between a canyon at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. A few days after this situation occurred, the piano disappeared to never be seen again.

From there, re-animated archives and hidden memories formed a loose method for working outside of creative habits in pursuit of a musical anarchism.

All recording, mixing, and mastering by Cecyl Ruehlen. However—Much thanks to Nyal Ruehlen, CC Sorensen, Nicholas Hranilovich, Kari Treadwell and Sterling Lunaire for their additional voice and prepared guitar contributions to the album, who had no idea what they were recording for.

Huge thanks to Never Anything Records for releasing the work on tape.
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Many continued thanks to Colorado based Radio 1190AM/98.9FM for their generosity and near complete abandon with my shared use and transmission in their studios during the early stages of the making of the album. Although much was recorded in their space during “on air” experiments, these sounds served as sketches for later reinterpretation.

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released October 30, 2020

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Cecyl Ruehlen Tucson, Arizona

Cecyl Ruehlen is a composer / performer / producer morphing iterative actions into a sonic ooze with an array of chimeric objects and recording processes / anarchic geographies / woodwinds / in situ / assemblage / 1/4 of the group Compersion / 1/3 of Ausect / 1/X etc

Booking : harmonicoozerecords@gmail.com

Also visit:

Harmonicoozerecords.bandcamp.com
Compersion.bandcamp.com
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