A retrospective. A survey. Two decades of a voice creating in obscurity. Beauty. Death. Fear. Awe. It's all here. Releases 4/26/21 53 songs, nearly three hours of music. High-resolution 48khz 24-bit audio.

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Early Reviews:

"With early encounters one is struck by the mastery of sound design, the compositional craft, the skillful use of space, and exploration of alternate pitch fields. But beneath the icy, shimmering, and sometimes menacing industrial synthscapes, I feel a deep underpinning of human emotion. This is not surprising given the artist’s work as an accomplished poet, and it’s one of the secrets to the arresting beauty in müesk’s singular musical world."

Bruce Hamilton, Composer, Performer, Professor of Music
brucehamilton.info

"müesk’s double decade retrospective starts off with the stunning, ethereal “My Beautiful Longing”. And wow, it IS beautiful. Wistful tones of soft metallic tubes play against deep and dark string synths, the tune finishing off with a fluted synth figure that somehow looks over its shoulder at what came before. It creates the emotion of longing with painful beauty.

If we didn’t know it, Steve’s notes inform us it is in a 17 Tone Pythagorean scale, one which is comprised of intervals based on 3:2. While I don’t know if this explains the sonic mood, it sheds light on the composer’s thinking. It is as if a need for mathematical beauty underpins most of the music in this collection; nearly all are annotated with the relevant scale information. From 11 Edo to Werckmeister 3, to 26 ed3, müesk keeps us in mind of the architecture underpinning his music.

We move on through audio landscapes, the almost ship-like booms and blaring horns of “She dreamed the Swans” conceding to tinkles of faraway piano and spaced out, thoughtful drum patterns. Before I can get a “Sad, Qui Moi” vibe off these drums, müesk quickly discards them and moves into new aural territory with soaring pluckings and stringings and very organic textural space. I am dreaming of swans too.

Throughout the reel müesk follows his thoughts into many sonic possibilities. From the field-recorded soundscape of “I’ve Been Thinking” (11-of-19 Mclaren for those who know) to the almost pop-like sensibility of the jangly, drummy, funky “Entropy’s Song”, he isn’t constrained by a single style, yet his thumbprint is on everything.

“Requiem for Mother Earth” and “Midnight on a Digital Sea” perhaps form the backbone of this set, not just in sound but in title too. If we ever need to go to a thoughtful sound-space, it is here in müesk’s work."

Flintpope
flintpope.net

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These songs represent two decades of work. Sure, it seems like a lot (on the surface), but 55 songs divided by 20 years equals 2.75 songs per year. Not a whole lot of output, once you consider I spend between 3 - 7 hours in my studio every night. 95% of what I mess around with gets discarded. I make a lot of terrible music. That’s what happens when you allow yourself to fuck up. The tracks I’ve included represent the entire scope of my leftfield electronic exploration so far. Not always my best work, but the work that I’ve pressed, that I feel comfortable with, mastered over the course of the past 4 months, with a final pass between the prelease and the official release.

The 3 tracks you’ll get immediately reflect the entire range of my style, which I like to think of as “hyper-modern.”

1.) “My Beautiful Longing” was recorded in 2009 using two patches from Omnisphere. It is composed in Pythagorean 17-tone (type 2), my very first attempt at a “xenharmonic” or alternate-tuning piece.

2.) “She Dream the Swans” -- a musical interpretation of section 2, stanza 2, line 2 of: “Blueprint for a Photograph,” which first appeared in the literary journal Hotel Amerika:

Blueprint for a Photograph

Yesterday is a prior version of Right Now!
A twilight so blue it stains even memory.

* * *

In the Bible-dark the angel of chaos
feels like a fish among women.

She has a room at the back of the army,
where she dreamed the swans.

A little salvation, perhaps.
A root split open, Gideon,
the orange moon.

* * *

We signify earth, rock, wood, and water;
we are glyphs in the moonlight.

Like dark trees. Sickle and whip.

* * *

Perhaps there’s a field. Perhaps a far field,
a form of farewell.

3.) “The Problem of Evil” -- Previously unreleased, this piece, written in 14-edo (an octave divided into 14 steps), explores the question that has perplexed theologians since the conception of a monotheistic G/god.

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I don't know what I'm doing. Do you? I am about to transform. Here is where I have been for the past two decades.