Jon Mueller and Kaveh Soofi: "Endings" book/CD
"Continuing the label's tradition of beautifully packaged, limited edition releases, Endings is the second text + music project from Crouton founder Jon Mueller. An established and diverse drummer, playing with indie instrumentalists Pele, Collections of Colonies of Bees, and a myriad of improv ensembles, Mueller's written works offer unique glimpses into the strange reality of a clearly eccentric artist whose role is never merely complimentary. Endings combines eleven very short stories (in a boxed, spineless book) with a 30-min. CD-R of reading music, and several black-and-white illustrations by Kaveh Soofi, the Bay Area graphic artist who designed the cover for Pele's last album. Mueller's stories are by far the most exciting piece of the puzzle. The author uses the concept of "endings" to create postcard length vignettes launching the reader into a darkly absurd and chaotic world where narrative seems to strive immediately toward a prophetic conclusion. The extreme shortness of the texts provides that no character or scenario is developed outside of a series of scrupulous, often ridiculous details serving only the anticipation of some unifying finale. Mueller always delivers the goods, in the sense that he hurls each clipped plotline into an unmistakable, impassable "end;" however his endings are never the epiphanies his stories require. Instead they offer only the further mystification of an already lost cast of characters, managing to transform a clever variety of hum-drum pursuits and circumstances into windows to another hellish dimension. A man, inexplicably followed while on the way to the grocery store, eventually confronts his enraged pursuer, severs his own finger, and proceeds to reverse the chase, threatening the other man with the bloody appendage. Another character puts on a play for his dinner guests starring a picture of his dead son, whom he directs: "Sing, boy! Sing!" A business executive returns from an emergency call to find his interrupted interviewee sipping from the potential employer's coffee cup, his eyes rising in blank defiance. Most impressive is Mueller's ability to streamline each story with a detail-driven first-person narrative that assumes normalcy and connectedness, only to completely break down by the end. More than simple plot twists, the author's endings might be called 'anti-epiphanies' in the way they are positioned, through a striking economy of language, to effectively dismantle the story's prior logic. Mueller's musical accompaniment is unlike anything I've heard from him yet and clearly serves the box's theme. A faded symphonic loop plays over and over to simulate a continuous, regenerating "ending," essentially a false ending that, in its 19-sec. length, reminds me of the obscured, darkened tones of a Badalamenti score played out like one of William Basinski's Disintegration Loops, only without disintegrating. The atmosphere is soothing for a small second, but ultimately turns to a sinister, anxious tension, both apt and almost nauseating when coupled with Mueller's words. Soofi's illustrations are less fitting, but interesting nonetheless. From the look of it they are digital images arranged comic-strip-style but without any explicit narrative. The images are almost all stylized, grey toned portraits, progressively clouded, shadowed, fragmented, cropped, and later barraged by clusters of nail-covered blocks. I can see comparisons to Francis Bacon's portraiture, with the sectioned murkiness and sketchy inaccuracies reminding me of animations by South African artist William Kentridge, though Soofi's work has an unsettling geometric base that feels very unique. Endings is well worth it to anyone keen on interesting packaging and multimedia formats; I am still involved in picking apart and connecting the contents of this beautiful release, no end in sight."
- Andrew Culler, brainwashed.com

Richard Chartier: "Archival1991" CD
"Listening through headphones is the only way one can appreciate - or even hear - the subtleties of Richard Chartier's current body of work. This self-contained, highly mediated headspace effectively removes the listener from the context of the real, and allows Charter free access to move tiny plastic sounds around in an ultra quiet form of minimalism. Despite (or possibly because of) these contraints, he often succeeds in his poetry of the micro-fragment and Archival 1991 also carries an aestehtic of control in a revisitation of hes earlier industrially tinged dronescapes. This attractive and expansive tapestry of sound manifests an undefinably paranoic ambience that reflects the aesthetics of early 90s contemporaries such as Lustmord, Schloss Tegel, and PGR. The control mechanisms of Archival 1991 take root in the shadowy metaphors that reflect a slice of the sublime."
- The Wire (UK)

Jon Mueller: "What's lost is something important.
What's found is something not revealed." CD
"Let's suppose I didn't know who Jon Mueller is or what he does and I am playing this CD, two tracks, thirty-three minutes long. What would I think when it's done playing? Would I know he's a drummer by profession? I don't think so. Of course I recognized some percussive moments in there, but it might very well be the result of some extensive and elaborate sound processing of various electro-acoustic objects, including by accident a drumkit. But of course I knew already that Mueller is a drummer and that he has produced some excellent work inside the field of improvisation, but that studio treatments, or rather post-production plays an important role for his work. In the first piece, Mueller builts a drone piece out of sustained percussion, until breaking it up with drum fills that go out of phase and rhythm. Playing around with small crackling sound, this is an intense piece. The second, much shorter piece, is much more noisy, almost in a Merzbowian sense. Likewise intense but working on an entirely different level. Two particular strong pieces of highly imaginative percussion music."
- Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

"This is a record entirely made through pieces of a drum set, yet it sounds like a well oiled, fine tuned precision mechanism which allows entering the music in the same frame of mind that one has while listening to a Balinese ensemble - or to Organum, for that matter. Mueller goes straight to the core of drums' pneumonic organism, avoiding easy edulcoration to privilege spacing systems and sustained transmutations where snare drums become turbocharged in an itinerant mass of resonant charms and the deep rumble of a sapiently treated (?) bass drum (???) skin transforms itself into a hoarse monster of droning majesty reigning in deafening volume. Fastening every part with crafty compositional skill, the American percussionist offsets any expectancy of a typical "solo drum" release, garnering utmost respect through solid concepts and appreciable concision in this grainy reproduction of a sunless mural picture, which - contrarily to the author's suggestion of loud playing - works well at pre-explosion volume, too." - Massimo Ricci, http://www.touchingextremes.org

"Jon Mueller is a name to be remembered, because you might be afraid of him. If you are not interested in music, you won¹t want to listen to his sounds. If you are interested in music, you¹ll get a lot of uneasy and challenging music to listen to. Most people don¹t want this. They want to hear what they have always listened to. You have been warned. People who follow their own ideas deeply into their own microcosm, undeterred by naysayers and / or followers and still interested into the most minute details usually scare the living shits out of regular folks. This ominously titled release is Muellers first solo effort on crouton and it is a deftly consequent one. Exploring the sounds of a single instrument by driving them as far away from their original structure as possible and stepping over borders wherever they might be. 'Play at maximum volume in a large empty room' it says on the inner sleeve. So I¹ll choose the inside of my own head, thank you. No seriously, living in the common restricted areas and relations you might try headphones on this one. It might also help you to down this record without adversary effects. Trying to get into Jon Mueller¹s music has always been more a matter of digestion than understanding and a lot of times his work has proven to be more than you can easily chew in one piece. For me it has helped to lean back, relax and try to take it all in as it comes. And it has been well worth it. After a series of collaborations (a.o. with Jason Kahn or Bhob Rainey and Jim Schoenecker or within the band context of Hat Melter, all of them released on Crouton) this is the first solo work I get to hear by Mueller. The theme chosen is once again confined to a single source of sound, yet the results are varied and changing. All sounds come from a regular drumset. Or was that a single snare drum with some toms? Who¹d be able to tell? Within two lengthy tracks (one about twenty minutes, the other one above ten) Mueller shuffles the angles and dimensions of his sounds from recognizable to completely off kilter. At times all you¹ll hear is the soft rustling of the chains in the snare drum as the wind or the blast from amplifiers ripples through them (an effect often heard at poorly staged rock-sets and perceived as a disrupting element), at other times constant drumrolls sound either like trains going by or like more than one instrument at the same time. The first distinctly ³true² drum roll is at the end of track one and with time changes itself into a constant humming drone. Track two starts with some blasts of noise changing from left to right and mixing and it is the harsher track of the two. Don¹t wait for anything close to usual percussive playing, because there is not even a single bar of this here. From the hissing of fire to the echoes of big metal being rolled and shoved in a large empty room, Mueller is able to drive the concept of a drumset far beyond its usual reign. Gone is the idea of a supporting rhythm instrument or even of a drum solo, it is the sound of the instrument itself without being played that is in the focus here. Remember that Jon Mueller was the percussionist in Hat Melter? So, ³whats lost is something important, whats found is something not revealed² is an important step both for the sound artist and the musician, and not only for Mueller, for every one. A musician has to know his instrument by heart. Not only the sounds the kind of instrument makes, but also the sounds his individual chosen piece of instrument makes. When played and not played. In this sense, ³whats lost is S² is a step forward from the work with Rainey and Schoenecker, plus there is a lot more happening here, though still restricted to a small scale. Nevertheless, it has to be mentioned that those small scale sounds build up slowly and with time from the microtonality to big walls of noise. Which at times are abruptly broken, very much to a shocking or at least startling effect for the listener. It really doesn¹t make sense to search for the recognizable drumsounds ­ except if you are in dire need of something to hang on to while listening ­ because after all the source of the sounds is not so important as the sound itself." - http://www.monochrom.at/cracked

Aranos/Mueller/Rosenau:
"Bleeding In Behind Pastel Screens" CD "Aranos has been a very busy Bohemian bee the past few years having released a 7" on Klanggalerie, a 10" on Beta-lactam Ring Records and several albums including art/music collaborations with Nurse With Wound. Here the Ireland based multi-instrumentalist mixes it up with Milwaukee's Jon Mueller and Chris Rosenau of Pele and Telecognac among others. Seven oddly titled tracks make up the 45 minutes on this edition of 500 on Crouton Records. "The Other is B flat" sets into motion a hypnotic lullaby of small metallic objects, electronic swirl, delicately plucked guitars and long, bowed violin notes. The next four tracks continue the flow with a background becomes the foreground sort of mellow surrealism: orphaned snippets of ambient wash/drone, the clanking of clutter, mildly distorted scraped electric strings, minor electronic discharge and brief piano flutter. In particular, "Thinking of Penis and Vagina" makes me think of a light breeze propelling a rusty swing in an empty park just barely within earshot of a train yard. "Now Sparkling Ice" is apparently all Aranos and it sounds that way. It's a peculiar yet warm vocal and violin piece in which he accompanies himself both vocally and musically. The first half of the final track "Boiled Pear" violently churns through binary garbage over stray piano/banjo notes and a floating background presence, then quietly settles through the latter five minutes. Far from random and abrasive, "Bleeding.." is accomplished and very pleasant indeed. The sort of disc that demands to be played from start to finish and you lose yourself in. The packaging is a pretty fold-up with equally surreal poetry upon the flaps. Get this while you still can ... "
- Mark Weddle, brainwashed.com

Jason Kahn/Jon Mueller: "Papercuts" CD
"Percussionists Jason Kahn and Jon Mueller are musical carpenters. The 18:06 that comprises Papercuts is a sound construction completed over a one year collaborative period. Their house of music is the manipulation of various papers, both of the handmade and commercial variety. Kahn, a current resident of Zurich, has worked with Evan parker, Voicecrack, Christian Marclay, Bhob Rainey, Kevin Drumm, and Otomo Yoshihide and in the bands Repeat and Leaving Trains. Jon Mueller, label chief at Crouton Music, has performed with the groups Telecognac, Pele, Collections of Colonies of Bees, and Raccoons. He has also worked with Byard Lancaster, Matt Turner, Achim Wollscheid, and Fred Lonberg-Holm's Lightbox Orchestra. This very tactile-oriented sound sculpture stacks varying paper manipulation sounds upon each other. Play this disc without reading the instrumentation and you either hear circadas or fire. In fact, Papercuts reminds me of GX Jupitter-Larsen's band Haters and their noise creations-except where Haters made harsh sounds like smashing glass or roaring fires, Kahn and Mueller stick to more subtle sounds. Their Papercuts enter and exit without resolution. But the meditative quality of these sounds is undeniable."
- Mark Corroto, allaboutjazz.com

Die Enttäuschung: "S/T" LP
"Look closely and you'll see Thelonious Monk lurking in the abstract expressionist photo montage of Frankenstein movies, 50s-style fitted kitchen ads, 60s girl groups, dancing bears and hardboiled eggs (?), a reminder that Die Enttäuschung's debut double album on Two Nineteen consisted solely of Monk covers (which also featured prominently on their Grob CD, released in 2002 but recorded five years earlier). This time round all the material is penned by group members - bass clarinettist Rudi Mahall contributes five pieces, trumpeter Axel Dörner four, drummer Uli Jennessen three and bassist Jan Roder one - but reveals the same fondness for the angular, Third Stream-like quasi-serial structures beloved of early 60s pioneers on Prestige and Blue Note. Mention Dörner to most folk and they'll immediately think extended technique, circular breathing, icy blasts of breathy noise, sub-bass growls and all manner of noises that you'd normally expect to find in a sawmill or a sewage works. However, as an Invisible Jukebox for Signal To Noise magazine a while back revealed, Dörner is well versed in jazz, namechecking Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Roy Eldridge, Rex Stewart, Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Kenny Dorham, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis and Tony Fruscella as among his favourites. And Booker Little, whose "Man Of Words" he identified in seconds. It's Little who comes to mind most often on this date, particularly - thanks to that bass clarinet - the Little of the 1961 Five Spot dates with Eric Dolphy. Of course, there's no piano here (friendly relations do however exist between the group and Alex von Schlippenbach), and though it's probably unfair to compare Roder and Jennessen to the Richard Davis / Edward Blackwell dream team that graced those legendary recordings, Roder attacks his solos with the verve and melodic forthrightness of Charles Mingus, and also has a nice line in Slam Stewart-style singalong bow solos, while Jennessen punches the music forward most effectively (Roy Haynes comes to mind). The horn players are, needless to say, superb throughout. The only doubt I have is to why they settled on the name Die Enttäuschung, which if my German is correct (that's a big if), means "The Disappointment". Because this most definitely isn't."
- Dan Warburton, paristransatlantic.com

Mueller/Rainey/Schoenecker: "S/T" CD
"Three accomplished avantgarde musicians deciding to do as little as possible with maximum effect. The sound of the body of a saxophone and of a drumset not being used, accompanied by inaudible synthesizers filling every gap of your hearing and mind after some time. Can you imagine what that might sound like? Explored in two short and two long tracks making up for one unbelievable listening. It took me quite some time to get through to this record, to grow accustomed to its sheer volume of consequence spawning from its defiance of musical standard and provocation, that is so contradictory to what is commonly thought that music is about. Like sound, or even tones only. In a way these three musicians have come together to not make music, to produce no-music or anti-music. Most of the time, the sounds produced for and recorded onto this record are mainly impressing by their complete lack of musicality. Lack of musicality here doesn't mean free form improvisation played without knowledge about harmonies or chords and definitely not the "do it like the kids" mindset of the late hippie-years. It means producing not music, but rather enhancing the sounds that are already here in the same space with us. There is some noise in the beginning, but after a few minutes that is gone, replaced by some high frequencies monotonously humming, some clanking and jangling like the drummer stowing away his sticks on the rack. A subtle pulsating hum adds a rhythmic annotation, but not easily differentiated from the hum of an air-condition, for instance. Mostly it is undecipherable sounds and noises, appearing so gently in the background - there is no foreground on this recording - that the notation of percussion (Jon Mueller), saxophone (Bhob Rainey) and synthesizer (Jim Schoenecker) seems almost like a lie. As if the musicians had left the room during the recording and the wind and elements tickled the instruments to give away some sounds. But since all three musicians are well known for their experimental work and to really explore the fringes in it, that should not be any wonder. Also for diving into "small" sounds, subtle and almost inaudible sounds and for taking their time. (check out "papercuts" by Jon Mueller and Jason Khan where they use sounds of papersheets being ripped or cut to produce frightingly good and striking ambient noise). An astonishing step away from their free improvisation work, e.g. Jon Mueller and Hat Melter, to leave their instruments do their own thing without much interference. The experience is even more challenging and rewarding than listening to the great "thumb"-project with Rowe, Ambarchi, Oshihide, Sachiko M and others but with less of the mesmerizing trance-states. Leave the window open while playing. Cars going by, random parts of people talking on the street or even the distant singing of a bird might add a beautiful layer to this record. It will also enhance the radiant feeling of randomness and being delivered to chaotic and non-controllable accidents and incidents that is already audible in the recording. Sometimes I sit in my room with all music turned down listening to the noise of the traffic going by and the hum of the electricity flowing through the cables in my walls. Incredible, indescribable."
- http://www.monochrom.at/cracked