Cathode Ray Tube keeps blazing his own trail, where sci-fi glitch and industrial structures coexist. While the alarming synth swell of “No Concessions” batters the ears, “Tractor Logic” claws its way through with gnarled technoid and power electronics splinters, launching into a flurry of dilapidated rhythms. Charles Terhune, a prolific experimental sonic voyager based in Maine, has previously given us these stinging aural recipes, but this time there’s a twist.

The sheer strength of CRT’s aural canvass appears to be splitting open throughout Overworld. Tracks like the reverberating beat patches of “Dots on Dots Forever” and the muted industrial dub mechanics of “Safe Passage” ebb and flow through a labyrinth of concrete blocks and exploratory synth dynamics like pounding seas smashing upon a breakwater poised to breach. And these soundscapes somehow make their way to the seashore through minuscule faults, wreaking havoc in the process.

The closing piece titled “Mutation Specialist,” with its mechanized atmospheric noise-crossed signals, and the blips and bleeps beauty of “Kyroprekitt” further reinforce a sense of creative destruction as CRT delivers a surreal storm-surging soundtrack that breaks through with fragmented synthesis and industrial techno juxtaposition. While Overworld showcases a distinct horizon line where the underworld and overworld converge, its unrelenting electronics is set for futuristic dystopian landscapes. - IGloo Magazine

“Given the supreme musical proficiency of techno legends Cathode Ray Tube and Chaircrusher, they were always going to be able to figure out how to stitch something cool like this together, but you'll still find yourself taken aback by just how tight it all ends up being.” - Triplicate Recordings

“Such a varied sonic-sculpting foray manages to expose powerfully blistered electronic panoramas this side of the galaxy.” - IGLOO MAGAZINE

REWOVEN TRANSMISSIONS is compiled of remixes from the album A BRIGHT-EYED CREATURE on Component Recordings.

“With Imperfect Vessel, CRT distinctively combines scorched electronics and panoramic imperfections to create a unique blend of powerful soundtrack motifs, particularly on the epic finale “Wilkommen Auf Bleepstadt” with its downtempo glitch entanglement. Ultimately, all that remains as the EP closes is a faint shadow of itself.“ - IGLOO MAGAZINE

“"Now, we’re not entirely sure if The Oryx At Night has anything to do with the mammal-like deer that dwells in desert areas of Africa and Arabia, but this EP feels uncomfortably surreal as it carefully descends into silence." - IGLO MAGAZINE

Landing somewhere between dark ambient and Deutsche kosmiche, THE ORYX AT NIGHT ep shines a bleak light into the darkness. Here is where shapes become forms while some things remain formless, at the edges of perception. A parallel, shadowy world alongside this where the edges between things of weft and shift without coherent motive or intent.” - IGLOO MAGAZINE

“Mantras 4-5-6” is a live recording from CRT’s live outings of 2023, the first in almost ten years! The live set chugs and chomps through a thud heavy landscape of beeps, bops and bloops.
Included are two new sizzler remixes from Chaircrusher and Solypsis! Very excited for you to hear this! Dig in!

Maxed Bigs is not just a rejected Star Wars character but the title of the 2nd of my free birthday EPs. I started these last year to mark the occasion and it seems like a good thing so here’s tracks that I loved which never quite found a home on other release or never quite landed right until recently.

Holiday has a nice Bossa nova groove to it with some sweet keys and beats. I remixed “A Witches Bedroom” for the amazing Claire McGregor and while she didn’t use the remix she graciously allowed me to publish it here. Ragnaroku was a track I wrote a couple years ago and shelved because I couldn’t make it work until tackling it again recently. And finally Antibody Love Song is from this year but was an orphan until now.

Thank you for supporting me and my music. It means everything to me. - CRT

“With four tracks spanning 30 minutes on Infrastrictura, the Maine-based industrial electronics sculptor returns and continues to push the envelope with surreal aural worlds. Yet, CRT (aka Charles/Chang Turhune) creates downtempo rhythms that effortlessly bend and twist despite the darker, piercing beats and synth work (see “Grief Is Scum On The Water.”) You’ll struggle to find any breathing room elsewhere as “Two Different Stories About The Same Place” creates a whirling patchwork of disconnected sound sources and blips that nevertheless work well together.

The final two tracks are what really grab our attention. “Dismantling The Ghost” has a robotic, warped rhythm that builds into hundreds of intertwined layers, while “Boeing Boing Bong” has delicate melodic fractures that, over the course of its eight minutes, seem to collapse and regenerate themselves. Simply baffling.” - IGLOO MAGAZINE

FROM THE “FRONTIERS” LISTENING PARTTY LIVE CHAT:

I will talk a little bit about what FRONTIERS is about. I'll split it into the meaning, then the music, then the recording unless it's still just me. Okay, so about the music itself. What I wanted to do was gather newer music I've been working on. My last 2 releases were of older - but still balls out awesome! - tracks. Since Jan '23 I've been working on both my recording and composing skills. Both have improved I believe. FRONTIERS is about 2 things: expanding your horizons and letting yourself groove. By that I mean allow yourself to explore and learn, educate and illuminate yourself. FRONTIERS for me encapsulates one of the few resolutions I've made at New Year's Eve and kept. And that was to get out of my own way. So that I could explore the frontiers.

SUBTLE DISTINCTIONS I created something a bit lighter and peppier than my usual stuff. I hope. I think that's what the EP is about to be honest. HOPE. It's something I've not had a lot of lately. But over the course of this year things improved immensely and it seems like maybe there's some sunlight up ahead. What the songs on FRONTIERS have in common is they're all pretty upbeat, brighter in sound. I've been working on more space in my recordings and FRONTIERS is the newest and best example of that.

My tracks have always had a lot going on tho I came to realize they were sometimes muddy and unclear. I actually discovered that driving back from my sister-in-law's funeral in February. I was playing tracks for my wife on the drive back and half of them sounded muddy with a lot of the highs lost.

Of course a 2018 Subaru Forester isn't a great listening environment but it still sounded blech. When I got home I listened on my studio monitors and read up online and came to realize that I needed to up my recording game. So I did and I'm happy to say that not only I think they sound better but my beta listeners all agree they do.

MODAL AUXILIARY is a great example of a lot of soundscaping and sound bed taking up space while the actual melodic/harmonic/ percussive stuff is up front. It was fun to craft it to mix the more ambient soundscape parts with the melodic ones. I reeeeeaaaaallly love how the last half of the song is pretty much just audio sludge. I do wonder if my outros are too long but that's what my beta listeners are for. They'll tell me if it is too long. And you can blame Autechre for that. After decades of their long, deconstructed endings it's one of my favorite things to do. Oh man that ambience at the end always gets me.

"Q: CRT what's up with your titles?"

Great question! OUTPATIENT is sort of about my time in an outpatient program. hence the name. Now that was a fun one, too, because the main synth parts are almost all Arturia plugins. The Buchla Music Easel is especially wild. This and INSECURITY can best be summed up as inspired by Meat Beat Manifesto. I got sick of A/B comparing my songs to MBM songs. I thought I was doing everything right but they still sounded weak. So I went to the woodshed so to speak (the real one is full of spiders), studied and I think this track and INSECURITY both slap about 60% as much as an MBM track. Okay 50% but still I just want to make big bangers sometimes ya know? Boom bapp beats, dub delays, noisey shit! What's funny to me is how all it takes is a little extra time and a little tweaking and then BOOM the track just opens up! Long ago a friend said it's all about panning & EQing which I came to find is 2 out of 3. I'd say the 3rd part of that is gain staging. It's more technical than I want to get into now but it's made all the difference in my mind. About 1/2 way through OUTPATIENT there's a big long ambient part that I sometimes wondered was too long. Now I think it works as a break between the two parts. A… frontier if you will.  After 6 minutes in the track is basically a long slow fadeout lol I love how it all combines into this weird, glitchy thing where all the loops go in and out then come together. The noise gets big and brash then slowly washes out. The last 2 minutes are a nice bit of ambience themselves. I even thought about breaking it into 2 tracks but they don't work either alone or as a shorter track. You need to hear the whole damn thing to get the entire idea. Imagine being only shown one square foot of the Sistine Chapel at a time? Okay my work isn't on the par of Michelangelo but you get what I mean.

INSECURITY was actually never supposed to be on an album. It's a track I started then used as my guineau pig for teaching myself about recording. And in the end it ended up sounding pretty dope. When I sequenced this ep I was surprised how well it worked with the other tracks. And that beat is straight up MBM. Boom boom bapp! Well kinda.  I have become obsessed with one section of this song at about 4:15. This break came out so smooth. Last for almost a minute. Almost as funky as Funky Drummer! And the buildup after works nice too I think.

Ten tracks that really should get a larger audience due to its size and scope—Cathopsis is the debut collaboration between two multi-talented sound carvers Cathode Ray Tube (CRT, aka Chang Terhune) and Solypsis (aka James Miller)—operating at around 2,700 miles of separation. Their self-titled album is a powerful amalgam of frenetic beats, harsh, and unrelenting tones interspersed with heavy-hitting dub, electro and industrial shrapnel. “Dark and spiky sounds and looping mayhem” as CRT put it in a recent email exchange. The turbulent fluctuations featured here are as thick as mud with smoldering apocalyptic electronics (ref. “Immortal Game” and “Mucky”) and technoid deformations splitting wide open (ref. “Angel,” “Dream Industry,” and closure track “Radio Permaculture.”) The duo manage to unearth fractured tones and razor sharp soundtracks to lost worlds (“Pseudoston”) all while showcasing their hybrid skills and broad range of styles. A seriously tough and targeted collection of harsher electronics available on limited edition CD and digital download. - IGLOO MAGAZINE

THE ISLAND OF DOUBT is a journey through uncertain terrain. Washing upon its shores one is confronted by sounds, some harsh, some mellow, some gleaming and some dark. CRT's characteristic ambient electro is in full effect with dashes of dub, jungle, and more. Through light and darkness this album navigates the strange weft and waves of these even stranger times. 

This release also includes 4 videos.

“Colossus… displays a much softer tone, if we can put it that way. Four tracks opening with a symphony of ambient techno swirls shifting trajectories along the way (“Delineation”) as “Training Wheels (Deluxe Mix)”—the original featured on The Island of Doubt as a skeletal stream of glitchy pulses—is an uplifted version of itself; coming across as an Orbital synth-laden soundtrack with drifting melodies and thudding beats. Avant-garde electronics glide across the spectrum on the rapid-fire drum patterns of “Skive,” to the downtempo, broken beat, and wandering illbient beauty of “Machicolocation,” closing on a high note. Colossus embarks on ethereal mayhem, its edges chiseled just enough, and overall, it’s much smoother (and complex) listening experience worth your time.” - IGLOO MAGAZINE

A Brighteyed Creature draws its influences from my experiences with ketamine treatments for clinical depression in 2021. To say they were effective undermines how profoundly life changing they were. These sessions not only significantly reduced my depression but allowed me insight into parts of my mind and my existence I wasn’t even aware of.

During one of these sessions I had a vision of a being born of pure consciousness at once open to the universe, seeing the bindings and underpinnings of reality yet remaining grounded in this plane. It’s dedicated to my father who passed away unexpectedly shortly after it’s completion. I hope you will enjoy hearing is as much as I did making it.

“ENTER THE ANGEL” is the October ep for Bandcamp Friday when 100% of sales go to the artist! Dig into this mix of hard jungle, glitchy ambient electro and flat out ambient.

“Cathode Ray Tube creates electronic sprawling, Autechre-length compositions with gloriously reckless abandon. Or extremely carefully. It could be either or both. They're all very tasty and enjoyable to listen to. He's a master of the hypnotic beat; of letting a good thing ride, as with the stellar closer 'Gag Reel', which you'll find sticks around in your subconscious long after the record has stopped. This is a masterclass in making a four-track LP feel White Album levels of substantial, The Burning Century is a smashing success by every metric.” - Triplicate Records

“An awakening of sound in music full of futuristic visions in the heart of great rhythm, CRT delivers brilliant soundscapes that journey along sonic evolutions. Its engaging, stunning work. Much love for these transformative and techno-colored creations! Favorite track: Invisibility.“

4 track ep released on Sept. 2, 2022, Bandcamp Friday.

4 track ep on Condition Human. Released August 2022

BANDCAMP DAILY BEST ELECTRONIC MUSIC AUGUST 2022:

From Portland, Maine, Cathode Ray Tube specializes in clattering, fidgeting electronica that ranges from the strung-out to the ultra-pummeling, but always manages to keep a sense of groove underneath. These four tracks demonstrate the impressive range of his style, from the sluggish and swampy (the title track) to the airborne and pixelated (“A Sheltering Sky”). The relentless repetitions in the tracks don’t give two hoots for the casual listener; but commit yourself, and the rewards are great.

"In 2018, I released the  album "INTONA REMORAE" on the immensely cool VIRAL CONSPIRACY label run by Mattia Travaglini. Mattia was kind enough to give me free reign so I dropped an EP of CRT material, each based on a specific set of instruments with strict limitations and boundaries for each track. It was fun to reign myself in and do something different than my usual stuff. I'm pleased that the response was so good especially given that it was a departure from the usual stuff Mattia release on VR. Mille grazie, Mattia!

I revisited those tracks last year and found it was time to revisit the concept. Using the same set of instruments, I created tracks with some new allowances added; more effects, changing the instruments if it truly suited the track and others. I've sat with these tracks for a while and decided to release them on CNDHMN. SOLIDITY is these four tracks, each built on the previous ep's tracks and extrapolated even further from I hope you enjoy them as much as I did making them. 

NEW ALBUM FOR BANDCAMP FRIDAY!!! It ain't no joke! Today @bandcamp waives their fees so that artists selling their music on this great site can get 100% of the revenue! And on this Bandcamp Friday I humbly offer you the first in a series of albums entitled 33.3. VOLUME ONE is the first of 10 songs each no longer than 3 minutes and 30 seconds. It started as a joke by @chaircrusher then blossomed into a thing of its own. I found that despite my love of my long form songs there was a joy in exploring how to place my music in a much smaller, more limited package than I'm used to. I'm really happy with the results and I hope you enjoy it, too. CLICK THE LINK for this and my other releases! ROCK ON!

Cathode Ray Tube’s form of crunchy industrial glitch and blurry hypnotics continues to expand via Wandering Stars‘ 4-piece suite. Opening track (“Plowright”) is perhaps the highlight of the lot where gritty looping beats get snagged in a mess of wires as mechanical soundscapes and simmering synths cascade midway. This is what CRT does best—sending scattered signals from far off spaces for us mere Earthlings to decipher. The fizzing echoes of “Sight Unseen” converge with tranquilized downtempo rhythms as tempered melodies ease us into jagged drums and flowing bleep structures. Does this EP run out of fuel after 15 turbulent minutes? Not at all. “Press Once Twice” delivers corrosive technoid grooves in multiple directions as a dizzying industrial pulse persists. Closing with over eight minutes of cybernetic electronics and crumpled percussion, CRT loosens up and applies ample funk on “An Idea For Leaving,” a strangely dislocated smorgasbord that unfolds at maximum volume—its engulfing detail fully exposed. A blisteringly intense audio voyage worth every minute. - IGLOO MAGAZINE

“This album is like a membrane protein: essential to my continued existence, yet difficult to crystalize.“ BG, Bandcamp

“Electronic rhapsodies that never overstay their welcome. Cathode Ray Tube skirts between dub, glitch, and any number of electronic subgenres - but their true talent lies in treating listeners to truly compositional experiences around ~8 minutes each.” Matt D., Bandcamp

“Cathode Ray Tube continues to delve outside his comfort zone, four tracks spread over 30-minutes, and we can’t find a moment to breath. The claustrophobic rhythms enacted on these tracks is enough to make your head spin—the myriad of ideas is baffling, the collection of found sounds is staggering, and how CRT manages to glue it all together remains a mystery.” - Igloo Magazine

From a Bandcamp review:

These ever changing sound- and beatscapes make you feel like you have been thrown down a wireless datastream of bits and bytes. Chunks of data flow by while you observe swirls of connecting and deconnecting information.

Pre-confield Autechre comes into my mind, as well as other 2000's industrial leaning IDM acts like Gridlock and Displacer. But Cathode Ray Tube has managed to create his own distinct niche within the genre.

Maybe my favourite CRT album :) Favorite track: Change The Beginning.

Where bass, beats and smoldering dark ambient modular activity crunches data into pixelized cinematic warfare, CRT delivers an impacted and multifaceted 9-track explosion.

- Igloo Magazine

“There are chunkier, melodic, and post-industrial fractures all throughout Anabasis that sheds light on CRT’s vast musical arsenal. And yet it’s his attention to detail gravitating from broken beats and downtempo layers to syncopated acid-electro and soundtracks to lost 80s films where synthesizers take center stage and artists like Giorgio Moroder and Morton Subotnick are paid homage. In all, CRT successfully deploys strange sonic shadows on his music making machines and ultimately breaks through a myriad of found sounds and hypnotic loops giving us a sense of positivity in such a downtrodden landscape.”

• Igloo Magazine

3 song ep of long form spacious techno

“CRT exposes hundreds of found sounds and erratic noises on this dystopian soundtrack we’ve yet to hear (until now). And what remains at the center of this album is its ability to blend a plethora of leftfield electronic genres into a beat infested and melodically crumpled smorgasbord as the prolific sound sculptor sarcastically advises his listeners that “anyone can play“—well, as long as we’re 6ft apart and wearing a mask, of course we can.”

- Igloo Magazine

Katabasis emphasizes on energy and tension over calm

Cathode Ray Tube’s work often evokes glittering hypermodern metropoli, rainy nights, and all those clichés burned into our minds. Katabasis revels in these images without irony, with great enthusiasm, and with deep connections to dub and IDM that sets its work apart from mere nostalgia. The aesthetic feels shallowly retro—looking back 20 years, tops—but with a sense or organic messiness and hope that provides it a fresher, more modern perspective, with a tripped-out angle that sets it apart.

All of the songs impart a distinct sense of travel, speed, velocity, and possibly escape. Whether that’s flying through toxic rain clouds in “Merchant of Dekay,” the chase sequence vibes of “Attention Span (Long Version),” or the stealthy skulking of “Agoriphonia,” the mind’s eye can’t help but open up to the suggested narratives in each track. Every piece is like a sci-fi short film waiting to be made, with effective cycles of tension and release throughout.

• Nathan Moody - IGLOO MAGAZINE

Cathode Ray Tube outdoes himself with probably the most stark, dark, and dystopian electronic soundscapes yet.

Well, just when I thought the prolific Cathode Ray Tube (CRT for short) wouldn’t be able to top his previous release(s)—Slow Your Vapor was released just a month ago, a mixture of more upbeat exp-electronic fractures—I’m almost left without words.

After having spent a year on this visual/soundtrack project—composed specifically with the barren and ruined world of his Bunnyhead minicomic in mind—CRT outdoes himself with probably the most stark, dark, and dystopian electronic soundscapes yet, borrowing the title of this album from Cabaret Voltaire’s 1981 classic psychedelic synth-industrial track of the same name on Rough Trade.

Ravaged and emotive industrial shards pulse with raw blips and darkened bleeps—”Safe House (Intro)” is a synthesized beauty that doesn’t let up. This album really kicks into gear (figuratively and literally), with 6 tracks all over the 7-minute mark—each piece is sonic shadow of its counterpart. “The Foundling” bounces across heated charcoals, its bass beats churning while an eerie industrial landscape is revealed. There are staccato breakbeat drums and disjointed rumbling rhythms ever-present on the fluid industrial-techno layers of “The Monoliths”—a highlight that just about comes to life as it evolves. The rugged and gritty “Leviathan” explores new worlds, broken tones, drones, and muffling low-end squiggles are elevated by digital clicks’n cuts scattered throughout just as “Regression Stance” emits a dense ambient-mechanical influx. “Uprooting Cursed Circuits” closes off with murky percussion, dilapidated rhythms, and nostalgic synthesizer tones. A mind-bending soundtrack to say the least! - IGLOO MAGAZINE

• WRITEUP TBD -

Cathode Ray Tube is perhaps the most prolific and underrated musician of the past two decades

Cathode Ray Tube is perhaps the most prolific and underrated musician of the past two decades, and we’ve covered quite a few of his releases—a complex assortment of braindance, modular noise, and experimental electronics with an industrial backbone. “Brittle Stars” does for these ears what I’ve come to expect—broken bass, beats, and synthesized tones and drones flickering in the background. The blips and bleeps of CRT’s machinery really come to life on “Death Group,” a foray through nostalgic melodies, tangled technoid bits, and elements of Orbital styled rhythms dancing about blissfully. The title track treads upon darker pathways, its subdued brittle electrical pulses and loose percussive treatment creates the soundtrack to a far away world. Not surprisingly, CRT has been on our radar for years and the expansion of his electronic structures maintain their vivid and futuristic tendencies. You’ll have to wait until mid-January 2020 for this release, and it’ll be well worth it.

• IGLOO MAGAZINE

DARK ROADS FOR THE YOUNG MAGUS is an album of nine sonic rituals, like unspoken incantations. It is a glimpse at one person’s personal journey through a wounded landscape both internal and external. Each song is shows one aspect of a being finding themselves at a crossroads where they must choose one of two paths: the known world of comfort, safety, predictability but no growth or the unknown road leading into metaphoric darkness wherein lies danger and instability but also untold knowledge, power and strength. The original magus or magi were Zoroastrian priests but in the context of DARK ROADS, the “young magus” is one who embarks on this journey into unknown terrain wherein there lies hidden knowledge and truths as well as pitfalls. The “young” magus is not necessarily a youthful person but one who hasn’t yet received such knowledge acquired from a journey like this. Each song is in itself an exorcism and an alchemical transformation. Each play of DARK ROADS FOR THE YOUNG MAGUS brings the listener one step closer to this knowledge and one step further from the realm of the safe and the known.

We’ve covered quite a bit of Charles Terhune’s Cathode Ray Tube moniker over the years, and one things is clear with each release—be it an EP or LP, there’s always a persistent and evolving leftfield electronic focus and an inherent groove buried deep within each release. With this 4-track spanning roughly 30-minutes, a multitude of stretched-out and rugged IDM versus breakcore merges with gritty, synthesizer tones, drones, blips, and rusty bleeps. “Miasma_B2” created its own soundscape— bubbling ambient undercurrents flicker about as downbeat bass and beats break through. “Slimegrinder” is upfront and direct in its approach as a cacophony of liquid rhythms collide with dub-infused broken notes reminiscent of The JD’s (a Jack Dangers and Jon Drukman project). “Holding Pattern” delves into squelchy techno that Monolake fans would appreciate for its hypnotic pathway. A highlight takes shape in the downtrodden electro featured on “Caustic Slouch,” a slippery trove of dark acid shadows married to a catchy yet subtle melodic hook that kicks in midway. CHT hones his skills, offering disjointedly mind-bending electronics made from old-school analog hardware with soul.

Our Enemies Await Us is available on Component. All proceeds from this release go to www.raicestexas.org to help with legal aid for asylum seekers.

High Cube Drifter (M-Tronic, 2019) is the album Cathode Ray Tube (aka CRT, aka Charles Terhune) almost didn’t get to make. “I was nearly killed in a car accident in the summer of 2018,” says CRT. “They hit me on the driver’s side which spun us out then rolled the car three times. When it stopped, and I knew my daughter (and my dog) were safe, I realized it wasn’t my life that had flashed before my eyes. Instead, I saw images of everything I’ve yet to accomplish. One of these was making more music that comes closer to what I hear in my mind. I walked away from the accident but the lessons I learned from it stay with me. I’m lucky to be alive and even luckier to be able to continue to do the things I love, one of which is make music.”

“Through the digital decomposition of rhythm and melody, Cathode Ray Cube makes  High Cube Drifter  a collection of highly danceable and addictive electronic music. The album opens soon seminal with "Good Morning", a theme that presents itself as a good alarm clock for the rest of the album. Working around rhythms and repeating sounds, the infectious enthusiasm of the  High Cube Drifter  can be found in themes such as " Flying Zero" - a 10-minute network full of influences ranging from industrial music to minimal electronics - " Kicking Sides "or the miscellaneous" Neverwhere 3.“

- THRESHOLD MAGAZINE

Cathode Ray Tube dropped a three song single entitled—how very clever—Splitsingle (Condition Human). The three songs vary in style and length while all bearing the hallmarks of CRT’s sonic palette. “Stolen Pressure” opens with the clank and rumble of a junkyard coming to life before morphing into a hot mess of a dancefloor cracker with thumping drums and depth charge bass coming together like a Funkadelic fever dream. “The Fool” opens with a bed of misty, swirling ambience and beats with their bass scooped out like ghost drums stumbling across a marsh at midnight; this progresses into an arpeggiated 909 drum pounding invocation reminiscent of Kenny Larkin, System 7, and Drum Club. The final track “Interstellar Sea Cow” arrives with the pace and tempo of a funeral march on beatbox loops, melancholic strings and slow, throbbing synth bass. Splitsingle is a short EP, but an excellent addition to CRT’s already impressive discography. ~CT

INTONA REMORAE

released December 18, 2018 

ALL SONGS BY CATHODE RAY TUBE 
Mastered By KENT WILLIAMS 
RECORDED JUNE AND JULY 2018 AT FLOW CONTROL 8.0 
NO ORGANIC SOURCES WERE USED IN THE MAKING OF THIS RECORDING. 
MANY THANKS TO: Alice, Sophia, Ellen, Jay, Viral Conspiracy, Mattia, Component Recordings, Snowbeasts, Displacer, Crime League, Laurent, M-Tronic, Condition Human, Family and Friends too many to name and too great to be forgotten. 

"This album in particular might be the best I've heard from him.  Reminds me of that feeling as a kid in the late nineties, listening to Dead Cities or Orblivion for the first time.  So many twists and turns, such impeccable sound design.  I'd be willing to wager this would be right up many folks alleys in here." - Extralife

“The Void and Other Structures” marks yet another chapter in the evolution of Cathode Ray Tube’s music. Here we find CRT moving even deeper into unknown territory. The album toys with opposing elements in a variety fo ways: glitchy distortion versus clean sounds, melody versus dissonance, harmony versus threnody. “I’m learning to let go a little bit,” says CRT. “As a human I’m blinded by the illusion of control. Yet as a musician I craft songs with a great deal of control, proing and fretting over every second of every note, every tone and and every beat. Apply too much control and you choke out your muse. But let go of it and you allow space to appear and from that space new ideas emerge.”

Song like ‘Fumes,’ the album’s opener, pump with crisp arpeggiated synths, thudding beatboxes and atmospherics galore. Other tracks like “Nautiloid Reach” and “Dead River Dub” teeter on the edge of chaos like the fever dream of someone binge watching nature and conspiracy theory documentaries simultaneously. “Antipodean,” the album’s closer, offers a lighter, almost elegiac coda to a diverse collection of songs.

As one listens it’s as if there are deep forces at work in CRT’s music. Many of the tracks have the feel of rituals performed in dark chambers, evoking unknown spirits from numinous realms. “I’m not going to argue with that,” says CRT, laughing. “I mean a void is a space with a negative structure if you think about it. Just as music is informed by sielnce and the space in between the notes, a void can be informed by mattter in between and around empty spaces.”

Suitable for the dance floor or midnight drives, “The Void And Other Structures” shows Cathode Ray Tube’s commitment to pushing ever forward, ever onward in his restless quest for new sounds.

THE VOID AND OTHER STRUCTURES is available on Component Recordings>

Jad THIS SHOULD BE GETTING MORE ATTENTION!!! Favorite track: Imperial Lane Dub.

Extralife Imagine if Autechre circa 1994 decided to make a dub album. Strap yourself in for this one...Favorite track: Imperial Lane Dub.

"Brittney Sparse doesn’t seem too concerned with semantics, but instead details a dub-techno strain and eroded electronic sound that is both relaxing and contemplative." - Igloo Magazine

TRIUMPH OF A HORSE CALLED RADIOMAN is the latest release from Brittney Sparse. Previous release have included the album UNCOMFORTABLE and the BIRDY ep. RADIOMAN is a 6 track deep foray into four on the floor territory, rife with the clang and crinkle of 909's. deep bass and hollow reverbs. As Cathode Ray Tube, CRT has made no effort to hide his techno influences such as Juan Tejada, Joey Beltran, Orbital, Drexciya, Kenny Larkin, Moby and others. Here he combines the old school with the new, welding glitchy dub into arpeggios and drones. The mixture results in tones reminiscent of Deadbeat, Jon Hopkins, Diego, Meat Beat Manifesto's "Kasmo EP" and Blamstrain.

TRIUMPH OF A HORSE CALLED RADIOMAN is available now on Condition Human, iTunes, Spotify, Tidal ad most major online streaming venues.

Atlas Of Migraine details an expansive foray through the ventricles of intelligent dub music, mustering up hundreds of ideas that disperse evenly upon its technoid infused landscape. - Igloo Magazine.

“Atlas of Migraine” is a journey through the darkness of pain into the light of relief and release. Says CRT “I hope you enjoy this album, this exploration of an internal topography not seen by many. And I hope it induces no pain but instead frees and inspires you to rise above and persevere.”

(Atlas of Migraine is out now on Heterodox Records)

The Frozen Years manipulates and unfurls a sonic myriad of sound—its distilled and disturbed frequency jolts more relaxed, CRT continues with his own imprint perhaps hinting at what’s to come. - Igloo Magazine

The Frozen Years covers wide sonic territories, packing a full album's worth of  music into a compact package. 'Gutter Purger's' deep drop vocals meld with intergalactic trap beats. "Dormant Alchemy's" slow burn intro progresses from dark ambience into a beat heavy shuffle across icy lands. "Here We Go" binds heavy metal drums with pizzicato tones in a melancholic stroll through a wintry garden. This is followed up by the bleep-tastic funk workout on "Fresh Money Stacks." Funk continues with the skittering, glitchy hip-hop of "The Unkind Rewind's" nods to Cabaret Voltaire, Ghislain Poirier and Tim Cosner's arson hip hop. The ESP finishes with the proto-jazz new wave romance of 'Clay Hearts (For Alice).'

A brief foray into deep, intergalactic, abstract alien soul dub. I've been a fan of dub ever since I heard Black Uhuru's "What Is Life" dub. From then on I sought the sound of dub in its many forms. I became a purist in the early 2000's, seeking out the sounds of Adrian Sherwood, Lee Scratch Perry, King Tubby and Augustus Pablo. Here is the result of that journey into the heavy heavy monster sound by way of white boy hard electronica. Please Enjoy!

Igloo Magazine loves my new album!

Cathode Ray Tube (aka Chang Terhune) embarks on perhaps his most thorough and expansive album to date. Where past releases were engorged by visceral electronic mayhem, The New Taxonomy is just as blistering, its basslines rumbling at full capacity—yet there’s a calmer, systematic order.

I'm grateful for any reviews especially the ones that like my albums! The venerable Igloo Mag said wonderful things about the record and I'm pleased as punch. It's been a long time coming out and it's great to know people are loving it. 

This quote in particular is awesome:

"The New Taxonomy is effervescent in its construct—weaving elongated dub realms with ease. Low-end waves continually crash against sharpened 4/4 mechanics which blends in a kaleidoscopic, surreal dream state."

Funnily enough "Normal Kids" is in 5/4. But who's counting?!

artwork, layout and design by CONDITION:HUMAN

Available now ! Rust Remodeled. Remixes and Reinterpretations of Cathode Ray Tube's Life Among the Rust from Displacer, Robert Logan, Solypsis, Production Unit Xero, Gys, & more!

artwork, layout and design by CONDITION:HUMAN

Famous Monsters is my 4th album for the mighty Component Recordings.

Igloo magazine said this about it:

Component is now a well known label for Igloo readers. I reviewed a few releases from two of their leading projects Snowbeasts and Pattern Behavior, both recommended for fans of dark challenging releases in modern electronic / synthscaping music. Cathode Ray Tube is one interesting IDM and post-techno ambient project formed by Charles R. Terhune and previously signed by Component the last few years.

Famous Monsters is a name your price album available in digital format. It is an expanded electronic voyage through melodious spacey synth textures, spherical atmospheric sequences with occasional glitchesque experimentation. The result sounds quite like a dramatic, cinematic and discreetly lugubrious soundtrack for an imaginary metaphysical sci-movie. This is a pleasant sound excursion, gently moving with moments of haunting hypnosis. We are here at the cross of ominous dark ambient and cinematic space drone music with a fervent interest for thrilling cyber synth effects. My favorite tracks include the beautiful ethereal “Call to error” and “Deep Space Device.” The musical tendency marks a slight departure from the more abstract beat minimalism quality of albums such as Tribal Malfunctions (2014) and Urban Patterning (2015).

Famous Monsters is easily recommended for listeners of dark space ambient crossovers nestled between Biosphere, Robert Henke and Loscil for stylistic similarity.

Famous Monsters is available on Component.

PLAY LOUD AND OFTEN. IGNORE WHEN PLAYING FIRST THREE TIMES. AVOID DIRECT OBSERVATION AND ABSORB DIAGONALLY. 

this music is best played at full volume in EMPTY spaces such as abandoned homes, derelict municipal structures, CRUMBLING SPORTS ARENAS, condemned housing developments, abandoned amusement parks, empty condominium complexes, defunct medical facilities such as hospitals and mental institutions, casinos and unfinished mansions. 

WARNING: under no circumstances may this music be played in cemeteries or sites of atrocities or used in rituals of any kind.

credits

released August 15, 2014 

artwork, layout and design by CONDITION:HUMAN

ABYSSALIA is my 3rd EP for the revolutionary Component Recordings.  

“ABYSSALIA is about going deep while going dark,” says Charles Terhune aka Cathode Ray Tube. “Not going dark in the sense of radio silence but of stepping into darkness both in tone and exploring the unknown.”

These are hefty tracks in keeping with CRT’s unabashed love of noise, dub, funk and deep electronics.  His influences are clear here – from Fela Kuti to King Tubby to Autechre and Parliament and back again – but it’s clearly CRT sound and vision you’re hearing.  ‘Water Park’ melds gltichy, clipped beats, dub delay and reverb to conjure up faded memories giving way to new soundscapes. ‘$200 Air Jordan’s’ is the soundtrack to a back alley girl fight with a bad ending. ‘The Lesson (BlackPink4)’ is an exercise in funk – what earned CRT’s songs the genre bending title of “android slo-jams” – with heavy doses of glitch, industrial and numerous other influences. ‘Little Glass Flower’ jumps out like a daisy piercing sun bleached concrete, providing a brief and bright spot amidst the dense soundscapes of the EP’s other tracks.  The EP concludes with the title track ‘Abyssalia,’ a heavy duty workout in dub atmospherics, deep end glitchery and all over weird vibes.

“I’m always exploring new territory with my music,” says CRT. “Always working out my demons, my ideas and methods all at once in my tracks.  Through that process I exorcise, I heal and I evolve.”

ABYSSALIA’s a dark journey through the sound of CRT’s latest sonic state of mind. The journey may be taken alone though the path may be circuitous and lead you to strange places. You have been warned.

ABYSSALIA IS IS OUT NOW ON COMPONENT RECORDINGS!

artwork, layout and design by CONDITION:HUMAN

Exodus Partners is my 2nd album for the spectacular Component Recordings.

Igloo Magazine said:

Cathode Ray Tube’s (CRT) music dwells in a world of broken things: broken machines, broken sounds and broken dreams. “I think of my music as the sound of decomposition over time,” he says. “My music is the sound and vision of collapsing structures where there is still beauty and form amongst the inevitable decay and entropy.”

On “EXODUS PARTNERS”, CRT’s “decomposis” method is in full effect. Beats hover on the edge of collapse, melodies crumble while deep bass frequencies threaten to prematurely return everything to the dust form whence it came. “2460 UD” is a frenzied opener to the album with rhythms crashing into each other as multiple arpeggiated melodies collide. “One Day In May” simultaneously explores beauty and darkness, evoking the works of Monolake, Orbital, Autechre, and Scuba while still forging unique territory. “The Next Mission” brings forth the darkness of Scorn and later Meat Beat Manifesto as it produces unique sonic palettes reminiscent of the soundtrack work of Cliff Martinez and The Dust Brothers. “Soundtracks are a huge inspiration to me,” says CRT. “Though my songs are the soundtrack to my life they’re applicable to films as well.” It’s not just Cathode Ray Tube who sees his work in that light.

Critics have called CRT’s music “dynamic, colorful and cinematic sounding electronic ambient that will ravish fans of 70s/80s B-grade film scores from sci-fi to thrillers and twister experimental films.” “EXODUS PARTNERS” is all of that and more, the soundtrack of one man’s journey in, out, through and beyond dark times.

EXODUS PARTNERS is out Wednesday, August 5, 2015 on Component Recordings.

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Urban Patterning is my 2nd EP for the remarkable Component Recordings.

Igloo Magazine said this about it:

"Urban Patterning is a dynamic, colorful and cinematic sounding electronic ambient album that will ravish fans of 70s/80s B-grade film scores from sci-fi to thrillers and twister experimental films."

- Phillipe Blache, Igloo Magazine

artwork, layout and design by CONDITION:HUMAN
photograph by Richard P. Terhune, 1968

Welcome To Ghost Country is my first full album for the inestimable Component Recordings.

Igloo Magazine had this to say about it:

A smattering of electronics fed through low end frequency tones, fellow Igloo Magazine contributor Charles R. Terhune (aka Cathode Ray Tube) drains every possible genre to its core. Post-industrial bits and bytes are crossed against soundtrack motifs, curious noise is broken up by synths and modular mayhem, elongated glitchy tentacles meander through evolved technoid spaces and eradicated rhythms echo within textured audio chambers. A seemingly momentous stream of leftfield voices, clips, clicks and disjointed bursts of melodic moments are stripped to the bone only to be reincarnated into vaporous mechanical layers of bliss and noise. This adventurous sonic passage is a definitive electronic music cross-section and as the artist describes, “Avoid direct observation. Absorb sound diagonally.” We could not have said this any better.

Welcome To Ghost Country is available Component.

Dominated by guitars and other stringed machines, "Surrenderer" comprises demos and finished tracks from cathode ray tube's four and six stringed output. Song range from the dark ambience of "I Can't Wake Her Up" to the Godflesh-like apocalyptic ambience of "Gooch Keech." Stand out tracks are "Golden Ages," "(Are There) Moogs In Heaven" and "Running At Night."

released May 30, 2014 

Official soundtrack album to the book The Astrogatrix.

artwork, layout and design by CONDITION:HUMAN

With this album my intention was to express one of the ways I felt about making music which was that each song began with a problem or equation to be solved. My role was to not just write a song but to see it through its various issues and problems until a suitable result was found to each problem a song or songs presented. It's a stark album almost more suited to the minimal techno of my Brittney Sparse music but there's more than enough IDM in there to keep glitch heads happy.

artwork, layout and design by CONDITION:HUMAN

UNCOMFORTABLE was my first full foray into minimal techno in the Berlin style. I've long been a fan of such artists as Monolake, Porter Ricks, Snd, Plastikman and the Basic Channel label. It always amazed me how I could get so jazzed by the very simple, sparse arrangements and the very similar beats. Yet every time one of those tracks comes on I get going. This album is the result of working with a very limited set of gear and is in fact the first album done entirely in the box, i.e. within my laptop. "TUGBOAT" is a highlight, inspired by a trip I took with my family on a tugboat into Casco Bay Harbor to see the Queen Elizabeth II up closer than most people can; the fog on the trip inspired the sense of wonder and mystery about the size and shape of the lights in the darkness. "TIMESLIP" is another, an attempt to do more with less, and almost no effects.

Also included in the digital release are several bonus tracks that never quite saw the light of day including a few remixes and some alternate versions of tracks.

The album's title came from a reaction to a recording by a folk musician called "Comfortable." I took the direct opposite approach and even chose the incongruous image of sunflowers to further push against that concept. Enjoy.

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THE MOUNTAIN SISTERS were actually a real pair of Scottish sisters I knew from a yoga studio I worked at. There was nothing particularly unique about them but something about the phrase "The Mountain Sisters" conjured up an image for me of these mystical women in a mountain shrine or retreat. The original artwork was a picture I'd found via Google of these nude women wearing head scarves posing in a rocky garden. I wish I could remember the search term I used because when I lost the computer I'd recorded it on that also contained the artwork for the CD. Despite numerous searches I've never found it since.

The actual music was a big leap forward in learning the fairly new technology of VST's and HD recording. After some false starts I finally learned Logic and made most of this album with my hardware and software synths especially the venerable Pluggo.  It also features quite a lot of Nord Modular which I miss some days. On this album I dug pretty deep in to the tracks, using a great deal of small edits and microedits to work over the various tracks and beats. "Snowy" and "Sacred Days" are two tracks that come to mind from this period where I learned how to create atmospheres from deep dark textures, getting a softer sound by removing the rough edges from drums or synths. The eponymous title track is almost all KORG POLY800II sequencer layered over and over on itself to create a weird but rich texture.

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UNCLE WRIGGILY was entirely about making some godawful noise. It was recorded around the same time as THE MOUNTAIN SISTERS but the music just didn't fit in with that album. Some of the tracks were the result of learning how to use certain plugins. Others were seeing how much crap I could pile up on top of other crap without it being too much of a mess. It's great music to play to get rid of unwanted houseguests or to remove wallpaper or vermin. Or skin. Use carefully in all situations. 

artwork, layout and design by CONDITION:HUMAN

I'll spare you a 9/11 story suffice it to say it hit me hard. I had to play a gig 2 nights later and it was awfully difficult to go out and do anything other than feel hopeless and watch CNN. But the show went on and I played.

The ensuing months were also weird for another reason; after graduating from a web design intensive course I watched the market for dotcom jobs dry up as 2001 wore on into one of the darker periods of American history and my life. I found myself working the dairy department of a Whole Foods, stacking yogurts while coming to terms with my own life challenges and a world where it seemed unsafe to bring up a child much less go out into daily life.

From that I worked up a collection of songs about the world I saw where fundamentalist Christians talked from air conditioned TV studios about the Muslim threat while sounding not unlike the Muslim fundamentalists calling for the death of America from caves in Pakistan. Mix that in with a few other odd tracks and you have MTMOOLT. 

The title comes from some handgun manual I heard a friend mention at a party. It seemed fitting for the times we were suddenly thrust into. The songs wove into each other as did the threats to my safety and "freedom" I was seeing on a daily basis. Weird to trust more in my mailman than Pres. Bush but those were the times.

It was my first real foray into HD recording and using plugins. I did it all in Studiovision Pro just before it was shitcanned by Gibson. It was clumsy and didn't work right with my Mac especially with regard to host sync to tempo. But it was mine and worked well enough to record. 

There's some rough bass playing on here in Last Days of Snow and some interesting early forays into minimal, ambient techno with Pompous Monumens. It also has one of my favorite tracks, a dark mashup of ICE-T over harsh beats in Your Pusher. All in all it's a barn burner of a message album without too much beating the point over people's heads.