Los Angeles-based Randy Greif (Los Angeles, 1957), who had graduated in Psychology from UC Santa Barbara, originally more interested in Poetry and Cinema, was one of the most inventive perpetrators of "musique concrete" of his generation, a sophsiticated specialist in audio collage, audio verite`, spoken-word, field recordings, sampling ethnic sources, and, last but not least, electronic soundpainting.

His progression in the art of sound collage during the 1980s is mainly documented by a series of cassettes, starting with It's In A Box (Swinging Axe, 1983), some credited to the Screaming Dukduks, such as Screaming Dukduks (1983) and Fuck the Dog (1984).

The ghostly and monumental Lost Contact (Swinging Axe, 1984) is a one-hour continuum of visionary collage: industrial percussive noise mixed with ominous cosmic drones, ghostly moaning (seven minutes into the piece), orchestral minimalist repetition (12-minute mark), operatic samples that sound like moos of cows, asbtract floating electronic masses, a wind of evil radiations, and finally warped voices that emerge from a cosmic fog to welcome the time traveler.

Magnetic Spine Review/ Wireless Spine Review (Swinging Axe, 1985) was created by sound artists from around the world by leaving a 30-second piece on Greif's telephone answering machine.

Easy Green Proof (Swinging Axe, 1985) was a collaboration with writer Alva Svoboda.

Golden Joy Club (Swinging Axe, 1986) contains 12 compositions, ranging from under three minutes to over ten minutes: industrial-ambient watercolors such as Devils Of Loudon, psychedelic-horror nightmares such as The Hole To Heaven and V Is For Victory, somnolent droning music for jazz instruments such as Long Empty Afternoon (the standout), The eight-minute The Rift In The Earth is his first major collage built around found voices. Landscape With Stranger is born at the junction of dissonant chamber music and bebop jazz. The ten-minute This Is Not The End stages an ecosystem of funny sounds over a manic repetition of an industrial pattern. The album ends with a cosmic gamelan like Black Bird.

Shadow Traders (Swinging Axe, 1988) repeats the experiments of Golden Joy Club but somehow in less engaging formats. Shell Mantra Of The Dayak is emblematic of the problem: there is nothing here that he hasn't done before, and here the whole seems to look for a fashionable "exit". The alien vibrations, vocal effects and the dissonant background of the ten-minute "Tunnel" Language feel less gripping than on previous recordings. The shorter pieces are particularly guilty of repeating old ideas with less charm and even less pathos. On the bright side, Example 25 gracefully balances an aquatic tropical theme and an electric industrial theme, and the eleven-minute A Man Described By Others is a dense monastery-inspired wall of noise.

Greif also sculpted three albums of field recordings from Papua New Guinea, Brazilian Amazonia and Thailand.

Bacteria and Gravity (RRR, 1987) is handicapped by a couple of weak pieces, but redeemed by the Steve Reich-ian vocal and rhythmic minimalist repetition The Age Of Epilepsy and the surrealistic psychedelic vignette Their Way Of Dreaming (a dense compositions that includes a saxophone solo and tribal percussion) before delving into the 18-minute four-movement concerto Gravity : five minutes of celestial choir (Evaporation ) that slowly yields to five minutes of interlocked minimalist delight (Rain ), which abruptly switches to a senseless percussive fest (Pushing At The Envelope) which is wiped out by stormy explosive drumming (Mud And Below).

At about the same time, he formed the duo Static Effect with Mikail Bohonus, documented on Tower of Iron (Swinging Axe, 1988), Axis Of Rotation (Swinging Axe, 1989), Siamese Twin Reflex (Swinging Axe, 1989), Dead Game In Any Weather (Swinging Axe, 1990) and Certain Random Firings (Swinging Axe, 1990).

His most daring audio collage is the six-hour (five-disc) decomposition and recomposition of texts taken from Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland (Staalplaat, 1992 - Soleilmoon, 2000), a project that took five years to complete.

The Barnacles Inside (Staalplaat, 1994), for wordless vocals treated electronically, is no less adventurous on a smaller scale.

After the cassette In A Foreign Tongue (Anomalous, 1994), the 18-minute cosmic electronic poem No Ordinary Storm on the compilation To Step Outside And Keep Walking (Swinging Axe, 1994), Fragment 56 (1995), which is a collaboration with Illusion Of Safety's Dan Burke, and the split album In Our Little Bodies with Illusion Of Safety, Greif entered the mature stage of his career.

His most powerful and dramatic work, Verdi's Requiem (Soleilmoon, 1997), is based on a fictitious Verdi biography, but mostly reminiscent of Morton Subotnick's chaotic scores.

Greif is also a member of the trio His Masters Voice, that released the ambient vignettes of Singing The Boundaries (Manifold, 1997).

After Oedipus Brain Foil (Soleilmoon, 1997), a three-disc ambient collaboration with Rapoon's Robin Storey and Nocturnal Emissions' Nigel Ayers, Nail Of Pious Bride (Soleilmoon, 1999), another collaboration with Robin Storey, the song-oriented Tiny Voices Of Love And Fear (Soleilmoon, 1999) and We Are Beginning Our Descent (Soleilmoon, 2001), both credited to Shadowbug 4, Greif returned to his specialty with War Of The World (Soleilmoon, 2001), another postmodernist deconstruction of texts, this time derived from Wells' novel and Orson Welles' radio-drama.

Narcoleptic Cells (Thisco, 2007) is an album of spoken word.

Drift, which was a collaboration with Anna Homler, Brad Cooper and Adam Smith, debuted with Bypass Through The Sky (2007).

Shadowbug returned with the four-disc A Thousand Hits Later (2007).

Greif resurfaced with the 22-minute piece of the mini-album Dark Matter Technology (2012), a carefully orchestrated matching of tinkling electronic tones and droning vocal effects, one of his most "new age" or at least "ambient" compositions.

The five-song mini-album Dirt Crawl Blues (Banned Production, 2014), another masterful audio collage, opens with the intricate beats and robotic vocals of A Simple Classic Dream, then (Dirt Crawl Blues at 4:40 mark) launches into frenzied African tribal dancing and chanting, then (Untitled at 9:35) tries a more chaotic case of frenzied tribal dancing with horns, then (No Civilized Park at 13:22, or second side of the cassette) mauls a choral plantation blues as if remixed by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and finally (Lord Has Virgil at 19:49) the same chanting and rhythm pattern resumes and survives a gust of lethal cosmic radiations.

Ten Lost Objects (2014)

Improbable Landscapes (Nostalgie De La Boue, 2019) contains: I'm In A Dream Clock Improbable Landscape 3 (12:00) Infinity Structures (15:36) Mon Phat Phantom Limbo (7:48) The Entronauts (8:03)