PGR
(Copyright © 1999-2024 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use)
Heavenly Music Corp: In A Garden Of Eden (1993), 7/10
Heavenly Music Corp: Consciousness III (1994), 6/10
Heavenly Music Corp: Lunar Phase (1995), 6/10
Heavenly Music Corp: Anechoic (1996), 6/10
PGR: The Chemical Bride (1992), 6/10
PGR: The Morning Book of Serpents (1995), 6.5/10
Kim Cascone: Blue Cube (1998), 6/10
Kim Cascone: Cathodeflower (1999), 6/10
Kim Cascone: Residualism (2001), 6/10
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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)

PGR was the moniker adopted by electronic musician Kim Cascone, inspired both by Brian Eno and by 1970s German bands, and to a much lesser extent by the techno music of his own time.

In the early 1990s Cascone was active under several guises. With Thessalonians he helped produce the “concrete” suite of The Black Field, which connects back to the most daring experiments of the electronic avant-garde, and then also played on their Soulcraft (Silent, 1993).

With Arcane Device he conceived Fetish, whose pieces blend echoes of industrial music with the abyssal stasis of ambient music. A collaboration with Asmus Tietchens and Merzbow resulted in Grav, composed of the three suites Book Of A Thousand Days, Three Hemispheres, and Hymns From The Furnace, whose sound oscillates between the utmost extremes of electronic violence and the faintest trace of subliminal nightmare.

The Spice Barons released Future Perfect State (Silent, 1995).

Under the monicker Heavenly Music Corporation, Kim Cascone and Don Falcone recorded In A Garden Of Eden (Silent, 1993), music originally conceived for a "chill-out room". Not only is rhythm almost completely missing, but the instruments' drones are mixed with sounds of nature. This album will remain Cascone's most mature work. Organic, watery fluctuations and looping minimal synthesizer melodies (Cloud Structure Silence), stark cosmic landscapes à la early Klaus Schulze swept by icy electronic breezes (The Quiet Mind), suspenseful Steve Roach-y trances (Ambient To Be Here), pulsating Tangerine Dream-y quasar-rock (Dawn Chorus and Reentry, with Roach on didjeridoo) and even an intoxicating disco-raga (Beautiful Dream) represent a superb testament to what electronic music can do to the psyche, encompassing ambient, new age, psychedelic, progressive and world music. The 14-minute In A Garden Of Eden abuses of this technique, mixing water, animals, voices, exotic instruments and even a woman having an orgasm. But mostly the album is a handbook, a "beginner's guide", for aspiring electronic artists.

The following Heavenly Music Corporation albums, Consciousness III (Silent, 1994), Lunar Phase (Silent, 1995) and Anechoic (Silent, 1996), are just about the opposite, collections of gently psychedelic vignettes and velvety trascendental electronica.


(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)

PGR returned with The Chemical Bride (Silent, 1992), a bridge between the hostile industrial music of Cascone's early days and an almost new-age static music, and The Morning Book of Serpents (Silent, 1995), which is now just ambient music with gothic overtones. PGR's basically replicated the path walked by Zoviet France and Nocturnal Emissions.

Kim Cascone resurrected his solo career using his own name for the computer-generated music of the trilogy of Blue Cube (Noton, 1998), Cathodeflower (Ritornell, 1999) and Residualism (Ritornell, 2001). The results are a compendium of electronica, from Morton Subotnick's dadaistic suites to Tangerine Dream's cosmic music. After (12k, 2002) is an improvised laptop jam with minimalist composer Richard Chartier and Taylor Deupree (plus one remix each of such jam).

Fourfold Symmetry (Nexsound, 2003) is an album of remixing collaborations.

The Crystalline Address (Sub Rosa, 2003), a collaboration with Scanner, contains two ambient suites. Rust And Blue Dawn (Anechoic) is a collaboration with Andreas Berthling. Fourfold Symmetry (Nexsound, 2003) is a collaboration with Andreas Berthling and Ukrainian musicians Kotra and Andrej Kiritchenko. Steinbruechel (atak, 2005) is a collaboration with Jason Kahn.

Cascone worked with the Thessalonians also on Solaristics (Noh Poetry, 2005).

Cascone then released: Rondo / 7Phases / Blowback (2004), a collaboration with• Merzbow, Gravity Handler (2004), A Book of Standard Equinoxes (2005) with• Domenico Sciajn, Statistically Improbable Phrases (2007), The Astrum Argentum (2007), Music for Dagger and Guitar (2008), Pharmacie (2008), Hyaline (2009) with• Domenico Sciajno, Anti-Musical Celestial Forces (2009), The Knotted Constellation (2011), Subflowers – F (2016), Dark Stations (2016), Color Quanta (2016) with • Toshimaru Nakamur.

The KGB Trio released Swiss Pharmaceuticals (Utech, 2005), Smoke on Devil's Mountain (Scrapple, 2008) and Noise Forest (Aural Terrains, 2009).

As Khem One, Cascone released: Copperopolis - Guitar Study (Humanhood, 2018), Modal Gauzes No. 1 - Guitar Study (Daathstaar, 2018), Pollen & Fragments (Daathstaar, 2018), Heliodronus - Messenger of the Sun (Silent, 2019), Lunadronus - The Realm of Lunar Gauzes (Silent, 2020), Threshold of Eastern Octaves (Silent, 2022), Subtle Immobilities (Silent, 2024).

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