Decomposure
Decomposure (a.k.a. Caleb Mueller) is a Canadian electronic music musician. To date, he has released two full-length albums on the Unschooled Label and two on his own Blank Squirrel label, as well as being featured on multiple compilations. Mueller is also a graphic and visual artist.
On Unschooled Records (2003-2007)
Decomposure made his full-length debut with 2004's Taking Things Apart, which featured experimental songs built from electronically deconstructed sounds culled from many disparate sources,[1] including a Scrabble game, wooden matches, and a speech by US President George W. Bush. This was followed by the release of 2005's At Home and Unaffected,[2] which was built with sounds recorded from Decomposure's apartment and featured a new direction toward instrumentation and vocals.
On Blank Squirrel (2007-Present)
Following the collapse of the Unschooled Records label in 2007, Decomposure created his own Blank Squirrel Musics label and released Vertical Lines A, an ambitious multi-genre album made from the first eleven hours of a 23-hour timespan recorded on cassette. It featured heavily abstracted songwriting, complex unconventional time signatures, a bonus DVD full of special features and handmade album art bound together with string. It is expected that he will follow this album with Horizontal Lines B some time in the future.
In 2008, the full-length Humidity Patient Guide, his second release for Blank Squirrel Musics, was made available as a free download on the record label's website. Humidity Patient Guide is one continuous track, instead of a more traditional track-by-track format. The different sections of the track remain untitled.
In 2009 he recorded a 6-song EP, North Carolina, which was released free on the Blank Squirrel site. Songs from Old Headphones, a compilation of older unreleased songs, remixes and instrumentals, was also made available on the website in December along with a collection of comedy sketch recordings entitled The Velvet Rain: The Effective Edge Podcast's Best Sketches 2005-2007.
In May 2010, Blank Squirrel released the first of a series of weekly podcasts, introducing Decomposure's new goal of recording a song each week to be released on the podcast, and announcing that the Horizontal Lines B project would be put on hold.
Discography
Full-length albums
- Taking Things Apart (Unschooled Records, 2004)
- At Home and Unaffected (Unschooled Records, 2005)
- Vertical Lines A (Blank Squirrel Musics, 2007)
- Humidity Patient Guide (Blank Squirrel Musics, 2008)
- Eating Chicken (Blank Squirrel Musics, 2012)
- The Great Grey Beast (Blank Squirrel Musics, 2013)
Short-form albums
- uodsn: Sound Rearranged (Self-Released, 2002)
- North Carolina (Blank Squirrel Musics, 2009)
Compilations
- A Very Unschooled Christmas (Unschooled Records, 2004)
References
- Eke, Darren (May 2004). "Frequencies: Decomposure: Taking Things Apart", Exclaim!. Retrieved on 2009-05-10.
- Schiller, Mike (June 7, 2005). "Decomposure: At Home and Unaffected Archived 2006-03-17 at the Wayback Machine", PopMatters. Retrieved on 2009-05-10.