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FAILING TO EXIST (C.R.R.D., VOL. 4) RELEASED  

The fourth album of the eight-volume CHOP. RANDOMISE. RECOMPILE. DISCARD. (2026) series has just been released (04 September 2026). See SIXTEEN ALBUMS AND A BOOK? for the full release schedule. Details of how the release was produced can be found: CHOP. RANDOMISE. RECOMPILE. DISCARD. (2026). The first Track, ‘Lost in the Shadows’, can be streamed below.

WEAPONISING THERAPY (C.R.R.D., VOL. 3) RELEASED  

The third album of the eight-volume CHOP. RANDOMISE. RECOMPILE. DISCARD. (2026) series has just been released (21 August 2026). See SIXTEEN ALBUMS AND A BOOK? for the full release schedule. Details of how the release was produced can be found: CHOP. RANDOMISE. RECOMPILE. DISCARD. (2026). The first Track, ‘Nihilistic Tendencies’, can be streamed below.

TYPE I MOOD MUSIC (C.R.R.D., VOL. 2) RELEASED  

The second album of the eight-volume CHOP. RANDOMISE. RECOMPILE. DISCARD. (2026) series has just been released (07 August 2026). See SIXTEEN ALBUMS AND A BOOK? for the full release schedule. Details of how the release was produced can be found: CHOP. RANDOMISE. RECOMPILE. DISCARD. (2026). The first Track, ‘Repeating Patterns Beyond Imagination’, can be streamed below.
 

CUT INTO PIECES (C.R.R.D., Vol. 1)  

The first of the eight-volume CHOP. RANDOMISE. RECOMPILE. DISCARD. (2026) series has just been released (24 July 2026). See SIXTEEN ALBUMS AND A BOOK? for the full release schedule. Details of how the release was produced can be found: CHOP. RANDOMISE. RECOMPILE. DISCARD. (2026). The first Track, ‘Monotonous Churn of Vapid Quantities’, can be streamed below.

Broken Streams of Consciousness (Drum Automatism, Vol. 1)  

The first percussion / drum-only album of the Lugubrious 78 - DRUM AUTOMATISM SERIES (2026) has been released. Consisting of fourteen improvised, chopped, randomised, recompiled, discarded, and overlaid pieces, ‘Broken Streams of Consciousness (Drum Automatism, Vol. 1) is available to stream and download on Lugubrious 78.com, Subvert, Mirlo, and Bandcamp. More information about how it was created can be found at DRUM AUTOMATISM SERIES (2026). This is the first Lugubrious 78 release not available on streaming platforms as we contemplate our relationship with the (increasingly exploitative?) medium. The first track, ’Reflections on Instability', can be streamed below.

SIXTEEN ALBUMS AND A BOOK? 

It is not clear if this is a good idea. Or even whether it will happen. A considerable amount of irreverent exploration along four main themes:

  1. Sketches of Musical Thought: A three-volume series of instrumental tracks, including work-in-progress sketches, instrumental versions of songs with words, and more of the same.
  2. Overlays: A two-volume collection. One consists of the two albums released with words in 2025 ('The Twelfth Ominous Anxiety' and 'Repeat. Blindly.') dropped on top of each other. The other takes 'Mishaps from History' and 'Subtle Antimusic' and does basically the same. What happens to the musical interactions and meanings when the context of the music is dramatically altered through abrupt, blatant combinations of that music? Do they become unlistenable? Do they offer something new? Is it just a grift, spamming the music world with empty nothingness? Focus on the real-time noise of multiple thoughts. See OVERLAYS (2026) for more details.
  3. Drum Automatism: Two albums of drum improvisations recorded over a few months, in which the multitrack recordings have been reorganised following the principles developed for the next theme (see Lugubrious 78 - DRUM AUTOMATISM SERIES (2026) for details). Microscale overlays. Are there any other albums solely of drums? Talent and quality as shaped by a highly conforming musical world?
  4. Chop. Randomise. Recompile. Discard. (C.R.R.D.): An eight-volume series that takes the roughly 374 minutes of all releases from 2024 and 2025 and applies the core compositional concept of C.R.R.D. (see Lugubrious 78 - CHOP. RANDOMISE. RECOMPILE. DISCARD. (2026) for details). What happens? A meditation on algorithmic music? A lazy approach to composition? More spamming? Fragmenting into unfamiliar forms? Grotesque self-plagiarism? Aleatory joy in an era of banal form.

To offset these (largely) instrumental offerings, the first of this year's releases consists of the usual psychological-political musings, capturing songs written over the last thirty years (see Lugubrious 78 - EMPTY CHAIRS SERIES (2025 - 2026) for details). To make everything profoundly unbearable, an accompanying text is being prepared that captures a multitude of meaningless musical musings from the beginnings of Lugubrious 78. An exploration of the evolution of ideas or a culmination of years of pretension heated in the timidity of a fictional recording studio (sorry Tzara!). This may see the light of day. It may not.

The album release schedule is as follows:

Album

Release Date

Available

Empty Chairs

29 May 2026

On Bandcamp

Sketches of Musical Thought, Vol. 1

12 June 2026

On Bandcamp

Ominous Repeat (Overlays, Vol. 1)

26 June 2026

OVERLAYS Vol. 1

Broken Streams of Consciousness (Drum Automatism, Vol. 1)

10 July 2026

Drum Automatism Vol. 1

Cut into Pieces (C.R.R.D., Vol. 1)

24 July 2026

C.R.R.D., Vol. 1

Type I Mood Music (C.R.R.D., Vol. 2) 

7 August 2026

C.R.R.D., Vol. 2

Weaponising Therapy (C.R.R.D., Vol. 3)

21 August 2026

C.R.R.D., Vol. 3

Failing to Exist (C.R.R.D., Vol. 4)

4 September 2026

C.R.R.D., Vol. 4

Unstable Mishaps (Overlays, Vol. 2)

18 September 2026

OVERLAYS Vol. 2 

Collage of Sliced Improvisations (Drum Automatism, Vol. 2)

2 October 2026

 

Creative Inventions of the Deceitful Mind (C.R.R.D., Vol. 5) 

16 October 2026

 

Deflect. Disorientate. Disavow. (C.R.R.D., Vol. 6)

30 October 2026

 

Click Here to Manipulate Discontent (C.R.R.D., Vol. 7)

13 November 2026

 

Vacuous End (C.R.R.D., Vol. 8)

27 November 2026

 

Sketches of Musical Thought, Vol. 2

11 December 2026

 

Sketches of Musical Thought, Vol. 4

25 December 2026

 

Post updated: 18 September 2026