Anthony Garone of Make Weird Music is one of the proofreaders of my King Crimson sheet music books with Trey Gunn (and I also proofread Anthony’s ‘Failure to Fracture‘). Anthony has been valiantly creating acoustic renditions of King Crimson songs, and his second entry is a version of ‘Frame by Frame’ that he kindly asked me to sing on and fellow proofreader Stan Chong to play drums on. Check it out below:
And while you’re at it, check out his rendition of Discipline’s title song!
Anthony Garone of Make Weird Music was kind enough to interview me about the status of the next King Crimson book:
I am now the keyboardist/third vocalist of the Baltimore avant-garde metal band Genevieve. My first track with them arrived this morning to add a bit of extra spookiness to your Halloween. Recorded and mixed by Ben Schurr of Blight Records and Ruah:
Eric Rhodes: Baritone guitar and voice
Keith Mathias: Bass guitar and voice
Mike Apicella: Guitar
Adam Smith: Drums and percussion
Gabriel Riccio: Keyboards, synthesizers and voiceRecorded at Plastic Palace in Philadelphia Pennsylvania on August 9th 2025.
Engineered and mixed by Benjamin Schurr
Mastered by Eric Rhodes
Cover art designed by Keith Mathias
Logo by Hannah Rhodes
Cover Art taken from the last picture in Harry Clarke’s “Illustrations for Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination” (1919)
Our next gig will be on December 13 in Frederick, MD – stay tuned.
I am overjoyed to announce that the debut EP by psychedelic folk act Hex in June (Justin Minasian) has finally arrived. I played keyboards, did some additional engineering, and mixed it. Sophia Uddin played violin:
VI is the debut EP by Hex in June, a solo folk project conceived in 2014 in an attempt to explore and capture the ephemeral and excavate the buried parts of ourselves.
VI is the introduction to this (hopefully) ongoing process.
This first observation is dedicated to the loving memory of my brother Jeremy, my parent in laws Gary and Colleen, and my dear friends Jonas, Chad and Clinton; all of whom had profound influence in my life and musical journey
Justin Minasian – Vocals, Guitar, Bass Pedals, FX, Songwriting, Engineering, Artwork
Sophia Uddin – Violin, Violin arrangements
Gabriel Riccio – Keyboards, Keyboard arrangements, Keyboard and Violin engineering, Editing, Mixing
Mountain Forecast Studios – Mastering
I had the pleasure of performing all the death metal vocals on Ophelion’s debut record, ‘The Jaunt’:
Inspired by Stephen King’s short-form horror story “The Jaunt”, this progressive metal concept album is set in a future where teleportation is instantaneous, but only safe under sedation.
The tale follows a traveller who defies the rules and remains conscious during the Jaunt, to find themselves cast into a formless void beyond time, space, and sensation.
Only their consciousness endures, fracturing over untold time, and their thoughts slowly splinter into distinct and unrelenting voices.
Through eternity, a spark emerges, and a universe unfolds. They exist as a passive God: cursed with omniscience over trillions of worlds, yet powerless to control anything, and unable to end their existence.
By a twist of cosmic fate, one of these worlds creates its own Jaunt, and a familiar scene unfolds: another traveller feigns sleep, just as they once did. A terrible recognition dawns that they are witnessing their own past.
As they watch their former selves enter the Jaunt, the cycle completes, and their consciousness exits the Jaunt.
Though their body remains as it was, their mind bears the weight of eternity and a terrible knowledge: reality is a facade, and they are the source of their own creation.
Cursed by a truth no one was meant to bear, they tear out their eyes and claw mercilessly at their mind, finally fulfilling their desperate wish to die.
All music and lyrics by Shaun and Steven Eggleston
Mixed and mastered by Jamie SouthernClean Vocals: Marcello Viera
Death Vocals: Gabriel Ricco
Drums: Travis Orbin
Bass and all guitars: Shaun Eggleston
Synth: Steven Eggleston
Last night, Garmonbozia performed once again at Melt ‘N Ooze Fest, at Wax Atlas Records in Baltimore, MD. Video of the set (recorded by Darin Tambascio) can be found below:
3 DAYS, 2 STAGES, 38 PERFORMERS……………..
Born from the pulsing, muddy electrodes of BALTIMORE’S most experimental underground, MELT ‘N OOZE takes over WAX ATLAS for 3 DAYS of ABSOLUTE SONIC EXTREMES.
From the contemporary avant garde, to Harsh Noise, breakcore and a slate of entirely unclassifiable acts, our 40+ performers are the epitome of Baltimore’s unique, off-kilter approach to art. That’s a nice way of saying this one goes WAY beyond weird.
We performed at 8PM on the second night – Saturday, May 3rd, 2025.
Last week, I interviewed Justin Kellerman and Albert Rybka of the band Empyrean Sanctum about their new record, Detachment From Reality:
I edited the vocals on the record and contributed backing vocals to the song ‘Lifeless Death’:
ðøgeþístlr’s third release, ‘wrath of the ðøgeþíst‘, came out today. It’s mostly songs written by Cameron Piko of Montresor (see the previous news post for an interview with him – we discuss this EP a little bit), plus a few things I arranged at the end. Check it out below:
It was mastered by Ryan Fitz-Henry of Forecast Tomorrow and Solkyri. I recently interviewed him on Make Weird Music – check that out below:
I will be conducting two more live interviews for Make Weird Music in the coming weeks by two artists who love to play with wild rhythms! They will remain online if you can’t catch them live.
First, on Thursday 7/18 at 7PM EST: Cameron Piko of Montresor
I helped shape the piano tones on the new Montresor album, Autopoesis, which features Morgan Ågren on drums and Charlie Cawood on bass, among others:
Next, on Monday 7/22 at 5:30PM EST: Travis Orbin
I also recently interviewed Jeff Libersher of CHEER-ACCIDENT:
The debut full length by ðøgeþístlr, my new black metal project, released on June 21. It is an hour long meditation on the note ‘B’:
Røtflÿ – Supreme Direction
Divorced Hedgehog – Execution
Lørd Tenebröus, Cloaked Cvnt Belgarath of Dunwich, Bullet. In. The. Head., Wådbløwer – James Joyce Recitationᚨᛚᛖᚲᛊ ᚾᚨᚱᚢᛞᚨᚹᚷ – Cover Art
From 2016-2018 in Chicago, The Gabriel Construct live band had the same lineup as Matt Tate’s Pavlov3 live band. As the story goes, Matt decided to expand his live band from a duo to a full ensemble, fleshing out the arrangements of his material and exploring it in a new context. As he’d helped me assemble the live lineup for TGC, we soon found ourselves in a position where our two bands had nearly identical (and, shortly after, completely identical) live lineups. Effectively, we became the same band playing two different pools of material live under two different names. At a show where we were both on the bill, I suggested that we try fusing together the two piles of material into a single long set, and I created segues between the Pavlov3 and TGC material. Before long, the distinction between between the two groups vanished, and it ceased to matter which name we were playing under – each set featured a mix of songs by me, Matt, and Sophia Uddin, plus an always-evolving collaborative composition based on an initial idea by Bill Banks. We never did find a new name, though Bill liked to call us Plorp behind the scenes.
12/16/2016
We covered King Crimson’s ‘Frame by Frame’ as the opening song of our set at Reggie’s Music Joint, Chicago, IL, at the Sons of Ra CD Release Show on December 16, 2016. I was working on the THRAK Score book at the time, and we felt it was time to actually perform a King Crimson song! I thought it would be fitting to share our second and final performance of the song in honor of the upcoming BEAT tour. You can, of course, find a full transcription of this song in The Discipline Era Transcriptions (Order at: US / International), which I transcribed and Matt Tate proofread – but that score was unfinished at the time of this performance. Later on in the night, Matt also joined Sons of Ra for a cover of ‘Red’.
Lineup L to R:
Gabriel Riccio – Keyboards, Vocals
Angelo Zaigirdar – Bass
Sophia Uddin – Violin, Vocals
Wendell Lowe II – Drums
Matt Tate – U8 Touch Guitar
Bill Banks – Guitar
3/28/2018
Next up, here’s the beginning of a set this combined band played at Subterranean basement in Chicago (alongside Cleric., Imelda Marcos of Chicago, and Anthony Freemont’s Garden Solutions) on 3/26/18. We opened with my song ‘Arrival in a Distant Land’ then smoothly segued right into Matt’s instrumental piece ‘Singularity’. Both of these pieces left quite a lot of open space for improvisation. We then seamlessly moved into our big collaborative composition, but I’m not ready to unveil that one just yet.
Lineup L to R:
Gabriel Riccio – Keyboards, Vocals
Angelo Zaigirdar – 6-String Bass, Guitar
Sophia Uddin – Viper 7-String Electric Violin
Nick Tate – Drums
Matt Tate – U8 Touch Guitar
Bill Banks – Guitar
4/5/2018
Lastly, here is another video of that same duo of songs from a few weeks later, this time at Empty Bottle Chicago, alongside Imelda Marcos of Chicago and Puke In The Icetray, on 4/15/18:
Lineup L to R:
Matt Tate – U8 Touch Guitar
Nick Tate – Drums
Sophia Uddin – Viper 7-String Electric Violin
Bill Banks – Guitar
Gabriel Riccio – Keyboards, Vocals
That’s the last of the archival content I had planned for now. Thank you to everyone who followed along!
The final studio album in the semi-archival Garmonbozia series is now available for pre-order, alongside a live video and a live album!
STUDIO SESSION 3: September 27, 2017
For the first Garmonbozia live show, Sophia and Gabriel decided to try something different and expand their ranks to a trio. U8 Touch Guitarist Matt Tate was the logical choice for a third member, as he was their bandmate in both The Gabriel Construct and his band Pavlov(3). A few days before our first performance, we had our sole rehearsal, which was our first attempt at playing in this style as a trio. I recorded this, yielding three more improvisations spanning 64 minutes. I didn’t open the session again until late 2023 – but when I finally returned to it, I was very surprised at what I heard. I sent the tracks to Markus Reuter to mix, giving him free reign creatively. He completely transformed them into something entirely new and different, yielding our new record, ‘Garmonbozia(3)’.
The full album will become available on Friday, 4/12, but the first song is available for streaming now. A Bandcamp listening party will take place in advance of the release, on Wednesday, 4/10, at 8PM EST – RSVP here!
Sophia Uddin – Viper 7-String Electric Violin
Matt Tate – U8 Touch Guitar
Gabriel Riccio – Electric Piano
Post-production, mix and mastering by Markus Reuter
Cover photo by Gabriel Riccio, art design by Alex Narveson
LIVE SESSION 1: September 30, 2017 at The Handsome Squid, Chicago, IL
Our sole live performance as a trio is documented in this youtube video. It was a house show at The Handsome Squid, Chicago, IL, on September 30, 2017. We played alongside Sacha Mullin and The Mercury Tree, who played early single guitar versions of songs that later landed on their Spidermilk record. The set was essentially an extended improvisation around the opening track from Interior City, ‘Arrival in a Distant Land‘. It also included a keyboard progression which appeared on the second track of Garmonbozia(3), as well as some ideas which can be heard on ‘Concussion III‘ on Forecast Tomorrow’s ‘Concussion’ album.
Sophia Uddin – Viper 7-String Electric Violin
Matt Tate – U8 Touch Guitar
Gabriel Riccio – Electric Piano, Vocals
Additional camera work by Ashante Shomari
LIVE SESSION 2: October 29, 2023 at The Crown, Baltimore, MD
The duo configuration of Garmonbozia returned after a long hiatus at a Halloween show at The Crown back bar in Baltimore, organized by our friend Darin Tambascio (Mast Year/XOM/Thought Eater/National Sunday Law/Graviton): ‘Drone/Experimental Night Presents Dark and Spooky Sounds‘. We alongside Joy Amaranthian (Eric ‘Mustard’ Rhodes of Genevieve and Lavender, whose set that night can be found here) and Shadow Comforts (Alan Baumbusch). Darin recorded all 3 sets in addition to manning the sound that night. Once again, this performance culminated in a rendition of ‘Arrival in a Distant Land‘.
Sophia Uddin – Violin
Gabriel Riccio – Keyboards, Vocals
Recorded by Darin Tambascio
Cover art by Alex Narveson