Rob Mazurek's Alternate Moon Cycles (IA11 Edition) -- OUT NOW on all digital music platforms (with 20 minutes of digi-only bonus music)
Rob Mazurek
Alternate Moon Cycles
(IA11 Edition)
Out now on all digital music platforms
vinyl LP out March 28th, 2025
Rob Mazurek’s Alternate Moon Cycles was our first release. The incredibly spare single-note-centered cornet, bass and organ chant was recorded to tape at pint-sized Chicago bar Curio as part of a performance series that predates any notion of our label’s existence. Documenting this performance – highly unique even within the depths of Mazurek’s vast catalog – stirred those notions, and soon talks began of releasing the recording on a fresh imprint.
Performed by Mazurek with Matthew Lux and Mikel Patrick Avery, the music unfolds glacially amongst the gentle creaks, clinks, whispers, and scuffles of the active room. It’s difficult to imagine a more honest rendering of the two sidelong pieces of organic minimal music, and nearly impossible to separate the sounds from their performance context.
Now this long-gone gem of supernatural frequency excavation is back in print on vinyl, wrapped in our IARC 2025 obi strip, with a new 4-page insert booklet featuring additional session photos and fresh liner notes by Mikel Patrick Avery.
The new IA11 Edition vinyl LP will be in stores on March 28th. In anticipation of that, we've re-released the album on all digital music platforms today with the addition of a digital-only 20-minute bonus track titled "Tree of Life," which documents Mazurek leading a large ensemble (including Matthew Lux, Mikel Patrick Avery, Jeff Parker and others) in a unique performance of the music from Alternate Moon Cycles, recorded in July of 2013 under a tree in the garden next to Plein Air Cafe in Hyde Park, Chicago.
IA11 Liner Notes
by Mikel Patrick Avery
The Alternate Moon Cycles IA11 Edition vinyl LP comes with new liner notes penned by Mikel Patrick Avery. His notes (excerpted below) are available to read via this fresh release page on our website, which also includes a gathering of information, stories and reflections about the album.
My dear friend jaimie branch had this incredible ability to understand the best in a person, or an idea you are not yet able to articulate for yourself. She had the ability to describe what you want from your future self.
Encouragement and support are forms of understanding the ‘to be determined’.
A trust in another’s yet-to-be-defined ideas of themself, without the obligation or guarantee of anything coming to fruition.
It’s easy to define something once it has happened. Analyze it, dissect it, pull it apart. But the creative process works from the other direction – riding ideas, and moving with the growth as it happens.
When improvising with others, the moment of creativity is the definition. A recording is an archive of that moment; a way to observe the creative exchange points between others.
Reflecting on Rob Mazurek’s Alternate Moon Cycles 10 years later, it being the first recording released on International Anthem… At the time neither the project nor the label were defined. Nothing to go off of except trust in each other’s creative output for that moment.
Moving ahead and doing the thing without complete knowledge can help shape what it is you want to do in ways that planning ahead cannot.
Read.
Alternate Moon Cycles
Beginnings
We asked 𝗥𝗼𝗯 𝗠𝗮𝘇𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗸 to reflect on his album 𝑨𝒍𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑴𝒐𝒐𝒏 𝑪𝒚𝒄𝒍𝒆𝒔, the first ever International Anthem release, ten years on. Here is his beautiful message, accompanied by “𝗪𝗮𝘅𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁 # 𝟭” from the album’s first side, as well as a slow-moving detail inspection of Rob’s painting, which was used for the cover.
Deluxe Vinyl Package
Rob Mazurek - Alternate Moon Cycles (IA11 Edition) comes on a 140 gram vinyl LP inside a heavyweight matte jacket, with 4-page insert booklet (featuring additional session photos and new liner notes written by Mikel Patrick Avery), IARC 2025 obi strip and poly-lined printed inner-sleeve. Pressed at Pallas in Germany, with new lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST.
(( photo by Britt Mazurek ))
...about...
Rob Mazurek
Rob Mazurek is an interdisciplinary artist & abstractivist, with a focus on electro-acoustic composition, improvisation, performance, painting, sculpture, video, film, and installation, who spent much of his creative life in Chicago, and then Brazil. He currently lives and works in Marfa, Texas.
As a composer Mazurek has written over 500 compositions over the past 30 years and has released 80+ recordings on various labels including International Anthem, Nonesuch, Astral Spirits, Corbett vs Dempsey, Cuneiform, CleanFeed, Delmark, El Paraiso, Family Vineyard, Harmonipan, Mego, Northern Spy, Rogue Art, Submarine, Aesthetics, and Thrill Jockey. He has led/co-led many ensembles of various sizes and shapes including Isotope 217, Chicago Underground (Duo, Trio, Quartet, and Orchestra), Alternate Moon Cycles, Alien Flower Sutra, Pharoah and the Underground (featuring Pharoah Sanders), Jeff Parker Duo, São Paulo Underground, and Exploding Star Orchestra.
...about...
IA11
On December 2nd, 2024, we marked the ten-year anniversary of our first release. With a full decade under our belt – ten years of commitment to a growing community of artists, and our original mission statement ("to vitalize demand for boundary defying music," among other things) – we've spent a lot of time thinking about how we'd like to celebrate this milestone. What we keep coming back to is: desire to use this opportunity to revisit and revivify music and memories from our first decade; but keeping true to our ethos of always looking forward, all the way.
In that spirit, across 2025, we'll be rolling out a series of releases and events under the IA11 banner. Celebrating our eleventh year. Doing our best to retell essential, foundational stories from our past, while keeping our hearts and minds fixed on the present. Trying to establish new standards that can help carry our mission through another decade of work – and hopefully more.
We created an emblem for IA11 with a vibrating interpretation of a chrysanthemum as the central symbol. Aside from just loving the delicious golden nectar that comes from the leaves of this flower, for us, the image of the chrysanthemum resonates as a symbol of longevity and rejuvenation. Two of the driving intentions behind this effort.
Please stay tuned for announcements of IA11 events and special releases across 2025. We look forward to a beautiful year of celebrating the past, present and future with you all.
IA11 Editions
Over the course of 2025 we will be revisiting some of the most celebrated entries in our decade of releases with this series of IA11 Edition LPs. These revamped LP packages will be presented with new liner notes, new insert booklets, and the fresh 2025 redesign of our iconic obi strip and dome logo. They will also be set at a price point intended to make the albums more accessible than ever before.
So far, the first three of that series have been announced:
IARC0001LP11 Rob Mazurek - Alternate Moon Cycles (IA11 Edition)
IARC0003LP11 Makaya McCraven - In The Moment (IA11 Edition)
IARC0017LP11 Ben LaMar Gay - Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun (IA11 Edition)
All three LPs will be in stores March 28th, and are available for preorder on our Bandcamp page now.
International Anthem is proud to present this special event series in Chicago, focusing on a different album from our catalog on the last Monday of every month across 2025 at the Hungry Brain. Each 11 of 11 event will feature deep listening of an album, followed by a small group of musicians performing an interpretation of that album.
The 11 of 11 event on Monday March 31st will feature a full listening to Rob Mazurek's minimalist masterpiece Alternate Moon Cycles (originally released December 2014), followed by a performance by Tromblau, with Emma Blau (trombone) and others TBA, as the musicians respond to and reinterpret the music of the album. Get tickets here.
The 11 of 11 event on Monday April 28th will feature a full listening to Makaya McCraven's breakout album In The Moment (originally released January 2015), followed by a performance led by Anisha Rush (sax) in trio with Kurt Shelby (bass) and Joshua Ross (drums), as the musicians respond to and reinterpret the music of the album. Get tickets here.
