International Anthem
The Eleventh Year
Rob Mazurek
Alternate Moon Cycles
IA11 Edition
Rob Mazurek’s Alternate Moon Cycles was International Anthem's 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, 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.
Rob Mazurek - cornet
Matt Lux - electric bass
Mikel Patrick Avery - organ
Recorded December 17th, 2012, at Curio, Chicago.
Produced by Scott McNiece
Recorded & Mixed by David Allen
Mastered by Shelly Steffens
Paintings by Rob Mazurek
Original Design by Craig Hansen
IA11 Design by Aaron Lowell Denton
Photos by Kari Skaflen
Original Liner Notes by Joe Darling
IA11 Liner Notes by Mikel Patrick Avery
Special Thanks to Brittany Mazurek, Dave Vettraino, Brendan Sodikoff, and the Gilt Bar family.
Out March 28, 2025
Available on LP/Digital via our Bandcamp page
Love Letter to the Unknown:
Alternate Moon Cycles, IARC
IA11 Liner Notes by Mikel Patrick Avery
Original paintings by Rob Mazurek
That feeling of being understood.
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.
Most of us have much more to offer the world than what it feels like the world is currently allowing us to do. If you just had the opportunity to share, you could show the beauty of what it is you have to offer. Sometimes you have to work for those opportunities within preexisting constructs. Sometimes you have to create them all together for yourself and others.
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.
These moments where people around you are taking chances are happening all the time. Believe in the potential greatness of your friends. Be open to potential great friendships. These possibilities are swirling around us constantly.
Find ways to involve yourself in situations where you receive the encouragement of others. Support and trust in other’s undefined versions of themselves.
It’s incredible how much people can want the best for you in ways you may not be able to see. Offering things you might not have the capacity to understand yet. Trust in the support of others over your own desires.
Sometimes it’s better to not get what you want, than to get what you don’t need.
Thank you Rob, Matt, Scottie and David for involving me in the journey and consistently creating spaces for people to shine their best self.
Love.
MPA
((( Photos by Kari Skaflen )))
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.
My favorite experiences are ones where the music is right there in nature, indigenous to the ground it’s made on.
Curio was such a space. A Very interesting space tucked away in a curious building in downtown Chicago.
Cracking the galaxial ceiling... birth and death... beginnings and endings.... what the future holds... how far out is far out... the idea of constructing things that have a certain capacity to transform... to create languages that question the notion of what we think we know... to create streams of wave ribbons, frequencies that expel a tremendous current... the voluptuous un-synchronizable nature of all... the organic connections that we set in motion... the constant unravelling of mystic non-form and recycled dream tomes... the story of becoming , pondering, action, re-action, stunned formings of cryptic messages... reaching out for the elusive reasons why spinning modules of matter, matter.... slamming synthetic forms into oblivion... wiping clean and clear the detritus of star systems made up, into shards of crimson shadows... Matter-Anti Matter making love... The Center of the Planet is an Engine for Universal Space Travel…the center of the tone is within… love is within.
Who is light?
I am light.
Who is beginnings?
I am beginnings.
Who is happiness?
I am happiness
Who is evil?
I am evil.
Who is language?
I am language.
Who is death?
I am death.
Who is enlightenment?
I am enlightenment.
Who is all?
I am all.
Who is nothing.
I am nothing.
Who is love?
I am love.
The recollections of past…. Swimming in space… a brick room… vaulted ceilings… resonant tone …. Finding its way …. a weather… an atmosphere… I can hear the tape rolling… light, bright waves caressing the morning light… the center of the tone… between this forest of sound… 3 beings breathing in time with quiet of the room… lovers making out… glasses clinking lightly…. The room… this room… we inhabit a space at a certain time… this time is recorded and heard again and again in different rooms… the rooms of many… Alternate Moon Cycles… International Anthem recording Company… believing in this sound… believing in the wonders of subtle communication…. Rippling heat… the sun… the moon…. “A Moons Beauty is in variations of sameness” a line written by Samuel r Delany… exemplifying the mood… 100 c’s for Dixon… 100 c’s for Bill Dixon…. a tribute, a prayer… an extension of being… being in the center… feeling the center… Scottie and Davids beautiful idea… honored and grateful to release the first resonant being into the world…. International Anthem indeed…. billowing clouds of sound all around… harnessing the energy at the center of the Super Nova… kissing gently … the foreheads of ancestors … past, present and future.
Who is light?
We are light.
Who is beginnings?
We are beginnings.
Who is happiness?
We are happiness
Who is evil?
We are evil.
Who is language?
We are language.
Who is death?
We are death.
Who is enlightenment?
We are enlightenment.
Who is all?
We are all.
Who is nothing.
We are nothing.
Who is love?
We are love.
— Rob Mazurek
Rob Mazurek
About
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.
Further Listening
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Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra
Live at the Adler Planetarium
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Rob Mazurek & Emmett Kelly
Alien Flower Sutra
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Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra
Lightning Dreamers
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Damon Locks & Rob Mazurek
New Future City Radio
International Anthem
The Eleventh Year
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.
Stay tuned for releases and news.