Richard Francis has been releasing works on CD/vinyl, performing solo and in collaboration as a touring artist since 1996. He uses field recordings of acoustic and electronic sounds and a signal generator to compose layered sound works of textural and tonal detail.

He has released solo and collaborative sound works on labels such as Drone Records, Stateart, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Digitalis Industries, Absurd and Scarcelight, as well as his own label CMR. Currently CMR is releasing limited edition lathe cut records by sound artists living in Auckland.

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CMR24: Nest - 's/t' - Double Lathe-cut LP
Edition of 33
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Nest is a moebius strip consisting of NZers Andrew Scott (mostly guitar) and Nigel Wright (mostly laptop). Scott plays guitar which Wright uses as raw material for creating real-time sound environments in which the guitar can move, the chosen path of the guitar laying the groundwork for the next sonic environment created by the computer to which the guitar reacts to in turn. Hence Nest attempts to circumvent traditional modes of improvisation, by creating a human feedback loop in which the players play not so much their instruments, but rather each other – a loop which finds the players relating not TO each other, but rather THROUGH each other. Ever inwards. Nest is concerned with principals of balance and dissolution of the individual ego. Nest attempts to work as a unified organism, dissolving the contributions of the individual into an amorphous evolving sound object. Nest sets processes in motion and lets them run their course. Nest trusts sound completely.

Nest has previously self-released collaborations with MHFS and Tim Coster in small CDR editions. This LP is their first release as an unaccompanied duo. Wright lives in Auckland, New Zealand where he performs solo and in the duo Cathedrals (with Tim Coster). Scott currently resides in Los Angeles, California where he works in the duo Metal Rouge with Helga Fassonaki. He works solo under the name Un Ciego and in the duos Golden Krone (with Rohan Evans) and Huzun (with Tim Coster).
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CMR21: Richard Francis - Together alone, together apart - CD
Edition of 300
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Tracks 1 and 2 recorded 2006-2007, track 3 recorded 2003 and previously released on V/A Audible New Frontiers CD (Physics Room/Radio NZ). Sound sources: field recordings of indoor and outdoor spaces; handling of fabric, wood and plastic; self noise of home stereo amplifiers, loudspeakers and record players.

"refined and highly recommended"
THE WIRE 286, December 2007

"repeatedly breathtaking"
TOUCHING EXTREMES, March 2008

"Rated 9/10"
EARLabs, December 2007

"The building blocks of 'Together Alone, Together Apart' by New Zealand's Richard Francis are 'sound moments': sonic interludes of a dozen or so seconds of environmental sound, whose subtle arrangements and cross-contaminations are the springboard for the compositions found here. Given the quiet volumes, sounds at the threshold of audibility are presumably those which have captured his imagination. A soft hiss and variable low end frequency introduce the first untitled track, with small crackles, glitches and echoes sporadically breaking through. The second is considerably more dramatic, with a flapping rhythm emerging from a grounded hiss like a moth's wings beating against glass. The final track is almost undetectable, even with headphones, and strengthens the connections between Francis's work and the reductive strategies of Bernhard Gunter or John Hudak. Here, swells of deep frequencies rise and fall along a fog of unsettled static, concluding a refined and highly recommended album."
THE WIRE 286, December 2007
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CMR13: Francis/Guerra/Mattin/Stern - 's/t' - 7 inch
Richard Francis (NZ)
Anthony Guerra (Australia)
Mattin (Basque Country)
Joel Stern (Australia)
Edition of 250
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"Recorded two years ago in Auckland, it has Richard Francis on computer, electronics, field recordings, Anthony Guerra on electric guitar, electronics, Mattin on computer feedback and Joel Stern on electronics and field recordings. Don't let Mattin scare you off in this lot: one side sounds like a thunder storm recorded from a big distance which fades gradually into a drone and the other side is at the higher end of the spectrum, but with lots of subtle crackles. It's good to see Mattin not doing so many noise things these days and become the more all-round computer musician. These four like to play things soft and controlled and its great."
VITAL WEEKLY, 2006

"With infalable precision and all around the world, supergroups have failed to live up to people’s expectations. If you’re on a thinly populated island as remote from the rest of the planet as New Zeland, however, teaming up with the best the country and its immediate surroundings have got is simply a modus operandi. On the face of it, therefore, there was nothing special about the recording sessions leading up to this Vinyl EP in Auckland in March of 2004. Admittedly, calling this line-up of underground actors a supergroup at all is stretching things just a tad. On the other hand, these four composers and sound sculptors have definitely all built a reputation for their uncompromising musical personality, their mushrooming and continually proliferating body of work, their decided preference for expressing themselves most clearly in collaborations and an omnivoric taste for anything that suits their visions. All of these shared attributes can however not fully mask the gaping differences that remain. At least on paper, Mattin’s ardent noise emmissions should clash with Joel Stern’s detailed field recordings, and one could expect Anthony Guerra’s feedbacked electric guitar to come to a collision with Richard Francis’ dense, organic scrapescapes. Surprisingly, the big bang of opposing energies never materialises. On both sides of this truly delectably packaged 7’’ lathe cut, each member of the Quartet instead treads softly and with deep mutual respect for the steadily unfolding momentum of the music. Right from from the very first second after the curtain has fallen and the performers are steeped in the sepia-tinged light of the spots, their interaction is immensely concentrated on each and every pulse, signal or tinest of noise around them. And yet, while this reverential approach can sometimes lead to stalemates, with all players carefully avoiding shifting the balance with an unmeasured step or a sudden swing, Francis, Guerra, Stern and Mattin still maintain a relentless urge to push forward. Their tracks move from deep, distorted bass ruminations to more airy drones, developping continually within a nervous continuum. It’s noisy, it’s crispy, it’s glitchy, grim and granular and if you allow your attention to stray only once, you risk missing the best bits. What’s more, despite their desire to transform into an indivisible new entity, the individual voices of the performers can clearly be discerned at every moment. As a listener, you can place your personal emphasis on any of the four personalities or you can follow the way their voices close in on each other without ever completely melting. The most common characteristic of a lot of improvisations, an abundance of egos, is thankfully absent from this release. There are no solos, no narcistic outbursts, no credits to any composer in the liner notes – in fact, there aren’t even copyrights attached. In defiance of the demands of the cultural tabloids, it is not an amalgam of big names but the refusal to inject the typical dose of machismo into their music which makes this a veritable supergroup."
TOKAFI, August 2008
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