Discography
Compact Disc, Vinyl, Cassette, Digital Download
Arranged by release date. 2023 - 1987
(Most recordings available as digital downloads via Bandcamp)
Rusted Articles 1874 from 1968
This album is actually a reconfigured hybrid of two very early recordings, neither of which we were particularly happy with in their original form. So, taking the liberty (as we do) to revise history, we’ve remastered the best bits of both albums and combined them into what is probably a much stronger thematic suite.
Present in this album are pieces from our third CD-R release, “1874 from 1968”, which was only available for a short time nearly 20 years ago, as well as the majority of “The 31 Rusted Articles”, which was released a couple of years later. Both drew their inspiration from 19th-century American lore, as well as the coming of autumn. Remixes, reconfigurations, and everything remastered in 2020. As the man said, history is bunk.
Reassembled 2020
Digital Download
ADM 30
Horde
“Horde” returns to the topic of emptied places, both artificial and authentic. And once again, those spaces are populated by various forms of decomposed resurrection, also both artificial and authentic. Listeners will hear the familiar, the archaic, as well as some territory that hasn’t been previously explored.
Recorded July 2021
Digital Download and Limited Edition 2-CDR - October 2022
ADM 29
Predicament Recordings Volume I 3.2020-5.2020
The first of two albums of material recorded during the Pandemic of 2020-21, but released after Volume 2.
We aren’t sure why.
Field recordings, new recycled instruments, and a long-familiar isolation in method.
Recorded March – May 2020.
Digital Download - February 2022
ADM 28
Zombi Traditions (37 Years)
After decades with the living dead (and several thematic projects), this album consists of a fifteen-song collection that represents our desert-island selection of
synthetic resurrections from the Reagan Era.
This album was released in 3 versions: a digital download, a standard CD, and a special edition CD
CD and Digital Download - September 2021
ADM 27
Nigths and Profecy (Special Multimedia Edition)
This project was a follow-up to the “Nigths and Profecy”, cassette released by the Helen Scarsdale Agency in 2020 (see below). This digital release includes the complete set of tracks from the original Fossil Aerosol sessions, as originally mastered for CD. This edition also includes a special remix of one of the longer tracks, as well as three short videos by Mathew Konicek.
Digital Download - June 2021
ADM 26
Predicament Recordings Volume II 2.2021
After nearly a year of isolation, a brief real-time, studio interaction happened in late February 2021, and resulted in a suite of recordings (Volume II) that were largely without theme or plan. No new source material had been collected, and instead was culled from a library of elements used in the previous 10 years of work. These were stripped from their original contexts, and a series of live-in-the-studio passages essentially made no attempt to observe the year 2020, a pandemic, or the end of yet another baffling US regime.
Digital Download - March 2021
ADM 25
Nigths and Profecy (with 400 Lonely Things)
In 2008, our album "The First 15 Minutes of the Second Sequel" was composed (mostly) of processed fragments from the first 15 minutes of the second unauthorized Italian sequel to the American film Dawn of the Dead.
Meanwhile, 400 Lonely Things released their album "Tonight of the Living Dead" in 2008. That project was composed entirely of loops and samples from Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.
Fossil Aerosol and 400 Lonely Things eventually met up, and after a number of years a collaboration ensued. Revisiting the theme of "The First 15 Minutes...", the same obscure Italian film was mined for new material by both bands. One side of this cassette release was recorded by Fossil Aerosol, and the other by 400 Lonely Things.
Digging deeper into 40-year dislocated artificial decay. Released by the Helen Scarsdale Agency.
Cassette - July 2020
HMS056
Scaath Catfish
Scaath Catfish was recorded in the spring of 2016, implementing field recordings made in the Illinois River Valley and instrumental material found on a homemade cassette recording. The field recordings were made along the banks of a backwater lake and in the shadow of an aging power plant, following a spring flood. Twenty-six years earlier, one of the members of Fossil Aerosol purchased a homemade instrumental cassette tape recording (marked only “sacred”), at a thrift store in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. In 2016, fragments of the found cassette recordings were mixed with those made in the mud along the river.
CD, limited edition CD, and Digital Download
March 2020 ADM 24
Hydration Disequilibrium
In 2018, we were approached by the Helen Scarsdale Agency to contribute material to a ten-artist anthology, "On Corrosion", which observed the 50th release for that label. The collection consisted of 10 cassettes packaged in a handmade wooden box.
Our contribution included six tracks composed for the topic at hand.
Limited edition boxed cassette collection - November 2019
HMS050
Land of Monkeys
This unplanned and largely unannounced release consists of a suite of recordings initiated on Armistice Day and completed on the 278th birthday of Benedict Arnold.
A fatigued response to reminders of a cyclical past, surprisingly exaggerated in the years of the rooster and the dog.
Digital Download - January 2019
ADM 23
The Recounting of Night Time
The Recounting of Night Time was composed and mixed in October of 2014. The source material focuses principally on a certain piece of German gothic cinema made during the late 1970s. This material was culled from both VHS audio tracks, as well a “field recording” made at a poorly-attended screening of the film in a decaying theater in St. Louis, Missouri sometime during the mid-1980s.
Evidence of video control track glitches are present, while the scent of the acutely mildewed theater is recollected and implied.
CD, limited edition CD, and Digital Download - November 2018
ADM 22
Objects of Disassociation Volume 1
Between 2011 and 2018, we recorded a number of pieces that, for various reasons, were not included in collections of material that we still call "albums". These tracks include live-in-the-studio experiments, revisits to old material, or simply thematic anomalies that we just hadn't found a place for. This was the first of several collections of such material.
Digital Download - June 2018
ADM 21
August 53rd
“August 53rd” might be considered a prequel to “The Day 1982 Contaminated 1971” – our previous vinyl release on Helen Scarsdale. This album features the damaged remains of certain pop culture pleasantries in a less decomposed state than found on the previous vinyl release. Cover art for the project was produced by American photographer Michael Eastman, known for his like-minded documentation of living architectural ghosts in the American Midwest and Cuba (”Vanishing America”, “Havana”).
August 53rd, a month extended to accommodate a changing climate, predates the day 1982 contaminated 1971. Or perhaps not.
Vinyl lp - February 2018
HMS043
January 18 2018
If Fossil Aerosol got out more often, this is what it would sound like live. "January 18 2018" is a live-in-the-studio improvisation made in the midst of a dark, very cold, and rather difficult winter.
Our recordings of the 2010s saw a transition toward more software-based methodologies, but this one sent us back to our roots with a rack full of effects boxes, a proper mixing board, a little feedback, and the inevitable 60-cycle hum.
A 38-minute, purposefully flawed winter song.
Digital Download - February 2018
No catalog number issued.
The Unlistening Place
The core tracks of The Unlistening Place were recorded in 2015. At the time, these were intended to be part of what was to be the final Fossil Aerosol album, scheduled for a distant release. But history circled back on itself and the result was a reworking of future tracks, alongside more new material.
Tradition, referents, and resolute nothing from the place that does not hear.
CD and Digital Download - September 2017
ADM20
Revisionist History
"Revisionist History" observed 30 years of obscure, sporadic, and artificial resurrection. The recordings on this album are hybrids, created by the grafting of old artifacts onto new material using recently devised studio processes. New sounds of the past, articulated through the devices of an unimagined future.
Special edition CD and Digital Download - June 2016
ADM19
3.2016
The core tracks of 3.2016 were mixed during March of 2016. On the 23rd of the month, elements from several of these tracks were reanimated live in the studio under a Paschal Moon. The result was an additional 23 minutes of real-time compositions.
3.2016 was made available immediately upon completion as a digital download, while the tiny ones and zeros are still warm.
Digital Download - March 2016
ADM18
1986
The very first mixes that were made under the moniker Fossil Aerosol Mining Project date to January or February of 1986. They were produced on the floor of a 2-room apartment, using three effects pedals (one of which gave a nasty little 9-volt shock), two radio/cassette players (one utilized for its bad source switch), some recordings of a Moog Prodigy made three years earlier, and a Radio Shack four-channel mixer.
In February of 2016, in observation of the 30th anniversary of sitting on the floor and receiving minor shocks as we embarked on the Fossil Aerosol project, we created this 23-minute mix, which employs only material recorded during those first winter 1986 sessions. The piece is a 2016 composition, but it is built entirely of 1986 - turned inside out and frontways back 30 years later.
Digital Download - February 2016
No catalog number issued.
Telegnostic Devices
Recorded during the winter of 2013 whilst examining too many obscure paranormal documentaries of the 1970s. Some of the tracks on this album utilized raw material also incorporated into the collaborative project "Patina Pooling", with :zoviet*france:. Other elements date to the 19th century.
Digital Download - November 2015
ADM 17
The Day 1982 Contaminated 1971
The basic tracks of this album were recorded in 2010, and were remixed and remastered in 2014. The source material for the work consists of dissociated fragments from nearly-lost genre films of the 1970s, filtered by scratched celluloid, bad splices, dropouts, and damaged control tracks.
The Day 1982 Contaminated 1971 was released on vinyl by the Helen Scarsdale Agency in 2015. The first 200 copies of the pressing included fragments of 1970s intermission film, recovered from an abandoned drive-in theater during the early 1980s and affixed to the cover of the album.
Vinyl lp and Digital Download - October 2015
HMS033
Flexible Pooling
Another collaborative project with :zoviet*france:, serving as a follow up to "Patina Pooling", but weighing substantially less. Employing the nearly obsolete format of the 7-inch flexidisc, “Flexible Pooling” consists of two unreleased tracks that were mixed with the lo-fi quality of the format in mind. The limited sound fidelity and susceptibility to physical degradation of the flexidisc intentionally becomes an additional layer to the recordings, a surface audio patina analogous to the rusting of the steel sleeves of the previous album.
Packaged in a paper merchandise bag, Flexible Pooling also includes an access code for the download of an additional, 18-minute extended track.
Flexi-disc with additional digital download - Alt.Vinyl
April 2015
AV064
Some Historical Shrines of 1934
In 2015, Fossil Aerosol worked with filmmaker Matthew Konicek on the soundtrack to his video "Some Historical Shrines of 1934". Using a unique process that affects both the video and audio tracks, the video is an exploration of hyper-manipulated time and the inadvertent layering of history.
Using the looped audio from the original rough cut of the video footage, Fossil Aerosol recomposed selected fragments and created a 15-minute, freestanding composition from the material.
Digital Download April 2015
No catalog number assigned.
Red Fades First
Recorded during a heat wave in the summer of 2013. Using thrift-store cassettes dating to the 1970s and 1980s, this project explored the effects of mildew on chromium dioxide, and of chromium dioxide on mildew.
This was the last of our early CD-r packages, distributed primarily in the US and Japan. A special edition CD-r with a hand-made cover was also distributed privately.
CD-r, Special Edition CD-r, and Digital Download - October 2014
ADM 16
Patina Pooling
A collaborative project with :zoviet*france:. Over a year in the making, Patina Pooling was released in 2014 by alt.vinyl as a double lp vinyl edition. The package consists of a weathered and laser-etched steel sleeve, found cardboard inserts, and includes specimens of water and U.V. damaged synthetic fabrics, collected from a burned-out warehouse in the American Midwest in 1987. Frequent listeners of each band will find both the familiar and the new. The call and response of residue and hybrid.
A CD edition in a similar steel sleeve followed in 2016
Vinyl double lp and single CD editions - Alt.Vinyl
October 2014
AV052
17 Years in Ektachrome
Composed specially for the Hand-Held Recordings label, this project disassembled and rearranged earlier, unreleased tracks and grafted them to new field recordings and recently-acquired debris.
The damaged documents and pilfered souvenirs of a very long journey.
CD Hand-Held Recordings
2014
HHR04
What is the Light Of?
The material in this collection originated from a reconfigured studio in 2012. Here, new recording processes allowed for more improvisational live-in-the- studio” studies.
Strumming the digital delays as they further degrade the decomposed.
A special edition CD-r package with X-ray film stock cover and an extended track on a second CD was privately distributed.
CD-r and Digital Download
April 2013
ADM14
The Resurrection Remixes, 2009
In 2009, we looked back at the theme-based “If You Loved The Dawn of the Dead” and decided that the material needed a revisit. This collection consists of remixes and reconsiderations of several of the dead-shopping-center recordings, as well as a couple of the very early tracks from the 1995 “Cassette Recordings”. One of several revisions to our zombi history.
Released as CD-r in 2010, and as digital download in 2013.
See also the 2021 CD, "Zombi Traditions (37 Years).
CD-r and Digital Download
April 2013
ADM13
The First 15 Minutes of the Second Sequel
Eight tracks composed of processed fragments from the first 15 minutes of the second unauthorized Italian sequel to Dawn of the Dead. The dislocation of fake decay, circa 1980. Recorded in 2008.
This project was reimagined in 2020 for the "Nigths and Profecy" cassette.
CD-r and Digital Download
September 2009
ADM08
Residues of the Eclipse
A grouping of tracks that were composed of looped and processed debris culled from vinyl pressings of concert recordings made during the early 1970s.
The hissing compression of old tape, and the darkening of the side of an orbiting body.
Some of the tracks from these sessions have wound up elsewhere, including the "Objects of Disassociation Volume 1" collection, as well as the radio program "A Duck in a Tree."
Recorded 2007-2008, with later remixes.
Never Officially Released
ADM07
Mutations and Synthetics
Recorded in 2006, this album is composed of relics of poorly-crafted media fantasies of a malfunctioning future and mutated pop culture. Layered voices of extinct synthesizers, punctuated by the stutters and blips of fake technology.
Mutations and Synthetics was available on as a digital download for a time, and most of the CD-rs were sold in Japan. In 2023, the album was remastered and released with additional material on Bandcamp.
CD-r (2007) and Digital Download (2009).
Remastered Digital Download 2023
ADM06
If You Enjoyed the Dawn of the Dead
Nine tracks containing damaged and mutated artifacts from all three installments of the original zombie trilogy: 1969, 1979, and 1986. Selections of fake decay, artificially decomposed again. Remembering the zombie plague.
Much of this material was remixed in 2009 ("Resurrection Remixes"), and then again for the 2021 "Zombi Traditions".
Recorded in 2005
CD-r (2006) and Digital Download (2009).
ADM05
About Your Belief
The original 2005 release of this album represented the first set of recordings produced by a reassembled Fossil Aerosol Mining Project, using new equipment (actually postdating the Reagan administration) and revised delay processes.
The album was remastered and expanded in 2019. As is our custom, we monkeyed with the history a bit, resulting in more revisionism along with a much-improved frequency response.
Recorded in 2004, remastered 2019
CD-r (2005) and Digital Download (2009 & 2019).
ADM04
1874 From 1968
Artifacts of the misinterpretation of the historic American West. Here, audio fragments from Italian westerns of the 1960s and early 1970s were processed and arranged using rapidly failing studio equipment. A noisy, dust-coated, very analog cinema.
The third of three projects from the 1990s.
Recorded in 1998-1999
CD-r (2005) and Digital Download (2009).
ADM03
Environmental Adjustments, March 1997
The material on this album employed environmental recordings made several years earlier. While the earlier Fossil Aerosol work was based principally on multi-tracked loops, this project devised a more improvisational method of multi-channel treatments that we still use today.
The sounds of contaminated thaw.
Recorded in the early spring of 1997.
CD-r (1997, 2005) and Digital Download (2009).
ADM02
Cassette Recordings 1983 - 1995
Cassette Recordings represents the earliest audio work from the Fossil Aerosol Mining Project, recorded and mixed on 4-track cassette decks during the mid-late 1980s. This includes material from the first two cassette releases made in 1987 and 1988. Nine tracks were remixed or remastered in 1995 for this release.
The decay of faked decay.
Recorded 1983-1988, remixed 1995.
CD-r (1996, 2005) and Digital Download (2009).
ADM01
Simulated Mutations / Looped from Memory
Our first releases were two very limited run cassettes, distributed in Chicago in 1987 and 1988. In 1996, some of the tracks from these cassettes were remastered and released as the CD-r "Cassette Recordings". That album was then remastered again and released as the first Afterdays Media CD-r in 2005 (see above).
Recorded 1983-1988.
No catalog number issued.