Artist description My solo project of numerous styles of experimental music outpourings ranging from experimental electronics,avant garde,industrial,musique concrete,cutups,space rock,ambient,noise etc.Sometimes including special guest artists.

Music Style Experimental electronics/avant garde/spacerock/electronica of all forms.

Musical Influences Hawkwind/Tangerine Dream/Morton Subotnik /Various artists with whom I work with today.

Similar Artists No one in particular

Artist History Band was started in 1982 to flesh out solo ideas that would not fit in with the band I was in at the time I started this project.Same goes for other bands & is the primary band at Harsh Reality Music to this date.

Group Members Chris Phinney(various guest artists appear sporadically.

Instruments A variety of software-Too much to mention & gear too much to mention here as well but heres some of the crap.Acid/Pro Tools/Sound Forge/Fruity Loops/Pro Tools/Cool Edit/Reason/Granular/Audiomulch/& loads more.Korg Poly 800,Aarp Axxe,Moog Rogue,Moog Prodigy,Guitar mostly prepared,Yamaha RX-15,various percussives,woodwinds,fx.

Albums Better Pull That Plug C-60/Over The Border C-60/Shot In The Dark C-60/Hellhole C-60/Sick Of This & That C-60/Crying Shame C-60/Bloodbath C-60/Buddums C-60/Split LP Orange Is For Anguish,Blue Is For Insanity/Best Of C-100/Sampler#1 C-90/Sampler#2 C-90/Duchess-C-60/Eyeballs Glazed Over CD&C-60/Faded Flowers CD&C-46/Mood Swing Shift C-60/Criminal Element C-60/Hyperspace C-60/Split Tape With P.C.R.C-60/Strategies C-60/Panic In The Sun C-60/Asshole C-60/Residue C-90/Love Songs C-60/Rufescent C-60/A Potentially Damaging Impact C-60/Moon Of Passion C-60/The Killing Floor(The American Dream)C-60/Weed-B C-60/Misty C-60/Time Stands Still C-60/The Masking Of Truth C-60/Beach Blanket Bozos C-60/Trummel C-60/A Tisket A Tasket,A Condom Or A Casket C-60/Your Only Dreaming C-60/Reflections C-60/Imagination,Dreams & Contemplation C-60.

Press Reviews Tons of reviews in underground publications thruout the years,too numerous to name them all. Here area few: From Improvijazznation-Issue#48 Mental Anguish - MILE AFTER MILE: Phinney (as in Chris) scores for strange again! There are some GREAT BEATS on here... so much throb, the sub-woofer is givin' me a beautiful blow-dry session! Home-produced all the way, the CD features some of the classic names in underground home-produced music... Dave Fugleweicz, Bryan Baker, Mundok, Carl Howard... the list goes on & ON! There are still some (fools) who look down their noses at home-production, but the kats at Homemade Music have taken it to the NEXT LEVEL, & there's no doubt in my mind that this music will BE the "street music" of tomorrow! Styles vary here, as Chris has remixed cuts from so many artists (many of them at www.homemademusic.com ), the list is too long to itemize here. For those who DON'T know, Chris & Harsh Reality Music go all the way back to the genesis of the underground in this country, & he's demonstrated clear & unequivocal talent for re-interpreting other artists' into something brand (& TOTALLY) new! Gets a MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED from us, along with the "PICK" of this issue for "freshest new music"! Contact at Harsh Reality Music, POB 38124-1667, or via email to chris.phinney@gte.net Rotcod Zzaj/ The Tapegerm Mixes by Mental Anguish -www.tapegerm.com- /artists/78/mental_anguish.html TAPEGERM is a fascinating new millennium web place where sound sculptors can pick up building materials and display the works they create from them.The virulent tapegerm microbe has spread quickly, infecting the brain cells of avant garde composers all over the world. Its insidiously insistent flagella corers these audio technicians into gluing together a variety of sounds, which they then vociferously spit back into the ears of their fellows A collective of sonic explorers oversees the mitosis of this organism, and one of this group's members is the legendary veteran of the home recording universe, Chris Phinney. "The Tapegerm Mixes" is a CD collection of collages which Chris, in his guise of "Mental Anguish", produced from sounds supplied by members of the Tapegerm Collective and other representatives of the home recording cosmos.The list of contributors is nothing less than a conglomerate of heroes and heroines of the sonic underground, including Al Margolis, Bryan Baker, Michael J. Bowman, Bev Stanton, and several others, including Chris himself. Hard edged heavy beats both assault and hypnotize as they build a framework for most of the nineteen pieces on the recording. Treatments of pounding percussion and synthesizer boil with machine-like thumps and whirrs to stir up a fiery soup of collaged loops, which is seasoned with overlays of other noises such as gritty guitars, volatile vocalizations, and even sprinkles of spicy clarinet. I recognize some of these chunks of looped germ sound, so I must conjecture that many of the recording's building blocks were not "created" by the artists, but instead were carefully edited from other sources. The finished collages are flavored with rock, noise, pop, techno, and even zydeco. Listeners should be warned that the continually repeating patterns of the mature tapegerms can infect foot tissue, producing a spastic tapping effect. I recommend a visit to the Tapegerm site for all those who are mentally healthy enough to indulge in the delightful rewards of its infection, and I recommend getting a copy of Mental Anguish's 'Tapegerm Mixes' CD to everyone who enjoys extraordinary entertainment. Swami Loopynanda May, 2002 MENTAL ANGUISH- Mile After Mile- Before exposure to Mental Anguish, I had only been familiar with Chris Phinney’s contributions to the last few Tapegerm “Germination” collections. On this latest CD Mile After Mile, Mental Anguish explores a wide variety of electronic music genres through loops and samples with the collaboration of 11 other artists. The result lacks the cohesiveness usually expected in an artist’s release as Progressive Electronic, Minimal, Experimental, Drum & Bass and even Grindcore styles are represented here. Phinney mixes his own and others sounds and tracks and is in turn remixed. Like an old Lee “Scratch” Perry & Friends dub release, Chris Phinney plays organizer and creative madman in a collection that turns out to be more of a showcase of loops and mixing genius than a solo effort. Some of the pieces such as The Benzola-Phinney Mix bring to mind the sounds of some of the pioneers of experimental music like Edgard Varese, Henry Cowell and Vladimir Ussachevsky. The sounds of My Doctor The Guinea Pig and the subsequent like loop mixes set the dials to receive arcane transmissions from outer and inner space, then march towards the experience while interfering transmissions bleed through the lines. My favorite track, the Crank Mix of Zapruder Red’s piece Drugs N Boxes is happy cacophony and reminds me of my house on the weekend for some reason. Synths fart amid the drums and bass, the parakeet chirps and bobs his head in time, Santa Clause bangs on the Tupperware while a pot boils over in the kitchen, an innertube rolls past my back door. The Popsicle truck is on the next block and on its way. Drones, space music, cut ups, sideways pop with an extra chromosome, alien marching music, smoking noise, difficult listening, this CD runs the gamut. Like many of my now favorites, Mile After Mile took a few listens to get into but has been well worth the effort as I now seem to hear something new in it each time. Myrl Siereveld Mental Anguish - MESHWERK: Chris been mixin' it up again (that's Chris Phinney, of Harsh Reality Records). This is unlike any experimental or "out" music you've heard before. Fresh-cut, albeit deeply rooted... in th' rawk-in tradz' we've come to expect from HR! I especially liked track 2, for th' percussives as well as th' strange sounds! Strong dance-like rhythm-trax that will (at least) have ya' wigglin' somethin'! Definitely some psychedelics woven in there, prob'ly Chris got some kind o' sonic subliminals there, too... take over th' world & all that, yer' know? Ambient lead-in on track 10 will throw ya' off... after the first (eight?) bars, starts kickin' yer' TAILZ'! If you're thirsting for some straight-ahead jazz improv, you'll move along to another stall... if you want some great beats with strange twists & turns behind th' rhythms (something we've sorta' come to expect from Mr. Phinney), you'll agree with me... HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Contact via Chris's site, at /artists/78/mental_anguish.html or reach him via email to chris.phinney@gte.net Rotcod Zzaj

Additional Info Various collaborative efforts with Nomuzic,Hal McGee,Alien Planetscapes,Angwana,Jeff Central,Minoy,Mystery Hearsay,Pat Grafik,Allegory Chapel,Dave Prescott,John Hudak,Regicide Bureau,M.Finnkrieg,Dark Enigma,Swinebolt 45,Kapotte Muziek & others.

Location Memphis, Tennessee - USA

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