Robert Turman - Macro (2013)

Industrijska muzika za postindustrijsko doba koju pravi jedan od njezinih pionira (s Boydom Riceom kasnih '70-ih osnovao je NON).

robertturman.com/

When Spectrum Spools – an offshoot of the Editions Mego imprint, curated by Emeralds’ John Elliott – reissued Robert Turman’s debut solo release, Flux, in 2012, it opened up a new world for synth-heads who weren’t previously familiar with the American industrial/noise pioneer’s works. Turman co-founded NON with Boyd Rice, and has recently been seen collaborating with the likes of Aaron Dilloway, among others. Seeing an opportunity to further expand our horizons, Brooklyn’s Fabrica Records has taken up the torch, reissuing Turman’s Beyond Painting and putting out this amazing cassette of new work. Recorded in 2012, Macro is a rhythmic exercise in hypnotic, dub-inflected loop mayhem. Textured sheets of ambient tone warp our sensibilities, dissolving our inhibitions to allow Turman’s insidious rhythms to infect both our bodies and our minds. Strangely enough, there’s an unearthly grace applied here, as delicate patterns emerge from the near-industrial murk  The raw beauty of this release is both unexpected and incredibly welcome.- www.secretdecoder.net/

There’s a ringing in my ears. The left is flickering, picking up the faint sounds of the world reanimating. The right, well it may be out of commission. It’s stuck on an infinite loop, the cochlea a grinding chuff but of little use. This explosion of industrial sound; the rattle of war as brothers once bonded by peace are now torn asunder by mistrust and obstructed by smoke. It’s attrition and though my right ear may never regain its strength, its pulsations are comfort at night in a camp as hollow and horrific as one can imagine. There are the noises of the dying. There are the cries of the weak. There are the beasts of the wild, men turned feral by what man has sown. But the gears are still churning. Their relentless clank never letting up. We clock in, poise our bayonets, and wait for the howl and stampede of 10,000 high-heeled boots. It’s all just a beat to the docile ringing in my ear. We fight because we have stayed loyal to Robert Turman, his anarchistic music breaking us away from the savages of a world too eager to conform. It began at a nameless award ceremony, the hapless pop starlet engorged by fame exploding across the crowded theater. Now we fight off the beasts of celebrity, starved for the relevance and power taken away by wantonness. The music machine still quacks but we stand in the trenches, hands full of Macro to blast back the pack before we’re all callously swallowed by fashion police and paparazzi. - Justin Spicer (Tiny Mix Tapes)

Way Down (1987)

burkaforeverybody.bandcamp.com/album/b-f-e-18-robert-turman-way-down-lp





"Originally released as a small run cassette in 1987, only to fall into tape label obscurity, Robert Turman's industrial genre-bending masterpiece album Way Down finally has been excavated for a proper reissue after twenty-three years in the shadows. This album solidifies Turman as a cut above the rest with respect to his talent and his natural ear for experimental composition. Turman first came onto the industrial scene in the late 70s as the ominous other half of legendary noise outfit NON, alongside Boyd Rice, together releasing the now classic first NON single, Mode of Infection/Knife Ladder 7″ in 1977. After parting ways, Turman went on an excursion of self-released cassettes to which he fused every possible influence at his disposal, culling together past habits of experimental know-how and going forward into uncharted terrain. After his previous experimental efforts included on his Flux release in 1981, and even later in the prolific Chapter Eleven boxset, Turman turned the tables with the creation of Way Down, using synthesizer arrangements and drum machines alongside guitar solos, piano chords, tape loops and primitive sampling to create a whole new concoction of dance-like minimal synth blended together with the industrial darkwave noise he was mostly known for. After almost vanishing from the music scene, Turman resurfaced in 2005, teaming up with seminal noise musician Aaron Dilloway to not only reissue previous recordings, but to record and perform once again with new releases out on Hanson and Medusa. This vinyl reissue of Way Down serves as the blueprint of what Turman sought to render as a very accessible minimal synth/industrial album, yet keeping it just obtuse enough to make it one of the most brilliant and engaging albums to be ushered into the canon of 80s experimental culture."- boomkat

After glancing over the press release for this record I spotted a sentence in there from Elvis Von Doom “Robert Turman is one of the most underrated figures to come out of industrial music’s earliest days.” I could not agree more. The man’s music stirs something in me that’s inexplicable. It traverses the entire emotional spectrum and is a pure example of the sheer powerful force that is recorded sound. ‘Way Down’ is really unlike any other work in his catalogue. Originally issued on cassette in 1987 on his Actual Tapes label and then first appeared on vinyl via Dais in 2010, it has now once again been reissued on wax courtesy of Burka For Everyone.
Working loosely within the cold/ minimal synth template of the era Turman wasn’t one to write off the possibilities of the guitar within the format and as a result ‘Way Down’ has one of the most distinctive sounds of all the records from that generation. The foundation/ backbone of the tracks is minimal synth, drum machine but the cold minimalism is augmented with vocal samples, tape loops and as mentioned some guitar. I usually don’t go for guitar in electronic music at all but Turman successfully blends the real and synthetic seamlessly. The opening title track is pure ecstacy, with longing synths and piano. ‘Lowtek’ like the preceding tune has no shortage of infectious melody alongside a pitched down vocal sample adding a darker edge. 'Mind the Gap' sounds like Jean Michelle Jarre being assaulted by Giorgio Moroder and Chris Carter while ‘Freedom From Fear’ sounds like The Normal covering Mike Ratledge’s ‘Riddles Of The Sphinx’ soundtrack. ‘Dead King Speak’ is the most “industrial” track of the bunch with squashed mechanical rhythms swamped in fog with sinister melodies creeping through the darkness. Closer ‘Clean living’ is pure rugged, deranged proto-techno.
The overall atmosphere of ‘Way Down’ is dark but never overly oppressive due to Turman’s brilliantly executed balance of melody and texture. A stone-cold classic.- Norman Records



Beyond Painting (1990)

      
I couldn’t be happier about the current Robert Turman reissue campaign. First ‘Flux’ appeared a wee while ago on Spectrum Spools and now like three records in the space of a month; ‘Spirals of Everlasting Change’, ‘Way Down’ and now ‘Beyond Painting’. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played this album thanks to Fabrica rescuing it from near obscurity with this vinyl reissue. The tracks were recorded in 1990 but only saw the light of day via 100 copies on CDr in 2010. A criminally low run as this could well be Turman’s masterpiece.
Across the record he utilizes soul stirring synth loops which are a total bliss-out conjuring widescreen vistas while summoning tears to shoot out of my tear ducts but so far I’ve just about managed to hold it together. This is a magnificent, stunningly beautiful and very organic sounding ambient record that stands out head and shoulders amongst the masses within the genre. The melodies are to die for, the lo-fi production sounds warm and enveloping and the sound palette of guitar, tapes and synth is consistent throughout - There's a real continuity and flow with each track being similar but still very different. Mind blowingly gorgeous music that I can’t recommend enough. Head over to the full preview on SoundCloud and if you’re not melted I’d recommend checking for a pulse. - Norman Records

Robert Turman began making sound experiments in the early 70′s employing reel-ro-reel tape, cassette decks, arp synth, drum sequencers, multiple string and percussion instruments, and whatever else he could scavenge. In the late 70′s he co-founded NON (along with Boyd Rice), but left shortly after the release of the Mode of Infection/Knife Ladder 7″ e.p. to focus on composing and releasing his own music on limited-edition, and now extremely rare, cassette tapes. Robert has collaborated with art rockers FZ13, post-apocalyptic industrialists Z.O. Voider, and more recently Aaron Dilloway (Wolf Eyes, Nevari Butchers), Neon Depth and Jandek.

Beyond Painting, with its 72 minutes of haunting lo-fi ambience, is probably one of Robert’s most accomplished recordings. Layers of meditative synth loops, guitar, and eastern tinged melodies, all beautifully delayed, bring to mind blistering desert landscapes, high-tension cold war era spy action sequences, and dark cavernous sounds.

Originally recorded in 1990, these tracks did not see the light of day until 2010 when they were self released on a limited run of 100 professionally printed and duplicated CD-Rs. Beyond Painting follows in the footsteps of the recently reissued “Flux” cassette on LP (Spectrum Spools).

Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk (Mississippi Records, Sublime Frequencies, Grouper, Wooden Shjips, Yellow Swans) at Stereophonic Mastering. - fabricarecords.wordpress.com/

For a while, Robert Turman's legacy in the genesis of American Noise was reduced to a dead hyperlink in the NON section of Boyd Rice's Wikipedia page. Turman is enjoying the type of revival typically sparked by obituaries. But when Spectrum Spools reissued Turman's Flux last year it was illuminated as a high watermark of 80's outre. Realistically though, it's Aaron Dilloway who is responsible for Turman's developing reputation. The two collaborated on the chilling Blizzard and have been gigging frequently, even backing Jandek early last year. In fact, Dilloway was supposed to reissue Flux on his own Hanson label before John Elliott did it justice on vinyl. At the very least, Turman will go down as the man to whom Dilloway dedicated Modern Jester's finest track.

Beyond Painting is a reissue too-- originally recorded in 1990, it was first issued on 100 CD-R’s in 2010. Such immediate re-release-- before the original has even sold out-- illustrates just how high Turman’s profile has risen. Fabrica is actually offering this vinyl simultaneously with a new cassette-- Macro-- as if to contextualize one within the other. The new work features a collage of techniques and timbres, but Beyond Painting is faithful to Turman's old habit of album-legnth aesthetic meditations. Consider how Way Down used violent Industrial to criticize Reagan’s military action-- cold and hot alike-- and how Flux's minimalistic loops and acoustic instrumentation crafted sound and mindspace opposite of all noise's means, but not ends.

This album’s unifying aesthetic is lush darkness, somehow never melancholy nor icy. The work’s unity is steeped in the fact that his synthesizers and loops mosey almost paceless. The shared musical theme of the first and last tracks, in fact, lendan overt cohesion. Not for nothing, the album also renders Turman’s body of work up until 1990 homogenous. For example, the bass in “Al-Qa’ida” deliberately recalls Way Down's drive and rhythm; “Reflux” abides faithfully by its title’s insinuations. This material was apparently the last batch Turman would record for a good while. It could have been his final work, period. Beyond Painting is such an eerily pat summation of his innovations and genius that you would think it was compiled by Dilloway or Elliott post-mortem. Perhaps consider this a noise conspiracy theory. - Mike Sugarman

Even though Turman began his music career in the early 1970s and co-founded NON with Boyd Rice, he has not been as prolific, nor has he garnered the same accolades as many of his contemporaries have.  Recent collaborations with the likes of Jandek and Aaron Dilloway have lead to a resurgence of interest, andBeyond Painting is one of the products of this rediscovery.  Presented here as a luxurious double LP reissue of a self-released CDR, Turman's work is given the recognition it deserves.

The material was actually recorded back in 1990 but did not see the light of day until Turman self-released them as a CDR 20 years later.  Two-plus decades after their initial creation, these pieces do not sound dated in the slightest, and in hindsight perhaps more progressive and prophetic than many from the era do.

It is on pieces like "First Quarter," with its light, echoing ambience and drifting feel that seems to herald the development of the isolationist sub-sub genre of minimalist music some years later.  The repetitive drone and almost chanting voices element of "The Unforgiven" that, via its sporadic but noteworthy evolutions, conveys a similar sound and sense that the likes of Bill Laswell and Mick Harris would later work heavily within.

There is a certain darkness that resides within all of these pieces, but one that is sophisticated and restrained.  On "Soft Self Portrait" the bleakness comes about amidst gentle horn-like tones and reversed melodies that results in a composition that is more haunting, rather than frightening.  The layered, looped string sounds of "Beyond Painting" convey a similar feel, one that is a bit more tinged nostalgia rather than outright malignance.

For me though, the stand out piece was "Al-Qa'ida," with its vaguely jazz noir guitar and electronics structure that has more of a rhythmic throb to it, rather than the more spectral, textural ambience of the other pieces.  From a similar cloth is "Reflux," with a more conventional synthesizer sound and cyclic sequenced melody at the forefront.  As it goes on, the melodic pattern falls away to focus on a reverberating expanse and what sounds like echoing digital bells, one of the few moments that reflect the era in which it was recorded.

It is only that bell-like tone on "Reflux" that places this album at a specific point in time, because beyond that it sounds as if it could have been recorded yesterday.  While the technological aspect of that might not be overly impressive, since this is not a work that was hung up on digital reverbs or synth presents of the era, it is more the sense of structure and composition that is so forward thinking.  The swirling melodies and shifting layers resemble the top tier of artists working currently within this style of music, so considering this dates back nearly 24 years serves to emphasize the brilliance of Robert Turman as an artist and composer. - Creaig Dunton

 

Flux (1981)



"Flux" is the 1981 debut solo outing of Robert Turman, an American multi-instrumentalist and avant-garde composer. Until recently, Turman was perhaps best known for his contributions to the ballistic NON project with Boyd Rice, as well as other obscured U.S. industrial acts such as Z.O. Voider.
In the summer of 1981 Turman decided he would take a drastic turn from the noisy/electronic/industrial work of his compatriots, and began work on what is now the classic "Flux" cassette. "Flux" was originally self-released in extremely limited numbers. Weary of the noisescapes of old, he set out to create long-form minimalism utilizing kalimba, piano, "Mini-Pops Jr." drum machine, and tape loops to create a complex bed of interweaving micro-stasis'. The results of these new experiments were as beautiful as they were perplexing.
A curious dusty fidelity carries these classic tracks across four sides of vinyl, including all of the original "Flux" content. These compositions glow with a sprawling, slow motion haze that's light years ahead of its time. "Flux" reveals wide spectrums of sound from melancholic kalimba and percussion patterns to slowed down, syrupy Exotica. Turman had complex ideas in his mind yet only the simple technologies of the day were at hand. Hear the click of the stopping and starting Tascam 3340 open-reel tape machine as one hand presses the "record" and "play" buttons and the other plays piano phrases. While there are similarities in style to Classical Minimalism, Turman's sound and vision is his own and is exclusive to his limited discography.
Released in a limited edition 2xLP set, Lovingly remastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates and Mastering from the original c-60 cassette master.
Original cassette artwork and scans provided by Aaron Dilloway.- editionsmego.com/

Spectrum Spools delves into the distant past - well, 1981 - for its latest tranmission, a reissue of the debut album by revered multi-instrumentalist / avant-garde operator Robert Turman. Turman first came to cult prominence as a member of Boyd Rice's NON, before going on to enjoy a sporadic solo career that has taken in DAF/Normal-style electronics (Way Down) and superior noise outings (Blizzard, with Aaron Dilloway). Flux, which Turman self-released on cassette, is a one-off - a patient investigation of classical minimalism and new age tropes, an attempt to create "a complex bed of interweaving micro-stasis" with kalimba, piano, drum machine, and tape loops. The results are certainly sparse and meditative, but they're also deeply engaging, and occasionally unsettling. We're particularly into 'Flux 4', its marriage of plaintive piano and cotton-wool wrapped kickdrum coming over like a precursor to the Miasmah label or those early Dettinger records on Kompakt. Remastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates + Mastering from the original c-60 cassette master and pressed on vinyl for the first time, this is the definitive edition of a very special work. - boomkat

This is sweet! It's a double LP reissue of a cassette that was originally released in 1981 in miniscule numbers for the masses of folks who bought cassettes back in the day. Perhaps more famous for the 'Non' Project with Boyd Rice, Turman has been making industrial avant-garde music for some time. On 'Flux' he felt like breaking the mold and indeed he has with four sides of sweet sounding music comprising of kalimba, piano, mini pops jr. drum machine and tape loops. It's a beautiful chilled sound he's created. It's very percussive though the whole thing is so minimal that you might just think of it as a collection of twinkles and chimes. It's a very sparse sounding record but one that takes you to another place and gives your mind chance to absorb the intricacies of what's going on. It's background atmospheric music but it's done so well that it ends up in the foreground. I'm pleased this has been reissued as I'd never have discovered it otherwise. - Norman Records

Performing alongside someone like Boyd Rice, one of music’s most notorious provocateurs, must have quite a damaging effect. I mean, you’re dealing with a man whose famous for not only unleashing upon the world the menacing music of
Non, but also for such disparate oddities as owning a colossal Barbie doll collection and being close friends with the Black Pope himself. However, Robert Turman, revered multi-instrumentalist and second member of Non, seems to have left his collaborations with Rice unscathed. Even decades after Turman’s departure from Non, he continues to develop his own identity and art. From the dark and menacing dance tracks of his 1987 solo effort Way Down, to the cold and sterile ambience of his 2009 split with Wolf Eyes’ Aaron DillowayBlizzard, Robert Turman is one of the most underrated figures to come out of industrial music’s earliest days.

To shed light on his too often forgotten legacy, Spectrum Spools has taken out of the closet, and shaken the dust off one of Turman’s earliest solo works, Flux (1981). What listeners will discover from this lost treasure is a delicate sonic sculpture, six sprawling tracks that combine classical minimalism with processed loop-dissections. An album of sparse and engaging beauty. Several of the tracks ooze a distinctly Eastern vibe, like the droning kalimbas of ‘Flux 1′ or the exotic pianos of ‘Flux 3.’ Others wash over your ears as if relics from a time long gone, like the interweaving Satie-like pianos of ‘Flux 4′ or the odd, dismembered melody of ‘Flux 2′ that sounds like someone is slowly cranking out a tune from an old, rusted music box.

There’s an indefinable complexity to Flux. Turman set outs to create soundscapes that are neither here nor there, giving us the canvas on which to paint our own emotions. This music is beautiful, calming and intriguing – industrial music for the easy-listener. - Lee Vincent

An unearthed treasure, time-capsuled since the summer of 1981, when American multi-instrumentalist and composer Robert Turman took a turn for the subtle. Previously, Turman had been a brother-in-noise with Boyd Rice in NON and other unforgiving industrial acts. “Flux” on the other hand is as unassuming as it gets – self-released as a limited edition cassette, Turman created six long-form minimalist “fluxes” out of kalimba, piano, a drum machine and tape loops. This being 1981, the human touch is also vividly present in the recording, one hand pushing stop and start buttons, the other on the piano. With the current preoccupation in the visual and musical arts with bodies and their interaction with technology, how rare to encounter a thirty-year-old recording that feels so very contemporary, not only in sound but execution.

Each track is substantial but pliable, friable and above all, tactile. You can hear the hands shaping the sound. The opening track – in this version, the six tracks have been shorn of the titles they originally bore – has a woody, African music-box quality. The second trickles fat, round raindrop notes. The third is reminiscent of canned Chinese music meant to evoke an Imperial court scene in some cheap Hollywood flick, and yet proceeds with grace and dignity. As it slowly revolves and its timbre is altered, the air around it grows thicker, dreamier. The last two pieces are piano studies. Lovely as they are, they feel like bonus material to the revelatory near-hour that proceeds them.

Released by Spectrum Spools, the not-quite two-year-old sublabel of Editions Mego, successor to the Mego label that is extending its legacy of creating and curating some of the most significant micromosaics in sound. Robert Turman´s “Flux” is certainly a legacy piece worth praise and preservation. Literally a sound sculptor with his hands-on approach, “Flux” is an important, groundbreaking work. And it´s just so beautiful to listen to. - avantmusicnews.com/

Spirals of Everlasting Change (1987)  .

“Spirals was originally conceived in 1982 as two separate cassettes, each consisting of a series of seemingly random, yet carefully selected loops, usually one to three minutes long. The two cassettes were played simultaneously on small portable cassette machines, started randomly, so the interweaving of rhythms was different every time. Several years later, the two tapes were committed to a single mix, with overlays of sounds and tones to create melodies, connecting the rhythms, yet still leaving enough open space for the listener. Lonesome Echo was based on a long loop, with irregularly repetitive guitar and keyboard parts played over the top, with a dub-style mix. It was inspired by the solitude and melancholy of the Jackie Gleason album, Lonesome Echo. Lower World is an experiment using a 3-minute endless cassette, all tracks played with an electric bass. Slow counterpoint between the elements, to create an extended whole.” – Robert Turman

Robert Turman at RCNCAVE, 5/12/11

photo by Leonarda Beal

Robert Turman was a member of pioneering industrial band NON (alongside Boyd Rice) and has been a prolific member of the underground industrial/noise music scene since the 1970s, playing alongside artists like Aaron Dilloway, Boyd Rice, Timothy Hendricks, Jandek, and others. Robert now resides in Oberlin Ohio, and recently I caught up with him before a live performance at Akron Ohio's Rubber City Noise Cave to talk with him about his recently released double-LP Flux(Spectrum Spools) and his upcoming double-LP Beyond Painting (Fabrica Discos).
So the first thing I wanted to talk about, I'm actually confused as to the history of Flux, I read somewhere that it was a reissue, but I was actually under the impression that it was never before released material, so which is it?
It was a very very limited release. Originally I started putting cassettes out in reel to reel boxes, and the very first edition there were, maybe... not even 10 copies, and then I made it with the colored cover like it turned out to be, and there were... not even that many more, and then I made some after that in 5 inch reel boxes with black and white art on different colored paper, and there might have been 25 of those or something, and that was all over a few year in the early 80s.
So altogether less than 100 copies?
Yeah.
Okay. So how did John [Elliot, curator of the Spectrum Spools label] find out about this, did he have a copy or was this something you had told him about?
No, he probably heard it from Aaron Dilloway (Hanson Records). Aaron talked about putting it out on Hanson, and that was taking too long, but Aaron had transferred it, and done cleaning up on it, and that's probably how John first heard it, on a CD from Aaron I would imagine. Aaron had sent me, when he was still thinking about putting it out, he had sent my original cassette, which I had mixed onto a really cheap, used, low noise cassette, that was the master and so that was the only copy ever, he had sent it to a guy in England who was supposed to master it, and this was like... a year and a half ago, and the guy did a little bit on it and sent it back. [During this time] I had been gone for a while and came back and Aaron had these rough mixes and I only heard, maybe, part of the first two tracks, one of which sounded really good, and the other sounded horrible, and Aaron was supposed to make notes and send it back to the guy and... Anyway it kinda got neglected, and when John got more interested in it and he got the label he said "well let's just put it out" and so he ended up getting the tape from the guy in England. And Rashad Becker did and amazing job. I had tried with a friend of mine... cleaning it up, and just ended up making it worse, though I had done some transfers myself that I thought were pretty good, with a little bit of processing, but he (Becker) made it sound really good.
I also recall reading that you had said you recorded it (Flux) while you were having trouble sleeping and it was the only thing that helped you sleep at night. Is there more to that story?
Um yeah, I mean there was a period where I was having trouble sleeping and it was the only thing that would help me sleep.
So is that the only recording from that period, or is there more?
Umm it's hard to say, its been so long. I'm sure I have other stuff from that period but from that exact time period, that's probably about all there is.
Okay and the reception so far has been generally positive, now looking back that it has been released, is there anything you wished you'd done differently?
The only thing I wish I had done different was, there was another piano piece that was done probably right around that time that would have been nice to include on the CD. It MIGHT have made it too long, but it might have just fit. I think as it is, it's just over 60 minutes, so it might have just fit on the CD.
So is the recording just piano, or what other instruments did you use on it?
Well the first side... The first three pieces are xylophone and kalimba and one of them has a tape loop, and one of them is just xylophone. And the last three pieces are just piano and one of 'em has a very crude little drum machine that I play with the tempo through the whole track, so it's a constant speeding up and slowing down through it all.
Okay cool. So what about your new double-LP, Beyond Painting, that is coming out on Fabrica? What can you tell me about that?
That was, from what I can remember, about 1990 and was some of the last recordings that I did by myself. I ended up, shortly after that, getting into a rock band and didn't do any recording by myself for a long time. Well pretty much. I was still doing some things but it was side projects and stuff, so it was different. Like country western reggae and some stuff like that, and that was all recorded after the Beyond Painting tracks and it was always some of my favorite stuff, and I finally decided I was going to do something with it so I did the CD-R and now the double-LP.
Cool. So are people who have Flux and really liked it going to be kind of, shocked at what Beyond Painting sounds like, or does it fit within that same theme?
It's a lot different. It's um, I'd say a lot heavier or darker, and Flux is more... sombre. Beyond Painting is fairly dark. As far as instrumentation, it's a lot different, also in overall sound, but I don't know if someone who didn't know me or anything about it, if they were to hear it and say "oh it's the same person", I really don't know. But it's mostly all just this cheap, crude sampling keyboard that I had for a long time and a lot of it is just samples of my voice.
So what are you going to be playing tonight then?
What I've been doing lately, live, is... well, most of the stuff I've always done is kinda loopy and repetitive, and what I've been doing live lately changes a bit more, still loopy, but more abstract, not so much like a piece where it has a basic sound and it's that way for the whole piece, it's sort of ...extended. It goes through a lot of changes.
Anything else you'd like to add?
Uh, no that should be about it.
Robert's set that night was, as expected, a shifting, morphing trip full of cut up tape loops of vocals, strings, and god only knows what else. Robert's record Fluxis available now (and highly recommended), and Beyond Painting should be available in the next few months. - BY BRANDON  olive-music.blogspot.com/2012/05/interview-robert-turman.html

"Turman’s contribution to the industrial and synth wave underground in the late 1970s and 80s was unique and substantial. He first rose to prominence as part of NON, collaborating with Boyd Rice on the classic 1977 single ‘Mode of Infection’/'Knife Ladder’, before leaving to pursue his own more expansive solo vision. 
Turman released a number of cassettes over the course of the 80s, drawing on a wide range of experimental techniques. On Way Down, first released on Actual Tapes in 1987, he combined the psych noisy industrial drone aesthetic he was best known for with a spry, danceable minimal synth sound, albeit one fleshed out with guitars, pianos, tape loops and samples. Cold, but not too dark, with a reliance on melody not expected from this area of music. It’s a great record, murky as hell but also engaging and accessible. Robert Turman is one of the most underrated figures to come out of industrial music’s 

Robert Thurman Doesn't Look Buddhist 

Robert Turman interview for 06:00 am