Marc Broude

Marc Broude is an eclectic independent composer and musician whose work encompasses electronic music, experimental noise, ambient music, industrial, and black metal. Broude began experimenting with unusual sounds when he was eight years old, creating tape loops and combining them with spoken word material, but he didn't begin working with music seriously until 2005, when after a long period of emotional turmoil he fell in with a collective of musicians, artists, and squatters in Chicago. Surrounded by like-minded individuals, Broude soon formed the noise/performance ensemble Panicsville, and in 2006 he also started a black metal group called Zog. Zog consisted of Broude on bass, Chris Anderson and Eric Sepata on guitars, and Danny Cortez on drums; the band released a four-song EP, Revive, but proved short-lived when Cortez died ten months after the group was launched.

In 2006, Broude recorded an industrial-influenced single, "Psychological Warfare" b/w "God Smacker," which earned enthusiastic reviews despite being released only as a 7" single in a limited edition of 50 copies. Broude took a break from music in 2007 to address personal issues, but returned to performing the following year, and in 2009 he released an album-length solo project through his own <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22NoZen+Records%22">NoZen Records</a> label, Rites of Zen, a 76-minute ambient piece that crafted found sounds, electronics, and organic instruments into a gentle but sinister soundscape. Another dark ambient album, Medicine, followed the same year, and in 2010 he released a split release with Sequences, Medicine/Vespertine: A Tragedy in Several Tones of Grey. In 2011, Broude reissued the "Psychological Warfare" single in a remixed digital edition, and an industrial/black metal-influenced single "Cruel Society" b/w "The Sixth Era." ~ Mark Deming