Austere is an anonymous, obscurantist electronic music group that has covered a wide variety of styles in their releases: Classical Minimalism, psybient, psychedelic ambient, ambient, dark ambient, drone, glitch-ambient, and downtempo-style drum and bass music, which out of deference to Coil they spell "musick." The group started working together in 1997, with their first release on 1 January 1998, and is loosely based in the Pacific Northwest in Portlandia, Oregon due to their connection to Sound-O-Mat Recordings which is located there.
The two members have lived in various places, such as New York City, NY; North Chatam UK, UK; Portlandia, OR; Seattle, WA; Brighton, UK and SF, CA amongst many more.
Their Classical Minimalism recordings: "Convergence", "Eco", "Pulse" and "Vox" all draw upon composer Steve Reich's Process Music approach, as defined by his 1968 manifesto "Music as a Gradual Process."
They have collaborated with a number of musicians/bands including Abstract Audio Systems (New York City), In The Now (Brighton, UK) and Stephen Philips, owner of Dark Duck Records.
They have contributed to videos and films: the soundtrack for The Thin Horizon, an independent film written, directed and produced by Michael Peters of Artifexwerks located in Forest Grove, Oregon; a track from the Dark Duck Records Drone Download Project was used Claude's Room, also an independent film. They have also contributed to several music videos, such as the Abandon video, and most recently, the Tiny Danser.
Austere's members have recorded solo works, as The Mystifying Oracle and Freq. Magnet. The latter has released three full CDs, a DVD, and a recent track on a Hypnos compilation CD.