Archaeopteryx: Flight in Space
The Album Cover
This is my first "album" - dedicated to space-rock, space-erotica and mood altering ambience. It's named after the extinct archaeopteryx (literally "early bird") from the Jurassic Period. An archaeopteryx in space? The concept clashes with reality: the thought of such a bird as a sort of "bio-spaceship", as my album cover suggests, begins the mental trip away into fantasy... then hopefully, the music will do the rest!
I have worked on this album for over 6 months and I feel it will please most people who like progressive, spacey and mood-altering music. The album contains at times, a futuristic and yet at other times, a "retro" twist. There is lots of ambience, too....dreamscape-like piano and string parts with an ever-present spaciness.
Most songs are trippy synthesizer instrumentals. Yet there are many songs with analog parts, e.g. electric guitar and vocals. Some songs are fantasies, for example, Alien Girl is a hard-driving song with the ARP synthesizer providing a sequence of computerish bass runs where the lyrics tell of an erotic meeting with a female being from outer space.
Another song, Space Race is a super-fast drum/guitar solo that should raise your pulse a notch or two. (grin). The first song, Retro Intro can be used as a stereo "test"...the powerful LFO's of my ARP synth will let you find out if you have any weaknesses in your home or car stereo.
The song, The Archaeopteryx is an example of the "space-erotica" ambience of which this album contains much of. The song Manticore Offering is a fast suped-up keyboard number using a similar keyboard voice as that of Kieth Emerson's famous Hammond "rock" organ. This fast progressive song is very rough on my W5 synthesizer - and every time I play it, I worry about damaging the keyboard! Manticore Offering is my salute to Emerson, Lake and Palmer - one of the greatest progressive-rock keyboard/synth bands on this planet.
Finally, the song Cretu City is my way of paying respects to the sound of Enigma.
Many songs were inspirations from my favorite space-rock band, Hawkwind . I have actually done 4 "covers" of their songs on this album. I have done these covers because Hawkwind is my favorite band. In case you are interested, my influences (besides Hawkwind) are these (ranked in relative order):
Emerson , Lake & Palmer; Genesis (older stuff); Yes (Trevor Rabin stuff!); Ozric Tentacles; Kraftwerk; Pink Floyd; Rush; Rick Wakeman; Alan Parsons Project; Devo; Jean-Michel Jarre, Brian Eno; Robert Fripp; King Crimson; ELO; Enigma; Enya, Madonna (i.e., the music behind her voice) and Mozart.
In the playlist below, there are several song clips that you can sample. The (8) sampled .wav files average less than 200k each and were sampled at 8000 bps in mono so the sound quality is not good - yet I had to do it this way to conserve server disk space and also so that you don't have to wait so long for each download. I can assure you that the actual recordings on CD and cassette are crisp and quite clean.
THE PLAYLIST (and length of each song):
1. Retro Intro (1:17)
2. Flight of the Archaeopteryx (4:16)
3. Spirit of the Age * (7:20)
4. Flight Thru Space (5:19)
5. Archaeopteryx (5:07)
6. Space Race (2:01)
7. Alien Girl (5:24)
8. Assault & Battery/The Golden Void* (6:34)
9. Manticore Offering (3:05)
10. Nuclear Drive* (4:49)
11. Xenomorph* (3:22)
12. Fugue Feeling (1:46)
13. Planet Zoom (3:04)
14. Archeopteryx (Reprise) (4:43)
15. Native Galaxy (2:31)
16. Cretu City (5:17)
TOTAL LENGTH: 64 minutes
* Songs originally by Hawkwind
The following is a list of instruments I used to make this album:
ARP Odyssey Synthesizer- super cool analog Moog-like synth from the 1970's with the most powerful LFO's I have ever heard. My ARP supplied all the synth sounds on Retro Intro and Alien Girl.
Yamaha W5 Music Synthesizer - the heart of the operation (check out my website on this cool synth). Without this synthesizer/workstation, there would be no album.
Korg DS-8 synth - FM digital synth with cool lead capability. Has some abilities that the W5 and the ARP do not..
Roland Alpha Juno-1 Synthesizer - small but powerful analog/hybrid synth.
Fender Stratocaster - the only electric guitar I need!
BOSS ME-6 and Ibenez P-5 Multi-Effects Racks - most of my music is under "effect" so what more can I say?
All music was recorded on a Fostex 28H 4-track recorder.
Check out my webpage on multi-tracking and see more photos of my instruments as well as a write-up on using a multi-track recording system.
Want to order a cassette or CD? Here's the cost...
Cassette: $6
CD: $11
This is no money making venture, believe me - it's just as well, because making money was not my goal anyway. But to give you a rundown on the cost to make this, my digital mixdown to hard-disk at the recording studio was $100 and that is super-dirt cheap compared to most places! After the master CD was burned, additional CD's are costing me $10 each to clone and then I have to package them. CD's will be cloned "as requested". The tee-shirts are grey and feature the album cover above.
Why make an album? Well, I wanted to embrace the challenge and the fun of making a recording for myself, for "posterity" and also with the intent and hope of sharing it with others. If after listening to it you find you are not satisfied, you can return it and I will give you your money back. Is that MORE than fair????
To order, email me with your requests.
If You're Gonna Do It....Do It In Space!!!
Email me. to order a tape or CD!!!
Home- Go to my start-page.