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 Cycles
by
Ron Thomas, John Swana and Joe Mullen
Released
in 2006 - Vectordisc 006 and 007
Cycles is available from Tarnius Music and CDBaby.com and from iTunes.
Unreleased and out-of-print recordings available by contacting
Cycles is a collection of 11 feature-length tone poems, cinematic landscapes
and quasi-mystical soundscapes. John Swana
and Ron Thomas (synthesizer sounds) and
Joe Mullen (percussion) create everything
from tiny microscopic events to swirling
masses of raging mountainous ostinatos.
The resulting music is more like drama
and cinema (characters, psychologies,
plots, narratives) than just "listening
to" music. Essential to the presentation
of course is the excellent soundscape
recording techniques of recording engineer
Glenn Ferracone. Several trial sessions
preceded the pieces released here and
other projects are ahead for this group
including performances and future recordings.
RON COMMENTS: Joe Mullen asked me to join him to
record free-improvisations in 1998. I was
strongly disinclined and my reluctance might
be explained this way. My connection to the
form of improvising Joe seemed to be
suggesting was rooted in “old” New Music
ideas and I had no desire to revisit that
aesthetic-acoustic world for a couple of
reasons. One, I had long since absorbed
and applied these principles [derived largely
from what I learned from Karlheinz
Stockhausen] in unexpected ways as a composer and a jazz artist. Next, I was
worried that the other players would (through no fault of their own) have not the first
clue about what I was doing, an experience I wanted neither to endure or to inflict
on others.
My doubts were unnecessary. This music was fresh from the beginning thanks to the
extraordinary imaginative company I was in. It was an honor and a joy to work with
Joe Mullen, John Swana, and Glenn Ferracone in this “electronic music” setting, the
results were more than satisfactory from the beginning. (Yea Joe, this is your record).
"Cycles" 2-CD Set
Ron Thomas - Keyboard Synthesizer
John Swana - EVI Synthesizer
Joe Mullen - Percussion
Vectordisc 006 & 007
Recorded by Glenn Ferracone at The Music Centre, Exton, PA
June 17, 2003 and October 12, 2004
Mastered by Paul G. Kohler
Produced by Richard Burton
CD Art Design by Danny Schweers, www.w2mw.com
Copyright 2006 Ron Thomas Music (ascap)
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here to see other recordings by Ron Thomas.
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