Positively Space Music

Historically speaking, many different sub-idioms and approaches to music have been nominated as SPACE MUSIC. A few of these landmarks would include: Sun Ra, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gyorgi Ligeti, The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, The Forbidden Planet Soundtrack, New Age Music, Space Age Bachelor Pad, Sputnik-Telstar Pop Instrumentals, ECM, Krautrock, Brian Eno, Modern Electronic Music, Tape Music, etc. That list could go on and on. Here, three old friends reflect and rebound among those various touchstones and project themselves into new and unexplored sectors of Space Music. Chris and Henry have been playing together for over 40 years, and at the end of CD1 is one archival track of them playing their arrangement of Bela Bartok’s Violin Duo #36, transformed into cosmic guitar music. Many curious musical juxtapositions are to be found on this album, such as:  What would Derek Bailey, Sun Ra, and Randy California sound like playing together? What would Frank Zappa playing with Robert Fripp, and Don Buchla sound like? How about Keith Jarret playing with Pete Cosey, and Conlon Nancarrow at a guitar tribute to Ligeti? Or perhaps Perrey and Kingsley vs. Sonny Sharrock at the Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade?  Everything here is in the spirit of all surprises, all fun, all the time.

BOB BRALOVE was the MIDI wizard, producer (Infrared Roses, Built to Last), and co-writer of Gold and Platinum selling songs, including: Picasso Moon, Way to Go Home, Easy Answers, Parallelogram, Little Nemo in Nightland,  Sparrow Hawk Row, with the Grateful Dead for the last eight years of the long, strange trip.  Bralove, who has a Masters Degree in composition, studied with Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Wayne Peterson, focusing on composing orchestral and chamber  works.  He perfected his skills in the digital manipulation of sound, as the sound designer and computer music director for Stevie Wonder (Woman in Red, In Square Circle).  After an eight-year tenure with Stevie, he began working with the Grateful Dead.  His first project was to help score the CBS remake of the television series The Twilight Zone. In addition to his songwriting, producing and MIDI wizard activities for the band, Bralove is especially well known for his undeniable creative sound, performing and designing with the Grateful Dead, the mind-bending, avant-garde Drums and Space segments of their live shows. Bralove also performs his art work and music live across the U.S. and in Japan in solo concerts, with Dose Hermanos and The Psychedelic Keyboard Trio, and Henry Kaiser.

HENRY KAISER Grammy winner Henry Kaiser is widely recognized as one of the most creative and innovative guitarists, improvisers, and producers in the fields of rock, jazz, world, and contemporary experimental musics. The California-based musician is one of the most extensively recorded as well, having appeared on more than 290 different albums and contributed to countless television and film soundtracks. Henry is also a scientific diver in the US ANTARCTIC PROGRAM.  He has more Antarctic under-the-ice footage in films and tv shows than any other underwater cameraman.  With eleven scientific diving deployments to McMurdo Station Antarctica, he probably has more dives under fast ice than any other professional videographer. The Antarctic reaches of Youtube are littered with his many short underwater videos shot under the ice of the Ross Sea.

CHRIS MUIR has been embroiled in music, electronics, and computers for over forty years. He has been heavily involved in creating interactive music environments for much of that time. An accomplished musician and composer, he has been involved with many projects, in many genres. Recent projects include “Yo Miles!”, “Lunar Asylum” and “Zen Disaster”. In addition to his musical endeavors, he is required to propel balls for his dog, and he enjoys referring to himself in the third person.

The three departed pets depicted in the album art and also commemorated on the first three tracks, which are live solos without overdubs by each of the three players, are Gracie the dog and the two cats named Emma and Miso.