Voyager
Ars Benevola Mater ABM 08
Released: July 2004
Tracklisting: Jupiter: great red spot / secrets of Callisto / Ganymede / Europa for Lowell / Europa / Io / Amalthea • Saturn: Cassini division / Anne’s spot / Titan / Hyperion / Titan—return / Dione & Mimas • Uranus: Uranus / Ariel / Puck / Umbriel / Oberon • Neptune: small dark spot / 1989 N1 • The Heliopause: No boundary proposal
Use the player below to listen to a track from ‘Voyager’:
Buy the CD: click here
Buy as a digital download from iTunes: 
This instrumental album came out in 2004, on Italian label Ars Benevola Mater. It was a limited edition, of 1077, I think. (It seems like a lifetime ago).
I still find it interesting to occasionally listen to ‘Voyager’, though my musical concerns are very removed from the person that wrote this music. Some really unusual and interesting little passages of music. The finale, ‘No boundary proposal’ could be tighter and stronger. It’s quite a challenging album to listen to, though with soporific and gentle passages of music too. It’s a concept album, and I spent months (in fact years) putting all the parts and themes together. I don’t think I can explain it any more ;-) – so here’s what I wrote back then:
The album follows the Voyager space probe, from Jupiter out to the edge of the solar system. The music travels with it, losing its form as it goes out away from Earth. That’s the plan at least. And as the album progresses, so the ‘natural’ sounds, the real instruments receive more and more electronic treatment. The last track gets quite wild—a mix of the sounds of Voyager and the music and animal sounds it transmits, quarter-tones, filters, strings, timpani and percussion and morse code. Probably not to everyone’s taste, this last track, especially after you’ve been mellowed out by the string sweeps of the Jupiter and Saturn tracks. Just don’t fall asleep before this one (certainly not from boredom at my album) because it will wake you up with a shock! Voyager doesn’t actually transmit morse; but it seemed an apposite place to start—with one of mankind’s first electronic signals broadcast through the heavens and airwaves. And there are some secret little messages, and some track titles in there for those of you who can read morse from rhythms in music. I took some artistic liberties though…
This album is available via my mailorder [ADD LINK], or for digital download via iTunes. It’s nearly sold out, and I doubt I’ll ever re-release it in solid form…
