One thing I enjoy is the challenge of transitions.  Morphing and evolving music with multiple themes involves a certain creativity to stitch it all together.  Ticket home pushes the limit on transitions.  The relationship of the chorus to the meat of the track is a little disturbing but barely works in a feat of amusing desperation.  With the more serious nature of the other tracks there is a sense of humor at play.  When my brother first heard it he thought I had lost my mind.   It works though and plays as a lighter entry.

8 Ticket Home

Disturbing and dark, the song floats between structure and dissonance without fully convicting itself to either.  It is at times open, trying desperately to find a melody to rescue itself from an impending sense of doom.

7 Chaos And Order

How to handle complex and offbeat sequence...with an equally complex and offbeat drum track.  The percussionist in me couldn't help but dissect a monophonic sequence to its core of transients and embellish every nuance with a beat inspired by some of my prog drum idols.  It forms the intro to a solid electronic outing fused with my usual fleet of synths.

6 Power Spike

A homage at times to the 70's, this piece meanders from Tangerine Dream to even Pink Floyd.  It is a journey of nostalgia paying tribute to music long gone.  Analog voices abound with twelve bit sampling to form a very consuming journey. A tribute to the days when music was an experience rather than the background noise of our lives, to be listened to in headphones, album jacket in hand.

5 Concrete And Glass

Harsh and abrasive, this piece drives itself with a heavy digital edge.  A shrill complex wave lead accents the driving beat with a sense of underlying dread before morphing into a new light like the dawn of another day.

4 Background Radio

With more organic voices showing up beyond the synthetic, this piece is taste of flesh and blood interspaced with the electronic.  Piano, bag pipe, hammered dulcimer, strings and acoustic guitar can be heard among more exotic instruments like the Soma Lyra and a great list of synths.  All is concluded with a trusty red SH101 taking the lead to the end.

3 Eco Space

A blend of analog and digital voices, this is the perfect piece to get the listeners feet wet with the music I do.  It is short and sweet and doesn't waste any time getting to the point.  Electronic motion

2 Pulse

Interwoven sequencers propel the music like blood through arteries:  Complex yet with a driving forward momentum. Like the morning commute, the piece curves in and out of multiple themes.

1 Mass Transit

Composer, keyboardist specializing in synthesizers, Chapman Stick and percussion.
  All works performed, engineered and mastered by John Holcroft. 2021

URBAN SPRAWL

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