This most unfortunate moment in the history of our planet is an excellent opportunity to hunker down and create like mad. Periods of time to compose and record are hard to find so it's time to make some lemonade and hide in our bunkers. Mine is fortified like never before... let the games begin!

Quarantine-A Global Conundrum

Glass Houses - Global Warming Isn't Waiting for You to Acknowledge It

After a very long hiatus from creating ambient music I've finally started to tear myself away from my other duties and activities to generate some new material. Not really organized into album form yet this is just a collection of this year's efforts mostly employing my newer modus operandi using guitar and pedal board looping techniques. I couldn't play a tune on guitar to save my life but it's a great signal generator and tone manipulator… 

Given our incredibly short attention spans I've changed the order on these pieces in hopes of enticing visitors to listen past the 1st 2 tunes… LOL

Ambient Music 2013

I'm starting to discover some of the bits I played over the course of the last year during snippets of time stolen from life's demands Prominent among the current tools are a pair of Montreal Assembly Count to 5s, Eventide H9, Pigtronix Infinity Looper, Echolution, EH Superego, Stymon Timeline, King of Tone and others on the pedalboard. Alchemy, Iris, Falcon and a host of UVI & Arturia keyboard tones abound usually with the aid of an instance of Augustus Loop. All of these pieces are live to 2track improvisations with no overdubs or mixing after they were played. I owe much to the stellar programming of Simon Stockhausen!

Ambient 2018-2019

I finally escaped the studio long enough to play some music over the holidays. A rather Snow and Ice flavored batch of improvisations no doubt helped by the temperature dropping to -29° F while I was working on them... After 5 months of engineering other folks projects it felt good to just play for a few days!

Captured live to 2 track

Snow & Ice (Ambient 2014)

This ambient meditation was recorded after dawn in my cabin in NW Ontario while my sons slept close by and reminds me of family and friends departed whose presence remains around me in that place which was and is the spiritual nexus for my family. I miss you all dearly and in that place you all remain very much alive...

I Feel Your Shadows

playing with Stochastic sequencing with variable probability. Gorgeous tones from Simon Stockhausen's gorgeous programming for Alchemy.

PhrygiD

long generative string piece featuring more of Simon Stockhausen's gorgeous programming for Alchemy. Driven by Stochas, a fun probabilistic sequencer.

In Memoriam Harold Budd

A live to two track improvisation as I pull my ambient chops back together.

Flow State

An ambient live to 2 track jam with my son Jonas who at 20 has a strong sense of ambient tradition. https://soundcloud.com/jonas-heimbecker   

Sometimes you just have to raise your own band... lol

I MIss Jacque Cousteau

A fun ambient session with my son Jonas. He had started a pedal steel riff' notion and I jumped in on guitar and later a couple of synth sounds as well. It's an extreme pleasure to share these moments with him... 

So sit back, close your eyes and breathe as Amorphous Euphoria and I take you on our journey.

https://soundcloud.com/jonas-heimbecker

A Monday Afternoon Conversation

The first of this summer's ambient offerings to escape… The unsettling drone and shifting harmonics brought to mind a dear friend departed by his own hand. CP we miss you so very dearly and your spirit left this spinning rock in space far too soon.

An Empty Chair...

A bit of this winter's ambient output another solo live to 2 track ambient piece utilizing Plague Bidule as a host for my soft synths and loopers along with my guitar and pedalboard.

Glass Houses 3

A collaboration between myself, Amorphous Euphoria https://soundcloud.com/jonas-heimbecker and Spencer Zweifel. This was Spencer's first outing in the ambient world and we had a fine time improvising these pieces!

Glass House On The Beach

A collaboration between myself, Amorphous Euphoria @jonas-heimbecker and Spencer Zweifel. This was Spencer's first outing in the ambient world and we had a fine time improvising these pieces!

The Beach Migrates Inward

Glass Houses 2

I finally escaped the studio long enough to play some music over the holidays. A rather Snow and Ice flavored batch of improvisations no doubt helped by the temperature dropping to -29° F while I was working on them... After 5 months of engineering other folks projects it felt good to just play for a few days!

Captured live to 2 track

Iceland Über Alles

Tilting Through An Indonesian Sky

I finally escaped the studio long enough to play some music over the holidays. A rather Snow and Ice flavored batch of improvisations no doubt helped by the temperature dropping to -29° F while I was working on them... After 5 months of engineering other folks projects it felt good to just play for a few days!

This track reminds me of hanging out in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba in the fall howling with the wolves. This is excerpted from the full 14 minute improvisation which features some savagely ignorant guitar playing! LOL I think I'll share that version on request...

Captured live to 2 track

Distant Howls

I finally escaped the studio long enough to play some music over the holidays. A rather Snow and Ice flavored batch of improvisations no doubt helped by the temperature dropping to -29° F while I was working on them... After 5 months of engineering other folks projects it felt good to just play for a few days!

Recorded live to 2 track

Snowblind Slight Return

This seems to be a companion piece to 2013's Hypoxia & Tibetan Horns. From the Gyoto Monks to Huun-Huur-Tu I'm a huge sucker for throat singing. I'm also deeply enamored of Simon Stockhausen's programming for Iris and Alchemy which play a huge role in this new set of tunes along with my ambient guitar ramblings. These are all live to 2 track improvisations hosted in Plogue Bidule. Enjoy!

Rongbuk

In memory of an old friend whose star shown so brightly and whose incandescence  took it's toll. She never quite managed to comfortably return to the mundane orbits of we mortals. Gone entirely too soon and I hope you've found peace... We are the poorer for your loss...

Amanda (extended)

Just noodling on bass clarinet as part of a recording lesson at The Tank Center for the Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado after we had installed the new control room. DPA 4006s with Charter Oak E700s through a Grace Designs M-108 pre/converter. The magic of this space is spellbinding. https://tanksounds.org 
https://soundcloud.com/tanksounds/sets/tankchannel
https://tanksounds.bandcamp.com

Bass Clarinet 2

An introductory dance as Romina Monsanto and I feel our way into playing together at The TANK in Rangely, Colorado. We were there with the Uncommon Ensemble, UNC's new music ensemble for a weekend of recording the music of composer Ken Ueno. We decided to forego the dinner break to let our whales swim freely in the wonder that is The TANK. https://soundcloud.com/tanksounds

Here's another of Romina's compositions recorded in The TANK back in May 2018 https://soundcloud.com/squidwerks/10-dreamin-life from the album the Uncommon Ensemble recorded that first weekend of May.  https://soundcloud.com/squidwerks/sets/unc-uncommon-ensemble-at-the-tank

Dance Of The Leviathans

Alien Birds

Crow Rock

Early morning meditation on the wonder of the lover returned to my life after decades apart... another live to 2 track ambient guitar performance from Squidwerks HQ.

The Blue Of Her Eyes

Sorting through many hours of playing stolen in the cracks of an extraordinarily busy winter and spring, many of these pieces were gifts of the wee small hours. Absolutely loving new plugins from Acustica Audio! This features their Fairchild 670 and Manley Massive Passive incarnations and they have stunning depth and tone. CPU hogs to be sure but fantastic new tools!

Ghost Temple

Another in this years series of live to two track pedalboard adventures

Surrender

Peaceful Melancholy - Shelter In Place

Virology - Fluid Dynamics

We all seem to have more time on our hands to create so here is another in the Quarantine Series. This one may evolve a bit yet...

Tehran - The Pandemic Behind The Veil

Wuhan - The Fog Of Ground Zero

Quarantine has given me the time to explore some of the work I've done in the last few years. One of the most touching, moving, interesting projects I've been involved in was a final album for Bay Area Singer-Songwriter Jared Rodgers. Jared was 4 years into his last 6 months when I was introduced to him. He self produced this album while racked with pain and flying on morphine and I've witnessed few people as focused and driven in the studio in my career. He departed this planet in January of 2017 leaving us all the richer for having shared his path. Thanks Jared!

Jared Rodgers- vox, guitar R, bass, backing vocal
Greg Schochet- lead guitar (L)
David Cohen- Hammond organ, piano

Devil's Hand

Cell phone data taken from a small cluster of Spring Break revelers on a small portion of a Florida beach showed the blooming of an outbreak as the phones moved throughout the country. Party on!

Viral Diaspora - Waves Of Transmission

ambient guitar piece recorded live to 2 track.

Somber Marsh

This is one of my favorite orchestral recordings I've done. The University of Northern Colorado Symphony Orchestra playing Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 1 live in Concert November 22, 2004. Russell Guyver, conducting  Amy Harris & Leslie Grush, violin and Therese Sutula, prepared piano & harpsichord


VI Postludio

V Rondo

IV Cadenza

III Recitativo

II Toccata

I Preludio

I found a chunk of audio on a cassette while I was looking for other stuff that inspired a new ambient tune. It still needs a little work on the metals but I was happy enough with it to share it in it's current form.

Tibetan Horns

This is a live ambient trio recording from BellyHallow II, October 24, 2009 at the Atlas Theater in Greeley Colorado. David Farrell-bass & laptop, Woody Myers-guitar and myself-iPhone, Udu & bass clarinet. BellyHallow is a yearly Belly Dance performance put on by Tribe Sidysaan a Greeley based belly dance troupe. We played pre show, intermission and post show that evening. Various incarnations of the Belly Band/Navel Brothers have appeared at Tribe Sidysaan shows over the years most often as a Classic/Alt Rock band. This was a particularly successful performance...

IMantra

The UNC Symphony Orchestra has once again been selected by Downbeat magazine as the best Collegiate Classical Large Ensemble in North America. Here is a fine performance of Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in Bb, Op. 83 featuring Caleb Harris on piano. Russell Guyver, conducting. Recorded live in concert April 1, 2013 at the Monfort Concert Hall, Union Colony Civic Center, Greeley, Colorado.

Download at your peril, these files are HUGE! These are hi resolution 24/192khz AIFF files I uploaded as a test of SoundCloud's abilities  ;-)  I think the transcoded stream sounds really good... 

And for those of you geeking out on technical details this was recorded with a single pair of Schoeps mk-21 mics through Earthworks ZDT 1024 mic preamps into a Korg MR-2000 recording DSD at 5.6 MHz and edited at 192kHz PCM.

IV. Allegretto grazioso

I. Allegro non troppo

II. Allegro appasionato

III. Andante

A rather dark, somewhat oppressive flirtation with cellular asphyxiation

Hypoxia

Another Track from the Jared Rodgers sessions back in 2014-15. Super slinky groove that gets you out of your chair! Same cast of Characters as the other tracks in this set.

It's The Way That You Treat Me

Squidwerks aka Greg Heimbecker is a Northern Colorado based recording engineer, sometimes saxophonist & longtime fan of music across many genres. I have a particular soft spot for ambient music in the tradition of the "great bald one" Brian Eno. As my SoundCloud develops there will be collections of my engineering efforts as well as a section of ambient music composed and performed by myself and a few of my close friends over the past 30 years or so...(be sure to check out https://soundcloud.com/nine-horse-johnson!) enjoy!

And if you're in the mood to check out one of the finest university jazz programs in North America point your ears over to https://soundcloud.com/uncjazz to check out more of my work for the University of Northern Colorado Jazz Studies Department!

Squidwerks

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