"Topographic Meadows"
Valhjim 

In Topographic Meadows, sound moves like light over changing landscapes—soft chords drifting like mist, clarinet melodies winding through open spaces, brass surges rising like sunlit hills. Near the horizon, a jazz quartet stirs the air with bright syncopations before the scene dissolves into distant, fading clarinet echoes, each part conjuring a different aspect of these Topographic Meadows.
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Valhjim: Synthesizers, samplers, SFX.

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© 2025 Valhjim. All rights reserved. Original music by Valhjim.

Topographic Meadows

Since about 40 years in electronic music.

*Updated mixes on my YouTube channel. See Link below.
Composer/Singer/Multi-Instrumentalist. Interested in Rock, Pop, Progressive & Film Score composition. Open to Collaboration. All music self-performed & recorded at home (unless otherwise indicated). I DO NOT USE PITCH OR TIME CORRECTION! Please Follow, leave a like &/or a comment. I live in a bit of a vacuum & your feedback is greatly appreciated 😉.
Influences Include: Kansas, Boston, Alan Parsons, Rush, Pink Floyd, Toto, Ambrosia, Queen, Vertical Horizon, Frost*, King's X, Paul Carrack, Genesis, Journey, Dixie Dregs. Kevin Gilbert, Larry Carlton, Del Amitri, Todd Rundgren, Spock's Beard, Special EFX, Michael Mcdonald, Jellyfish, 10cc, Andrew Gold, The Babys, Barry Manilow, Christopher Cross, Mike Post, Gamma, ELP, Neal Schon, Stephen Sondheim, Styx, Boz Scaggs, Bruce Hornsby, Dan Fogelberg, ELO Jude Cole, Lifehouse, Mike + The Mechanics, Wyndham Hill.....

I am Not a traditional guitar player. I've never learned another player's work, preferring any repetition or homage to be completely subconscious at most. The same can be said with my keyboard work.

Due to the complexity of many arrangements, I use a LOT of Stereo Imaging. Therefore, I recommend listening in stereo, as things may sound a bit muddy.

*All Music & Lyrics (C) Doug Takacs. All rights Reserved.

https://youtube.com/@dougtakacsmusic?si=ZTZqLt6wkY1Zsvqd

https://progettosonoro.bandcamp.com/follow_me
progettosonoro è Marco Mascia, accumulatore seriale (e parallelo) di strumenti musicali e oggetti sonori e (non)musicista. Dal 2007 fa parte (con Manuel Lain) del duo Le Pecorecaramellate che ha all'attivo un Cd (Una botte e via! edito da Sesto Esercizio Records) e ha partecipato (Cagliari, 10 Ottobre 2015, Nuovo Panificio) al Multiversal EXP-OFF. 
Il 1 Maggio 2016, sempre al al Nuovo Panificio, ha partecipato, con la Roaring Pianolas Orchestra, alla perfomance live "pianoltre"

Independent electronic ambient artist, crafting immersive soundscapes that blend atmosphere with deep exploration of texture and tone. My compositions are shaped by the active imagination described by C. G. Jung and the vivid landscapes of my dreams, translating emotions into evolving auditory experiences.
Influenced by ambient minimalism and deep bass tweaking with VCF filters, my music layers rich harmonics, resonant frequencies, and fluid transitions to create enveloping and transportive journeys.

© All rights reserved. 
Record Label: Shadow Glass Recordings 
No promoters I handle all my own production.

I am the NTT. Stranded Alien is my synth rock project.

I have a side project called the NTT's Funk Odyssey. I have started posting these tunes here with the precursor label - The NTT

I have played and recorded in international settings, a multitude of percussion instruments, guitar, bass, harmonica, some flutes, keyboard, and if you push me - a very fine jaw harp.

In fact, if I break it down.... I just love to offer-up music, in a living room, a bar, a concert hall or an intercontinental, interactive satellite coordinated concert. 
  
I became fascinated with percussive sounds from around the world… especially African and Latin American rhythms. I fanatically traveled the world collecting anything that you could bang, scrape or hit.
What I learned? Border customs people really don’t appreciate the true value of handmade African caxixi shakers or a Brazilian berimbau. They just want the serial number.
More importantly, a single clicking or ringing sound in a song can make or break that song.
  
I toured Canada, USA and Europe and recorded many “world music” albums (before it was called that), with my late, musical soul mate, Dario Domingues. We played in grand churches, the water reservoirs under Munich, on an island where 100,000 doves were released at the climax of our performance, the first-ever “simulcast”, live satellite, intercontinental concert and then, the humbling experience of being involved in Berlin, in front of 500,000 people, for a series of anti-apartheid concerts featuring ‘Sting’.  For our 'world music' efforts, we were awarded the Deutscher Schallplattenpreisan (1983) accolade by the Deutsche Phono-Akademie, an association of recording companies of Germany that recognizes outstanding achievement in the music industry.  
What I learned? Music is truly a universal language. Around the world people are drawn to music. Of course, different strokes for different folks! 
Whether you play in front of a half-million people in a field, or 10 people in a bar, your role as a musician never changes.  
 
“Dream of the Drum” – I was commissioned to compose and conduct a score for 40+ percussionists from all corners of the world... Jamaican fire dancers, Trinidadian steel drummers, Japanese kodo drummers, African djembe players, military drummers,... the list goes on.
What I learned? The language of music respects no geographic borders. 
Also, never start your outdoor concert, with a lone Native Elder's rain drum song. The drum's magic works!
 
I helped build three innovative recording studios plus, my current production studio. I academically taught musical acoustics and production for several years.
What I learned? All the mathematics and physics in the world can’t replace a good ear.
 
As a producer, I've had the wonderful opportunity to work in great studios in NYC and Nashville with amazing session musicians such as: Eric "Roscoe" Ambel - best known as lead guitarist of Steve Earle’s band the Dukes; Dan Baird of the chart-topping 'Georgia Satellites'; guitarist extraordinaire, Warner E. Hodges, founding member of 'Jason and the Scorchers'.
What I learned? Great musicians tend to be humble but they sure have opinions! In Nashville, I was bluntly told -"No, I won't raise the tom level - in country music, we use toms for holding our bourbon glass." I never did get the toms louder.
 
I spent many years as President of the Ottawa International Jazz Festival and met some of the greatest musical geniuses in the world.
What I learned? "Man, if you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know."
 
Music for jingles on radio and TV. Documentaries.
My personal favourite was coming up with suitable music for the mating rituals of pigs or, how to create 60 minutes of Arctic wind sounds for the movie 'Never Cry Wolf'.  
What I learned?  You can tell an entire story in a 29.5 second radio jingle and music is the glue that holds a great video together.

Valhjim is a music composer with an eclectic approach to different genres: rock, pop, folk, New Age, and experimental electronic music. Greatly driven by imagination and poetic imagery, he combines multiple instrumental textures to fire the imagination of his listeners. 

His more experimental ambience and electronic music is built with layers of suggestive sound textures, rhythms, and melodic lines that stir the imagination into suggestive imagery and worlds unseen, true architectures of sound that open up limitless spaces to explore. Often Valhjim's melodies sail through genre thresholds, crossing over from one genre to another, from neo classcal to electronic, or from jazz to rock or new age.

These days, everything is recorded through my Mackie Onyx 8 analogue mixer.  I prefer to create sounds on my analogue synths but you'll also hear sounds created with my Korg Wavestate and Roland S-1.  All percussion/drums are played by me on my Native Instruments Maschine Mikro Mk3, where I spend a lot of time manipulating samples to hopefully get something original sounding.