Soaring in Circles (1982)
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- Soaring in Circles CD cover
category: synthesizer ambient / soundscape
Gary Snyder has written that meditation is "as fundamental a human activity as taking naps is to wolves or soaring in circles is to hawks and eagles." One could easily imagine that the soaring birds are in a state of meditation too, their minds weightlessly empty but completely awake and alert.
The Soaring in Circles tape
The original "Soaring in Circles" was a two-hour tape loop improvisation on synthesizers (Oberheim OB-Xa) and electric piano (Yamaha CP-70). The improvisation did not evolve over two hours in a seamless way, but had various parts or sections that are quite different.
One or two years later, I took section 4 and section 7 and overdubbed a second sound layer, using a German 'Banana' synthesizer (similar to a Prophet-5).
I can hear today that while playing the tape-loop improvisation, I was influenced by the early minimalism of Terry Riley and Charlemagne Palestine, clearly trying to recreate for myself (and I played this just for myself) the magic of those slowly evolving shimmering layers of sound, and of the special slow motion time feeling that this kind of music evokes.
The other three ambient pieces on this album actually have nothing to do with the Soaring in Circles tape except that they were played on the same instruments and recorded at the same place just a little later. These pieces are multitrack recordings (no livelooping involved). All tracks were improvised.
Listen to excerpts:
Section 4 from Soaring in Circles (excerpt) - (1 min, 1 MB)
Section 7 from Soaring in Circles (excerpt) - (1 min, 1.2 MB)
Section 11 from Soaring in Circles (excerpt) - (1 min, 1.1 MB)
Gemini (excerpt) - (1.2 min, 1.3 MB)
Indistinguishable (excerpt) - (1.2 min, 1.4 MB)
The Promise (excerpt) - (1.3 min, 1.5 MB)
- Banana synthesizer.
All keyboards used here belonged to Hans Niederberger
"Indistinguishable" video (2008)
