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Galactic Travels Monthly Special Focus Log - 2013


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The Special Focus for January was
MYSTIFIED
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Thomas Park has been involved with music for his entire life. He was trained in classical and jazz music as a teenager and played the trombone and piano. His listening habits changed in the late 1980s when Thomas became interested in electronic music. After several years of writing techno as the band AutoCad, Thomas was fortunate enough to collaborate with Robin Storey of Rapoon. This project helped Thomas to evolve into the ambient / drone band Mystified. Mystified has found considerable success, both through online and physical releases, and is known for being proficient, creative and prolific.

The music of Mystified is mainly of an atmospheric nature. Sometimes for Thomas, less is more, making his music ideal for listening while working, sleeping or doing other things. The music of Mystified especially explores texture, consistency, and a type of variety that could be called subtle. This is not the utopian ambient of the typical soundscape artist. It is serious music for serious people.

Mystified music has found many purposes, including scores for films, online and terrestrial radio shows, festivals of aesthetic, political, and other varieties, informational CD-ROMs, spots on many scores of compilations, and quite a few independent releases.

Mister Vapor, a newer incarnation of Thomas Park, focuses especially on the hazier, foggier sides of ambient music.

Thomas is open for collaboration.
Featured CD at Midnight by Week
Date Title Label
01/03 Tribute To Forbidden Planet Roil Noise
01/10 Flickering Fuel Dark Meadow Recordings
01/17 Coming Days Attenuation Circuit
01/24 Life Is a Carnival Attenuation Circuit
01/31 Breathe Beyond Parkbench

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The Special Focus for February was
JOINT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
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Joint Intelligence Committee is Paul Nagle and Phil Smillie. The bio that follows was excellently written by Paul, inspired, in part by coffee... and there are no typos!
"He just wrote it like that." - It's Only a Northern Song - George Harrison

"The Joint Intelligence Committee are not to be confused with, although they frequently are.

Formed after a fortuitous meeting of minds at an online synth forum, JIC consists of two full time committee members and a nebulous pool of special agents providing a variety of skills and fieldcraft.

The JIC exists to provide an outlet for their groovily improvised and experimentally ambient musical noodles.

The JIC motto is effectus super absolutionem which, as all you latin scholars know instantly, means performance above perfection. Sums it up nicely...

Paul played his first solo gig in 1983 but for years remained in a rather serious, teutonic vein of doomy electronica as heard in such bands as Tangerine Dream. Fortunately, Paul met up with Phil Smillie and finally learned how to lighten up and party. As is typical with most late converts to anything, he threw himself into this with gusto, keen to make up for lost time. Paul writes gear reviews for Sound On Sound magazine and has programmed synthesizer patches for Roland, DSI, Access and others. Mostly he just likes to play.

On his recent musical road to Damascus, Phil rediscovered his guitar and the joys of realtime looping, met Paul Nagle and realised that making music is so much more fun when computers aren't involved. Phil's other - more production-oriented - projects include psychedelic trance combo Cerebellum and its ambient techno offshoot, Drug Squid.

JIC have performed at festivals, parties and planetarums, even though planetaria seem like where they should have been. That old latin obsession never quite dies eh? They like the dark, stars and space, them JIC boys. We don't know when or where their next performance will be. They don't either. They don't know much. But fortunately put them in a room with musical instruments and a good supply of Longbottom Leaf and magic will be spontaneously created.

This is as deep as I can go without some oaths of fealty signed in jam."

Paul has been a Special Focus on Galactic Travels before:
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Featured CD at Midnight by Week
Date Title
02/07 Grow
02/14 In Session (AM Mix)
02/21 Excession
02/28 The Book of Roach
All albums are on Bogus Focus Records.

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The Special Focus for March was
STEVE ROACH
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As a pioneering cornerstone of electronic music, internationally renowned artist Steve Roach has dedicated over three decades to exploring uncharted soundworlds that connect with a timeless source of inspiration. From the expansive, time-suspending spaces reflecting his spiritual home in Arizona to the fire breathing, rhythmic-shamanic expressions woven from all things electric and organic, Roach has earned his position in the international pantheon of major new music artists through a long list of groundbreaking recordings, fueled by his prolific nature and uncompromising approach. The core of this innovative world of sound has been nourished by years of intense live concerts in many extraordinary settings worldwide, further enhancing the emotive, cinematic soul-stirring depth of his music.

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Steve has been a Special Focus on Galactic Travels before:
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Featured CD at Midnight by Week
Date Title Label
03/07 Soul Tones Timeroom Editions
03/14 Sigh of Ages Projekt
03/21 Journey of One - disk 1 Projekt
03/28 Journey of One - disk 2 Projekt

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The Special Focus for April is
KEN ELKINSON
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Born August 28, 1972 in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, Ken Elkinson competed on the junior classical piano circuit as a child. After studying improvisation and composition throughout high school and college, Ken released his debut CD in 1996, "Midnight Conversation" of solo piano music. Four additional original solo piano CDs (Reverly, Opal, Cue and Link), a Christmas piano CD (Generations of Yuletide), a CD of piano cover songs (Borrowed Tracks), a jazz funk CD (7890) and an Asian influenced spa CD (Eastern Spa) have followed. In 2011 Ken switched his focus to ambient and released a six CD box set of ambient music entitled Music For Commuting. That was followed by another four ambient CD set (Elemental) and now Music For Telecommuting Volumes 1 and 2 culled from tracks recorded during the Music For Commuting sessions in the vain of Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream. Ken’s music has received airplay on hundreds of radio stations, websites, satellite music and in-flight audio programs spanning the globe.

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Featured CD at Midnight by Week
Date Title
04/04 Music for Commuting Volumes 1 - 2
04/11 Music for Commuting Volumes 3 - 4
04/18 Music for Commuting Volumes 5 - 6
04/25 Music for Telecommuting Volumes 1 - 2

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The Special Focus for May is
RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL
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Radio Massacre International members include Steve Dinsdale (Keyboards, Electronics, Drums) Duncan Goddard (Keyboards, Electronics, Bass) and Gary Houghton (Guitar, Keyboards). Since 1993 they have been building a catalogue of epic electronic improvisations, distilled into permanent records by the wonders of digital editing.

After accumulating a library of 30 such pieces they finally released the double CD Frozen North in late 1995, and appeared live for the first time at the Emma festival in Sheffield. The band was also featured on the BBC's World Service, thus finding a truly international radio audience for the first time. RMI had a website long before it was obligatory, and this has enabled the forging of relationships with listeners, promoters and radio stations across the world.

RMI are veterans of TV, radio, and concert performances all over the UK, Europe, and the US.

Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site.

RMI have been a Special Focus on Galactic Travels before:
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Featured CD at Midnight by Week
Date Title
05/02 Solid States disk 1, West
05/09 Planets in the Wires
05/16 Solid States disk 2, East
05/23 Lost in Transit 5
05/30 Lost in Transit 6

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The Special Focus for June is
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Andy Condon lives in the wilds of north Essex, UK, and has worked as The Glimmer Room since the turn of the century. He has left the live music scene, having grown tired of all the travelling and general upheaval life in a busy band entails. He retreated into the safety of the studio where he worked as part of a short-lived experimental dance collective called Neesh.

A track on the Neesh album, sandwiched between all the 909 rhythms and thumping 303 bass lines, was a small track called Still Waters. This down-tempo piece was a turning point for Andy. With the end of Neesh, the start of The Glimmer Room became reality as Andy had finally found his true path in a mode of music he wanted to explore more deeply.

That was early 1997. Five years later, the first Glimmer Room album was released on NeuHarmony garnering comparisons to Moby, Enigma, and Mike Oldfield.

In 2004. Andy formed his own label, A-frame Media. Many releases later, Andy retired this label and started The Silent Rookery in 2013. With each new release, Andy forges new sound territory and production techniqes.

Andy is a veteran of the Alpha Centuri electronic music festival in Holland and the Awakenings series of concerts in the UK.

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Featured CD at Midnight by Week
Date Title Label
06/06 Tomorrow's Tuesday NeuHarmony
06/13 Now We Are Six A-Frame Media
06/20 Home Without the Journey A-Frame Media
06/27 I Remain A-Frame Media

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Galactic Travels is designed to bring WDIY listeners hour-long soundscapes of electronic, ambient, and space music.
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