Ellis, Paul

Artist: Paul Ellis & Craig Padilla
P: 2004
Two electronic artists from the western US, Craig Padilla and Paul Ellis, join forces to create 72 minutes of enjoyable electronic music. ECHO SYSTEM is clearly inspired by the classic 70's electronic synth masters (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, etc.) However, rather than simply imitating the pioneers, Padilla and Ellis draw inspitration from them, infusing their own distinct styles, and adding depth and interest to an all too often two-dimensional musical form. Craig and Paul spent two years fine-tuning ECHO SYSTEM, and it is sure to appeal to long time fans of electronic music. Definitely a must for fans of Padilla or Ellis' previous works, and a great introduction to those discovering either of them for the first time.

Artist: Paul Ellis & Steve Roach
P: 2005
The American synthesist Paul Ellis is a fast growing power in electronic music. From the Berlin school-orientated music he created with the band Dweller at the Threshold and on his early solo works, he switched to an impressive mixture between Berlin school, ambient and lots of own inventions.
On “Silent Conversations” there is an important place for the genius of ambient Steve Roach, who contributes on four of the nine tracks. This can be heard on the excellent opening track with the great title “the only known photograph of God” and “Peripheral Vision”. Ellis is a master of sequences. Tracks like “Trillium”, “The wind-up synthesizers of the Glass Reich”, “Continental Drift” and “Dialing in the Sun” show some of the best sequencer lines ever. All these sequencer forces are, so to say, being put to rest in a bed of fantastic ambient sounds. And then there are also the slightly experimental “Trance Figure” on which Paul plays guitar, bass and a Rhodes electric piano and the atmospheric title track with the intriguing vocals of Alison O’connor.
Ellis is a master of electronic music, as is Pablo Magne a master of cover designs. These two elements together have resulted in an album that can now already be regarded as a classic.

Artist: Paul Ellis & Jared White
P: 2022
I normally record my Spacemusic with no drum machines, I just use interlocking sequencers for the rhythm, but lately I've been feeling it was time to explore that side. Jared asked about doing a project together and I thought it would be the perfect time. Reference points would lean towards Schmoelling era (80's) TD, William Orbit, Patrick O'Hearn, and maybe a dash of Ulrich Schnauss. Of course it also doesn't sound like anyone else but us.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2000
Influences from mid-70's Tangerine Dream are quite obvious on the first track, but from then on Paul Ellis leads us through pristine soundscapes. Indeed, this CD is much more than just copying Froese and Co. from the "Stratosfear" era. We do hear the unavoidable Mellotron but also soundscapes, patterns and sequences that are genuine. Ellis uses a wide array of moods: from ambient to rhythmic, retro to contemporary, moody to bright, atmospheric to foreboding, but never chaotic or experimental.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2023
Magnificent new release from one of the best American Berlin School musicians..

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2022
Magnificent new release from one of the best American Berlin School musicians..

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2011
From Out Of The Vast Comes Nearness, Paul Ellis’ latest album of new music, is a purely electronic expression of five long-form pieces that blend ambient sound design with rhythmic electronics, recalling the classic works of genre masters like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze or Vangelis; but with a restrained modern air.
With a mixture of synthesized sonics, both melodic and cerebral, the music brings to mind the unfolding expanse of the cosmos, stated with a graceful patience that propels the steadily evolving, constantly moving synthscapes to a highly personal level.
Fans of Paul’s style will recognize his signature immediately, and while this new work retains familiar elements from his earlier releases, it is perhaps his most reflective album to date.
Paul’s usual high production standard is maintained here, and his talent for sound design and the careful orchestration of each piece makes every element of the mix sit perfectly in place with an attention to detail that draws us closer with each listen.
From Out Of The Vast Comes Nearness is packaged in a dual gatefold presentation, in the tradition of the vinyl record jacket, with beautiful photography from master artist Pablo Magne, whose visual style will be familiar to fans of Paul’s other works such as Silent Conversations or Echo System.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2012
It gives me great pleasure to announce the release of my latest Ambient album "I Am Here". It is a return to large canvas soundscapes of interlocking sequencers. Two 20 minute tracks and one 30 minute of unfolding synthesizers patterns.

2012. Paul Ellis

Abandoning the tranquillity of the musical landscapes of “From out of the Vast Comes Nearness”, Paul Ellis attacks “I Am Here” with a surprising rhythmic fury. Heavy and threatening rhythms which pulsate in all senses under the bites of tens of undisciplined ions are forging the surprising soundscape of “I Am Here” which is also coated by amazing impulses of synth with poly-formic layers flying with madness over the striking reminiscences of Tangerine Dream and Jean Michel Jarre. A strangely powerful (and disturbing I should add) opus, “I Am Here” is taming with all the patience that Paul Ellis has put there to weave this surrealist musical pattern which is inspired by the paintings that the prehistoric men painted formerly on the walls of the caves of Columbia River Gorge. Ready? Jump on your headphones cause it’s gonna rock like seldom for an EM work composed by a North American synthesist, the land of serene poets.

A knock of percussions awakens a strange choir with breaths of silvers when synth blades made of a strong Dreamish scent covers the first rattles of "She Who Watches" sequenced ions. These sequences waddle shyly in emptiness, embraced that they are by a whirlwind of synth layers which is controlling this lascivious ascent. This intro is of an implacable sound wealth with a rhythm which turns on itself under a dense synth panorama. The heavy warning shots of the powerful chords are resounding among sequences became puny and under the tortuous breezes of a synth with poly-formic breaths. And slowly "She Who Watches" changes its rhythmic skin, suspended in the twists of a motionless maelstrom from where flee metallic gases before that the 2nd part bursts out under the knocks of big drums. The wind turns and the breaths of synths swirl with strength, multiplying tenfold the velocity of sequences and these heavy resonant chords which will escape in order to form a fluid and harmoniou s rhythm which pours of its sparkling curves under of melodic synth solos. The winds of "Chinook Wind" sing of their dissonance, but mesmerizing, voices on a bed of carillons which tinkle among metallic gases. Turning in minimalist loops, these howling winds are holding onto the heavy impulses of an implosive synth to create a powerful sound storm from where a multitude of jumping ions are running away. The movement calms down at around the 7th minute to embrace some more ethereal reliefs with muffled winds which blow over the lamentations of a shaman Berber isolated between mountains sides. Nearly 3 minutes after the silence of the lost souls, the movement takes back its strength of origin but with more furious sequences which pound in all senses under of cyclic singings which remind me strangely some of acerbic Meredith Monk's incantations. I have to admit that it's a piece of music difficult to tame.
And the ambiguity, as much as for rhythms as ambiences, remains all entire with "1 A.M. On an Island in the Columbia River". This long title of 30 minutes will destabilize more than an ear. The intro is stuffed with head winds which blow in a strange vocable multiplicity. Strange tones are pulsating while that the rustlings which rustle on metallic walls add even more to the hearing confusion which invades the listener. Far off, a pulsation made of vapor increases quietly its strength to resound with all its echoing timbre in a temporary void before forging a heavy and pulsating rhythm which bangs in a space-time fills of related tones. Another rhythmic phase is settling down and winds this heavy pulsation whereas that a tender mellotron pushes the breaths of its mellifluous flute over a heavy resounding rhythm. And so is made "1 A.M. On an Island in the Columbia River". Strongly inspired by Tangerine Dream’s Stratosfear era this long epic track evolves by inter-linked segments which brings us to the borders of the taciturn atmospheres of the Dream and the cosmic ones of Jarre. The mellotron is charming, the glaucous pulsations are disturbing and these lines of sequences which crisscross a universe in continual movements add a disarming touch to a title as much furious as poetic which rages and softens in the will of Paul Ellis's ancestral visions.

“I Am Here” is an intense work. This Paul Ellis' 13th opus is a real running fire of rhythms which seethe in intense magmatic envelopes of synths molded in the fluids of anger. I rarely heard a so intense and powerful album which depicts the fears and incredulities of the first peoples on a continent set up on the mystery of the planetary upheavals. This is intense and dramatic Berlin School which swirls in a fascinating mixture of old and new musical orientations of a genre which never seems to dry up. The avant-gardism and audacious ears are going to make a real delight of it.

2012. Sylvain Lupari / gutsofdarkness.com & synth&sequences.com

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2019
Thanks to Nathan Youngblood and Will Merkle for ambience generation in the last 6 minute section of the album.
Special thanks to: Ron Boots, Chuck Van Zyl, John and Maryellen Rothrock, Rita Wolle, and all those who took a moment to write me with kind words about my music. And, of course my beloved Bonnie.
I am a fan of happy accidents and organic music forms, so I put a little extra effort into letting the music grow on its own with this album.
I knew from early on I wanted this album to be one long journey (78 minutes, here), because those long musical journeys are what intrigued me about spacemusic in the first place.
Though I know this does not make life easy for the DJ (apologies) I tried to let it spend more time in darker and more mysterious places.
I think that kind of looseness of playing and being open to letting the music go where I didn't expect it to is what humanized the sound.
There are some sections where I am using a sequencer in this album, but a large amount of what you hear is being played live on analog synths, even a lot of what sounds like sequencers.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2009
With “The Last Hiding Place Of Beauty” he might have released the ultimate mix between electronics and acoustics and perhaps have created a style of his own.With only four tracks on this album, these compositions are afforded ample room to establish themselves and exhibit charming evolutions. The melodies are pacific and superbly capture a sense of beauty that is often absent in modern EM. Instead of being expansive, these tunes tend to constrict the listener’s attention, helping them to focus on details both audible and internal.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2015
Electronic music maestro Paul Ellis continues his lifelong exploration into the aesthetics of minimalism, ambient, space music, and the classic sequencer-driven “Berlin school” sound, on his third Spotted Peccary Music release, Moth In Flames. The veteran artist meticulously crafts restrained pulsing electronics that provide the measured momentum to steadily move through a morphing soundscape of classic analog synth moods and atmospheric textures, on his most refined work to date. As a composer, Paul Ellis has always been deeply inspired by the minimalist and ambient aesthetic as much as by the Germanic pulsing sequencer style pioneered by such legends as Klaus Schulze, Edgar Froese and Tangerine Dream.  “Sometimes the music is painted in bright modern lines and shapes with clearly defined melodic and harmonic movement, and sometimes it is expressed through ethereal and abstract geometries floating around you,” Ellis explains.  “I am interested in creating a musical space that has enough musical motion to hold the interest of the listener without arbitrarily changing the mood; a space that mesmerizes with slowly shifting patterns and enough air and tonal color to allow the imagination to freely go where it will.” Indeed, like a perfectly placed pendulum, the music of Moth In Flames steadily moves through the blurred boundary where melodic and ambient music overlap, pulling from both worlds while never straying too far into either.  Its accessible appeal and expertly produced sonic highlights make Moth In Flames an album which can be listened to deeply, or played over and over again in the background as a continuously looped true ambient experience.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2021
LTD 200
The first of 3 releases by Paul Ellis. These stunning pieces of music willflow into your life and enhance it with it's subtle atmosphere. 
When I was young and in very quiet, natural settings, I could hear a kind of music in everything. This was an experience that was so common to me that I assumed everyone also heard this sustained, evolving sound, but I was quickly disabused of this notion that it was common when I tried to explain it to anyone. Later in my teenage years I bumped into a few early electronic music albums that seemed to reflect and generate that feeling I had and the inner music I used to hear. This led to my fascination with synthesizers and how, with them, I could create an environment and explore a kind of music that was inherently free on all levels: the form of the music, the timbre and tone. It was the freedom that really got me hooked, with the ability to paint my own sound worlds.

With Panoramas I am injecting a certain amount of chaos into the compositional process to emulate the randomness in what you hear when you're in the middle of a forest. I would deeply listen and realize that every bird, insect, wind, or water sound would happen with their own independent rhythms and melodies yet somehow this chaos did not really produce any discord. So for Panoramas, I took random musical expressions a step further than I had before, I laid down several initial tracks and as each one was added I muted all the other tracks so I could only hear what I was recording at that moment. So, it forced me to pay attention to each individual sound during its creation which made each sound arise in its own unique way. Next, I would layer another set of music and textures over the top while listening to the earlier tracks, which made part of the music conscious and reacting to the other sounds. I spent a long time working on these environments to get the balance between chaos and order right.

This is my transmission of the inner sound of the Pacific Northwest.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2021
LTD 200
The first of 3 releases by Paul Ellis. These stunning pieces of music willflow into your life and enhance it with it's subtle atmosphere. 
When I was young and in very quiet, natural settings, I could hear a kind of music in everything. This was an experience that was so common to me that I assumed everyone also heard this sustained, evolving sound, but I was quickly disabused of this notion that it was common when I tried to explain it to anyone. Later in my teenage years I bumped into a few early electronic music albums that seemed to reflect and generate that feeling I had and the inner music I used to hear. This led to my fascination with synthesizers and how, with them, I could create an environment and explore a kind of music that was inherently free on all levels: the form of the music, the timbre and tone. It was the freedom that really got me hooked, with the ability to paint my own sound worlds.

With Panoramas I am injecting a certain amount of chaos into the compositional process to emulate the randomness in what you hear when you're in the middle of a forest. I would deeply listen and realize that every bird, insect, wind, or water sound would happen with their own independent rhythms and melodies yet somehow this chaos did not really produce any discord. So for Panoramas, I took random musical expressions a step further than I had before, I laid down several initial tracks and as each one was added I muted all the other tracks so I could only hear what I was recording at that moment. So, it forced me to pay attention to each individual sound during its creation which made each sound arise in its own unique way. Next, I would layer another set of music and textures over the top while listening to the earlier tracks, which made part of the music conscious and reacting to the other sounds. I spent a long time working on these environments to get the balance between chaos and order right.

This is my transmission of the inner sound of the Pacific Northwest.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2022
LTD 200
The last of 3 releases by Paul Ellis. These stunning pieces of music willflow into your life and enhance it with it's subtle atmosphere. 
When I was young and in very quiet, natural settings, I could hear a kind of music in everything. This was an experience that was so common to me that I assumed everyone also heard this sustained, evolving sound, but I was quickly disabused of this notion that it was common when I tried to explain it to anyone. Later in my teenage years I bumped into a few early electronic music albums that seemed to reflect and generate that feeling I had and the inner music I used to hear. This led to my fascination with synthesizers and how, with them, I could create an environment and explore a kind of music that was inherently free on all levels: the form of the music, the timbre and tone. It was the freedom that really got me hooked, with the ability to paint my own sound worlds.

With Panoramas I am injecting a certain amount of chaos into the compositional process to emulate the randomness in what you hear when you're in the middle of a forest. I would deeply listen and realize that every bird, insect, wind, or water sound would happen with their own independent rhythms and melodies yet somehow this chaos did not really produce any discord. So for Panoramas, I took random musical expressions a step further than I had before, I laid down several initial tracks and as each one was added I muted all the other tracks so I could only hear what I was recording at that moment. So, it forced me to pay attention to each individual sound during its creation which made each sound arise in its own unique way. Next, I would layer another set of music and textures over the top while listening to the earlier tracks, which made part of the music conscious and reacting to the other sounds. I spent a long time working on these environments to get the balance between chaos and order right.

This is my transmission of the inner sound of the Pacific Northwest.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2020
For me this album explores both my life in an urban setting, the bustling city and the time I spend hiking in the forests.
Here in the Pacific Northwest there are a lot of rainforests so I go hiking for balance... to breathe in the fresh air and get away from the neurosis of the city.
At the same time I have to admit that I love aspects of living in the city... The energy and the progress, the ideas and resources....I seem to need both, so the album is sort of an exploration between this strange dichotomy.
Also noticing as I emerge from the forests where the pavement begins...
Paul Ellis

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2004
On Sacred Ordinary Paul’s artistry of creating a palette of rich emotional sounds sets a foundation from which he weaves a series of electronic web like pieces with a keen sense of melodic invention and dimensional symmetry. There is an hint of nostalgia in these tracks as well if one has been privy to the classic melodic sequencer style electronic music periods over the past few decades. This brings another kind of depth to the experience while at the same time this music is really about the here and now as it unfolds with a kind a graceful patience and awareness to detail that keeps pulling you in deeper with each play.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2006
Six tracks: six times ten minutes. This is the result of “The Infinity Room”. This fast growing power in electronic music switched from a Berlin School-orientated style with the band Dweller At The Threshold and on his early solo works, to an impressive mixture between Berlin School, ambient and lots of own inventions on his albums.
His last album “Silent Conversations” was no less than sensational; on “The Infinity Room” he does it again.
As said, all tracks clock exactly ten minutes. It starts in “Tick Tock” with a softly thrusting piece of music in which at the end slowly the sound of the Big Ben in London is played. Paul’s music clearly shows traces of the well-known names in electronic music but has so much own input that can be stated that he has a certain style of his own.
“Forever Endeavour”, for instance starts dark and evolves into a great sequencer track. Again, kind of quiet and slow.
The quietness is also present in another sequencer piece, the excellent “Flesh And Blood”.
After the brilliant ambient piece, with Mellotron flutes, Paul hits the sequencers again cleverly in “MirrororriM”.
This man is capable of something. This music is powerful, professional and very beautiful. And the cover by Pablo Magne is also great again.