Greinke, Jeff

Artist: Jeff Greinke
P: 2009
Jeff Greinke's many years of working with pure sound to create interesting textures has informed the more melodic/harmonic approach he has been exploring in recent years, resulting in a satisfying collection of multilayered cinematic musical landscapes.
“This music is informed by my visual surroundings, primarily the landscapes, big skies and weather of the desert Southwest,” confirms Greinke, who currently resides in Tucson, Arizona, where the Virga phenomenon is common during the monsoon season. Greinke continues, “With Virga I have returned to a textural and ambient approach to composing music, similar to my work of the 80’s and 90’s, and merged that with the more harmonic / melodic sound I’ve been exploring in recent years. After completing the title track I was struck by how the sonic fabric of the music resembled curtains of rain falling from the sky, so I was inspired to call it Virga. Virga sometimes occurs at the onset of dangerous and dramatic weather. The mood present preceding an intense storm is similar to the subtle foreboding quality of some of the pieces on this album.”  The music on Virga takes shape as strata of slow moving melodies stream their way through expansive atmospherics and pastoral passages of ambient chamber music, highlighted by cello, trumpet and piano on many selections; all drifting together to construct complex harmonic musical skyscapes. The cumulative result is a collection of vast, textural, cinematic, and melodic compositions with a strong sense of mood and place that gently evolve and drift… like the clouds themselves.

Artist: Jeff Greinke
P: 2002
This beautiful new work represents a change both from his earlier nocturnal ambience, and his later jazz-tinged and rock-influenced, more structured music, though it is closer to the former. WIDE VIEW, as one might take from the title, is more open and direct without being in any way "light." Call it a more open and musical ambience. Comparisons with Harold Budd might still be made to WIDE VIEW, for its gentleness, restraint and poetic mode of expression, though the instrumentation is wider than just piano.This is a most noteworthy recording, a welcome return to the genre for one of its truly vital artists. It is certain to change what people think Greinke is capable of, and will doubtless give new ambient music fans an introduction to one of the great names who has been inactive for a while.
"Jeff Greinke usually focuses his creative lens on concepts external to the self and the art of capturing a moment in time. Yet, on WIDE VIEW, Greinke turns this spatial element inward to produce nine probing and intimate musical explorations as well as a narrative trajectory that leads the listener through a range of themes in tonality, coloristic range and contrast. The compositions seem basic: slow, open melodies over a shifting foundation of swelling harmonies. But WIDE VIEW is more than system driven modernism, ruled by its compositional system; it is introspective, personal and deliberately widely spaced. Its mood ranges from norish and nocturnal to idyllic and beautiful. The searching, tenderly spare, melodies suggest that Greinke is seeking something more than the conquest of form and articulation. With WIDE VIEW, we see Greinke attempting to unify the artist's identity, the labyrith of the human condition and the deep contents of sound. The definition of each note, the emphasis on peripheral details, the inflectons of his slow melodious strains, proves this to be Greinke's most inviting work."

Artist: Jeff Greinke
P:  2007
Persistently evolving his use of sound, Jeff is never one to settle for a particular style or to retread familiar territory. For this most recent body of work, he retreats to a remote, wintry landscape. Alternately distant and inviting, Winter Light is a body of work that captures elements of baroque chamber music, infused with Greinke s own unmistakable sense of texture and visual suggestion. Winter Light consists of mixed instrumentation, samples and electronics. Balanced between a study in classical chamber composition and ethereal ambience, Winter Light evokes a distant, icy, and occasionally somber landscape, peppered with the visages of some long sought after memory.

Artist: Robert Rich, Steve Roach,
The Ministry of Inside Things u.a.
P: 2002
Tracks 1-6 recorded live at The Gathering concert series, Houston Hall, Philadelphia, PA.

Here the last copy!

Artist:  Vidna Obamana, Ron Boots
Alpha Wave Movement, Jeff Pearce, u.a.
P: 1998
This double CD features 142 minutes of previously unreleased material by musicians exploring the non-physical realm. This 2-CD set released on the Hypnos label is a must for devotees of drifting space synth music.

Artist: Vidna Obamana, Steve Roach,u.a.
P: 1994
Just look at the names in the tracklist above - if you are into this type of ambient music you know without a doubt that this is a winning formula. And this fine collection of artists totally fail to let us down. Weird but fascinating ethnic rhythm with electronic enhancements-a-plenty, O YUKI CONJUGATE's track with it's breathy human voice punctuation serves us well as a starting off point, and establishes the high quality of the album. VIDNA OBMANA follows perfectly with a whispy dream vision accompanied by minimal percussion which could have been taken directly from the previous track. Relaxing and just that little bit mysterious. STEVE ROACH takes a similar ethnic percussion and accompanies it with electronic drift and the sound of a thunder storm. JORGE REYES takes us on a journey through the past, making a music evocative of ancient civilizations and the sounds of nature which accompanied those who lived in such ancient times and places. HYBRYDS take us somewhere else, away from more 'primitive' cultures. Although I have never heard their music for aquariums, this strikes me as being along similar lines, with water gurgling and whale-like sounds wailing away in the background. TEMPS PERDU? forgot to nip to the loo before recording this, so had to go during it's creation. Besides the last few drops shaken out, we drift through a place not dissimilar to VANGELIS's take on the "Blade Runner" future, with pattering ethnic drums and a variety of wind instruments all combining into a passive, calming atmosphere. DINO OON & KONRAD KRAFT head more towards a growling Isolationism without losing the overall string of effect this album seems to create. The tune is more forward, more obvious, less atmospheric. VOICE OF EYE's piece, although drifting and calm, has dark and disturbing edges which remind me of NIN's theme to "SE7EN". JEFF GREINKE attempts to calm our nerves back down with a gentle tube of shifting sustains. Simple as it is, there's a whole lot going on here, although it sounds like one moment frozen in time. ALIO DIE, those purveyors of unimaginable beauty, bring us a dark and disturbing revisit to the land JORGE REYES took us to, now infected by VOICE OF EYE's darkness. Dark, mysterious ethnic world in which a thing - dragon or malign beast - dwells in the shadows, waiting for night. PAUL SCHÜTZE brings us up to date with a Jazz which seems to combine the elements of all those mentioned above, keeping a slightly disquiet, unnerving feeling to the music. His is a world not of peace and calm, but of hidden dangers, of eyes watching your every move. Easy listening doesn't guarantee ease-of-listening. HUMAN FLESH are something else again, with an orchestrated mirror-vision of calm. Very different from anything previously. Lighter, brighter, a balm for the ears and the nerves. And finally, of course, TUU take us for one more visit to the ethnic realms. Almost as calming as the previous track, TUU make a beautiful music which, with it's Asian-sounding drums, makes for a fascinating listening experience.
An album which was probably darker than anticipated (which is no bad thing). Combining beauty and ugliness in equal shares.And of course well worth investing in.