Story, Tim

Artist: Ashley/Story
P: 1997
Drop, the second full-length recording by Dwight Ashley and Tim Story, takes the listener on a journey from the absurd to the fantastic, exploring the dark beauty of horror, obsession and sublime ambiguity.
 

Artist: Ashley/Story
P: 1991
Although formally trained on cello and piano, Dwight Ashley is known primarily for his contributions to the world of electronic music. Ashley spent the late '70s and '80s in musical obscurity building an unpublished catalog of recording. In the '90s, he began making his work public, releasing two projects with collaborator Tim Story (A Desperate Serenity, and Drop). In "A Desperate Serenity", which marks the premier collaboration of Tim Story and Dwight Ashley, the recording studio itself is integral to creative expression: the studio becomes a musical instrument in its own right.
"Both Tim and I use the studio as our primary 'instrument'," says Ashley, "experimenting with textures, ambience, and heavy processing to invent our own sound palette. It's not just the art of the music, but the art of the studio."
For Story and Ashley, "A Desperate Serenity" was a collaboration that enabled both artists to make a departure from their usual work styles-to turn tables and switch roles.
"I liked where Dwight was coming from," says Tim Story.
"Dwight is interested in soundscapes and textures - he's a true experimentalist. As we worked together, we tended to reverse roles. As it turned out, I had the chance to do a lot of experimentation, while Dwight would make some of the beds that he thought I would like to work on. Often Dwight would play what I had written, and vice versa."
"I had written a series of compositions for my wife, Paula," says Ashley, "that I called Fan Music. At the time she was working in a design studio where the equipment, air conditioners, and fans created such an intense level of noise that it cancelled out an entire range of tones from the music they listened to. I wrote Fan Music specifically for that environment. It had a liquid sort of quality which utilized sounds that incorporated the environmental noise into the piece. It became very audible. Tim heard it and liked the dark, 'drift' sound - and that became the impetus for our collaboration".

Artist: Hans Joachim Roedelius & Tim Story
P: 2008
If you know Hans-Joachim Roedelius' albums, you will find a lot to like about this. Piano, much like that of Harold Budd, and some really great cello passages coming in and out over the music. A sequel to the acclaimed Lunz project, this follow-up finds Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Tim Story shedding their original collaborative moniker in favour of recording under their own names. It's great to hear the Cluster and Harmonia veteran in such fine form (he'll be 74 this year), making effortlessly graceful ambient music that still sounds like it's at the very forefront of the genre. Inlandish is bound to prompt comparisons to Ryuichi Sakamoto or Harold Budd for the glowing, meditative piano pieces at the heart of the record, but the kind of electronic treatments and additional instrumentation reaches beyond any single theme, with some compositions simply augmented by ghostly strands of cello, while others more fully embrace digital manipulation, as on 'Serpentining'; a melding of melodic piano and humming circuitry. Of course, there's some great synth work on the album too, particularly when it comes to the vintage krautrock tones of 'Beforst', a piece wonderfully redolent of Roedelius' past. Excellent.

Artist: Tim Story
P: 1986
Abridged, is a catalog of emotions all perfectly parcelled up in miniature. The pieces are modest in scale, private in nature, but live with them and they will reveal more of their character with each listen. Tim, of course, has since developed his style with subsequent releases, including the recent Beguiled and The Perfect Flaw, on Hearts of Space. But Abridged is a timely and welcome reminder of - or indeed introduction to - Tim's early music.

Artist: Tim Story
P: 1991
Story's music might be more accurately described as psychological chamber music. It is intricately composed, well-thought-out, essentially indifferent as to how it might be perceived by the listener. It is music that speaks with a voice all its own: fragile and yet profound. It doesn't care what you may think of it. It exists in its own very personal and intimate space, and it invites you into that space to share in its mystery. Every piece on this album is a finely chiselled work of art. The last two pieces, "Many Years Pass," and "The Luminous, The Dark", taken together form one of the most beautiful sequences of music that you have ever heard. The music ends by converging towards a gentle electronic pulse, and then returning into the silence and mystery from which it came, leaving the listener beguiled.

Artist: Tim Story
P: 2010
When an artist with a 30-year discography releases a compilation of work from the archives, it’s typically a “greatest hits” album, perhaps with a few remixes of debatable merit to improve its marketability to die-hard fans. Either way, such projects are seldom a revelation.
But leave it to Tim Story to create the exception that proves the rule.
The 19 tracks that comprise Collected are unique in that none of them ever appeared on Story’s solo releases. Most were crafted specifically for a variety of increasingly rare Windham Hill samplers and the popular In Search of Angels soundtrack. Story fans will be especially pleased to see three previously unreleased tracks from the era, as well as an all-new, 7-minute suite of musical themes from the Grammy-nominated Sleepy Hollow album, originally heard behind the narration by Glenn Close.
But perhaps the most exceptional aspect of the collection is how it documents the pivotal point in Story’s development from deft craftsman of idiosyncratic electronic miniatures to an equally respected composer of contemporary chamber music.
The earliest work on the album, 1988’s Homage, reflects the style of Story’s first solo releases on the Uniton and Cicada labels. Originally created for A Winter’s Solstice II, the track featured an all-electronic sound palette, which made it a difficult fit with work from other contributors — and so Homage remained on the shelf.
But his second Winter’s Solstice effort, Of the Father’s Love Begotten, added the features which became a hallmark of Story’s solo albums of the 1990’s: Kimberly Bryden on oboe and Martha Reikow on cello.
“I knew from prior experience that a purely electronic mix was problematic for this setting,” he recalls, “so I decided to try adding acoustic instruments. The oboe and cello were a natural choice, as they were well suited to my compositional style, but at the same time could serve as a ‘bridge’ to other material on the compilation. As it turned out, they were also a bridge for me to an entirely different way of working.”
He adds, “A hallmark of the Windham Hill samplers was accessibility, and so I also curbed my considerable predilections for ambiguity and shadow. Instead, I gave particular attention to melody and especially harmony … the sampler format was actually a chance to explore and stretch in ways that were distinct from my solo work.”
Story concludes the album’s liner notes with the following observation: “With Collected, I’ve attempted to forge a cohesive musical experience, enjoyable on its own terms.” And he succeeds — because, track by track, over the 15-year span of work that is Collected, that’s what he was doing all along.

Artist: Tim Story
P: 1987
Glass Green is the culmination of Threads, In Another Country, Untitled,Three Feet From The Moon and Wheat and Rust. This CD shows how Story's writing style had matured to the release date of 1987. It should be noted that at this same time, he was nominated for a Grammy for the children's album he did with Rabbit Ears and Glenn Close, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It is rather interesting that there are several motifs from this album that show up later in Lunz and The Perfect Flaw.

Artist: Tim Story
P: 2000
Tim Story is one of those artists who exists in a natural state of repose, whose music is born from a point that is deep and still, gaining resonance and contour as it rises from the bottom of the well. Story has defined ambient chamber music since the early '80s, and Shadowplay continues down that path with music that hovers at the borders of darkness and joy. Story extends his keyboard-based palette with oboe and cello, giving his compositions an even warmer hue. What sets him apart from the likes of Kevin Kendle and Michael Hoppé is Story's resistance toward neoclassical nostalgia. With Story, there's always a sense that something ominous could be lurking around the corner, like a shark hanging at the edge of an intoxicating coral reef. That element of foreboding is particularly apparent on "Intemperate," as Dieter Moebius from the quirky German band Cluster adds subtle abstracted electronics. Like most Story albums, Shadowplay is as haunting as that first moment when one awakens from a dream--and just as elusive.

Artist: Tim Story
P: 1988
If you're unfamiliar with the Rabbit Ears series of recordings, they are children's stories read or narrated by famous actors or actresses accompanied by music by famous and not quite as famous musicians. What is wonderful about the series is that no video is needed. Children (of all ages) can imagine their own scenes.
I believe this is the best of all marriages of voice and music in the series. Glenn Close's voice varies from character to character and her inflections reflect well the mood from each section: mysterious, spooky, joyful, ... the whole gambit. Tim Story's music matches the moods perfectly.
Tim Story is generally known (if at all) for his laid back, often minimilistic piano / keyboard playing. (I HATE the word "New Age", but that's the section of the store you're likely to find his beautiful instrumental music. His relatively recent releases on the Hearts of Space label include cello & / or oboe. I think he outdid himself with this recording in getting his music to fit the narration in each segment perfectly.

Here the last copy!

Artist: Tim Story
P: 1992
For fans of Tim Story, this his first release, material recorded in 1978-79, is well worth tracking down.
Although this is one of Tim Story's earlier works. There are some hints of Story's later compositions which reflect a greater sense of structure, feeling and musical maturity. However, in many of the tracks on this CD, there is a sense of the artist sitting down at the keyboard and experimenting with sound combinations.