Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s I wrote and recorded a lot of instrumental music. The songs spanned a very wide range of genres, involving a lot of different collaborators. I had compiled that material into album called “Lost in Time” that was a single CD length greatest hits package. A few years ago I let it slip out of print and did not renew the licenses to keep the tracks online on the streaming services.
A few years ago I revisited the idea of re-releasing that old material as a two CD set, one mainly electronic and high energy tracks including everything on my 1989 Electrophonic cassette release, the other mostly acoustic & new age work including everything on my 1991 The Illusion of Competence cassette release.
Streaming Links
it’s also on Spotify but I don’t have a Spotify account to look up the URL
It’s also live on a bunch of other streaming services
Electrophonic Track List
- Suburbia (Elephant Jam) – This came out of a jam Peter McNutt and I collaborated on, trying to use all the different keyboards in his studio, so it incorporates a bunch of different styles and themes. Remastered from the original digital audio tape (DAT).
- Autumn Leaves/Summertime – My arrangement of these two seasonal classics, for a quintet that had drums, bass, piano, organ and vibes. The different instruments trade off as the time signature jumps around from 4/4 to 3/4, including a section where the three lead instruments trade 3-bar phrases (normal jazz players trade 4 bar phrases), and Summertime is played in 5/4 time, just because I was trying to put as many cool ideas into each track as I could during that era. Remastered from the original digital audio tape (DAT).
- Samba for Steve – Chris Bennett helped with the drum programming on this one, playing the part live on a set of drum pads with MIDI triggers. Includes a Chameleon (Herbie Hancock) quote at the jump where the song changes from piano-based samba to synth based funk. This original is one of the few that’s been played live, mostly at Luigi’s with the house band. Remastered from the original digital audio tape (DAT).
- Night Song 2 (electric) – This 7/8+5/8 ballad started out as an acoustic guitar song, was reworked into a synthy ambient song for electrophonic, and was re-recorded in its original acoustic form for The Illusion of Competence. Remastered from the original digital audio tape (DAT).
- Now I’ve Found You – This is a fairly straightforward 4/4 funk/fusion jazz track with some odd meter parts and an Eleanor Rigby quote in the piano solo. Remastered from the original digital audio tape (DAT).
- Round Body Midnight and Soul – The idea here was to take the jazz standards Round Midnight, and Body and Soul, and put them in a mixmaster. I make copies of the charts for each and cut them into sections with scissors, taping them back together in a structure where the A part of Round Midnight led into the B section of Body and Soul, and the final section changed songs every 2 bars (2 bars from Round Midnight, 2 bars from Body and Soul, and so on) to make a new melody. The electrophonic version of this track was solo piano only. I went back to the original MIDI file, had Michael Holleman play some MIDI triggered drum samples, added sampled acoustic bass, and trimmed about 2 minutes out of the original 6 minute version to make an updated version of this track that had more feel with less repetition.
- Untied – A simple happy dance track. Remastered from the original digital audio tape (DAT).
- Mesa Village Blues – This is really two songs: the slow solo piano section is part one, and the full band version (piano, bass, drums, accordion) is part two. Remastered from the original digital audio tape (DAT).
Bonus Tracks
9. Clip – this is a demo from 1986, featuring Julien Kasper (who went on to much bigger and better things) on the end guitar solo. Originally released on the decrepitude cassette release in 1995 and included in Lost in Time. Remastered from the 2 track DAT mixed from cassette 4 track)
10. But I Shouldn’t – Jazz organ trio composition influenced by Monk’s “Well You Needn’t”. Additional drums and organ polish added during the remastering process. Recorded 1994, released on decrepitude and revisited again in 2010 for the evolution CD project.
11. Men in Blues – recorded late 1990’s featuring Mick McMillan on guitar and included on the et. al. CD release in 2000. Edited, trimmed and remastered for this project.
12. For July 3 – Written in 1982 with David Nather for a July 3 jazz gig. Originally recorded by Karl and David on the “Do Not Eat The Glass” cassette. This version is a completely new recording featuring Dr. Wayne Smith on acoustic drums, along with electronic drums, and all other instruments by me.
13. Dog Park Blues – written and recorded mid 2000’s at the request of Greg Phelps, to be used as background music in a film he was making. Previously unreleased.
14. The Teacher – Originally a bonus track on the first Hidden Agenda cassette release. Remixed, edited and remastered from the original 16 track for this project. The title refers to the synth solo at the end sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher (with a sample of the original ‘teacher’ sound, which was played on muted trombone at the start of the track).
15. Pitch Bender – Original title “I’ve Got a Pitch Bender and Can Play Keyboards like Eddie Van Halen”. The whole song is built around a thing I figured out where I could use the arpeggiator on my Korg Polysix to imitate the style of playing EVH did in the finger tapping part of Eruption. Featuring John Taylor on drums. The original recording was released on my Baf Ensemble cassette back in 1985. For this version I went back to the original 4 track reel to reel and did major audio surgery reprocessing the drums, autotuning an out of tune guitar, reprocessing the bass, and editing the song down from 6 minutes down to a tidy 3:51.
16. Breakin’ Glass – Another 1985 Baf Ensemble track. We used the 4 track reel to reel to play the intro music to the film Koyaanisqatsi at double speed, and then painstakingly hand tuned the tempo of a Roland “Dr. Rhythm” drum machine (precursor to the TR808 used in hiphop) to add the synth drum track. Then I played other synth parts, and we chopped up a bunch of other tracks, including bits from new age harpist Andreas Vollenweider, Herbie Hancock and R.E.M. to make a sonic collage that linked the other three parts of the track together. We did all this in the analog world: starting and stopping tape machines and turntables, working with a 4 track reel to reel and analog synths that had no way to sync to tape. Remastered from the best cassette copy I could find for this release.
Credits (Electrophonic tracks)
Sequenced tracks recorded September 1987 – August 1989. Mixed direct to DAT August 5-7, 1989 at Sixth Street Studio.
Produced, composed, arranged and performed by Karl Rehn
Associate producer – Andrew Wimsatt
Drum programming – Chris Bennett and Karl Rehn. Additional drums from Michael Holleman and Wayne Smith.
Recording Engineer – Aaron White (tracks 1-8)
Advice and Support – Peter McNutt
Autumn Leaves by Johnny Mercer, Summertime by George Gershwin, Round Midnight by Theolonius Monk, Body and Soul and J. Green.
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