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Ron Thomas: Scenes From A Voyage To Arcturus
By"Lindsay's fantasy eludes analysis," pianist/composer

Ron Thomas
pianob.1942
In addition to Thomas on keyboards, the music includes the contributions of

Richard Burton
pianob.1955
Glenn Ferracone
keyboardsBob Meashy
trumpet
Bob Howell
saxophoneThe architectures of these fourteen compositions seem shaped from the sonic clay of an alien world. Malleable entities, molded and layered and re-shaped like much music found in the electronic/ambient genres, but without any of the common sterility and stiffness often found in the genre. The music glows with oddly organic vibrations and foreign world experiences, like those collisions of the crystalline leaves on Tormance, while "The Music of Swaylord's Island" gushes, evoking visions of a running stream, of water obeying the law of gravity on a planet of a somewhat smalleror largermass.
The set closes with the nine and a half minute "Arcturus." It is a haunting soundscape, featuring eerie trumpet and soprano saxophone sounds floatinglike jellyfish in an azure seainside the translucent shapings of the deftly crafted keyboard orchestra, a majesty of the sounds swirling out of an foreign atmosphere.
Though an active musician since the mid 1960s, Scenes From A Voyage To Arcturus (Vector Disc, 2001), is Ron Thomas' CD debut recording under his own name (though Wings of the Morning (Vectordisc, 2008), was recorded and released on vinyl in 1978, before its later re-release on CD). The pianist was born in 1942. He was fifty-nine at the time he created this soundtrack to Lindsay's novel. Relatively late in life, perhaps, but Thomas is a man of deep learning and deeper curiosities, a relentless seeker of meaning, an absorber of seemingly disparate influencesKarlheinz Stockhausen,

Miles Davis
trumpet1926 - 1991

Bill Evans
piano1929 - 1980
Track Listing
Chrystalman's County; The Starkness Observatory And The Night Departure; Joiwind; Backhouse The Medium At Prolands, The Hempstead; The Apparition; Muspel; Gazing Over Towards Barey; The Music Of Swaylone's Island; The Murder Of Spadevil And Tydomin; The Lusion Plain; Tydomin; Panawe, The Husband of Joiwind; The Muspel Stream, Chrystalman's Food; Arcturus.'
Personnel
Ron Thomas
pianoRichard Burton
pianoGlenn Ferracone
keyboardsBob Meashy
trumpetBob Howell
saxophoneAlbum information
Title: Scenes From A Voyage To Arcturus | Year Released: 2001 | Record Label: Vectordisc Records
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