Changing Landscapes by Perge

Changing Landscapes - This 19 track album has evolved considerably since its inception in 2016 which was to release a record of archive recordings that I’d made outside of Perge.

I started recording music in the early 90's using a Commodore Amiga computer and a few MIDI keyboards, it was purely for fun yet it mostly hopeless due to a lack of knowledge beyond playing the piano, and insufficient funds to afford a multi-track recorder. Everything had to be programmed so that when you hit play on the sequencer the song would play through using all the equipment, however there was always some issue whereby something wouldn't quite play as desired as a Sys-Exclusive command or other was seemingly randomly ignored or misinterpreted. Replacing the Amiga with a 486PC made life a little easier and I was able to attract the interest of a couple of friends. Dream Conspiracy was born (a title that popped into my head one afternoon at work, I scribbled it down as to not forget). This was an important milestone as that meant I was now in a band, bands are great as the pool of resources is expanded as well as the number of limbs making it easier to play more at the same time. The three of us would improvise long tracks to cassette and kid ourselves that we could be just like Tangerine Dream or Jean-Michel Jarre! We attracted a little recognition from the Tadream Yahoo! mailing list and featured on a couple of their DreamWatchers compilations. Yet, as with most bands, interest wasn't sustained and the two friends parted. However, I continued to fiddle with music off and on. Fast forward to 2007 and my son was now old enough to enable more free time and I also had a little more money. I bought a G5 Power Mac computer (all proper musicians had those!) and I took a series of evening classes at Leeds College of Music to further study music production, it was now a very different world with virtual instruments and effects, and there wasn't any need now for that multi-track tape recorder! I felt that the bottlenecks to creativity were now in the past and I started to record once more. Again, encouraged by feedback from the mailing list from early demos I’d published I put together my debut album Your World is But One. It sank without a trace and is a bit naive sounding but I was pleased as it was a start.
The album proved serendipitous as it attracted the attention of one Graham Getty; I knew of him via the UK electronic music scene. I was particularly impressed by his step-sequencer style as it had a considered approach rather than the fiddling with the controls which seemed so prominent on the scene and didn't interest me so much. His approach to creating music was a million miles from mine but it presented an opportunity to work together.

The Tadream list had been busy for the last few years trading bootleg recordings of Tangerine Dream, there were dozens of these spanning their entire career. However, upon realising their commercial value Edgar Froese of the band asked for it to stop. The question remained as to whether there could be more tapes out there (this question remains). It triggered the idea of creating a new 'live' recording as per one of their bootlegs, complete with photocopied cover, audience noises and slightly dodgy sound quality. Perge was the name given to the project as we recorded a Pergamon inspired piece, we kept that for the band name. Upon releasing our debut album Dyad there was a little bit of a stir with some people being openly hostile about the whole thing. This was encouraging (and slightly amusing), so we made another, and another, each time we'd pick a year, listen to the associated recordings and try to make music in a similar style as a virtual concert. It was an enormous learning curve to deconstruct what had been done and make something in the same style, and with similar sounds. Gone was any notion of improvising or winging it, each album was carefully mapped out and engineered, they’d each take about a year to assemble. Mythos was the most complex, the opening piece had over a hundred tracks to mix, felt at times to be drowning with dealing with everything life throws at you whilst trying to concentrate on something that was demanding full attention. With each release, it triggered a little more interest and we even started receiving requests to remake this or that album (Force Majeure usually!). Yet as each album was a concept it didn't really allow room for anything that was different, we tried making the odd ‘Sessions’ album to give us some freedom but they weren't as popular (not that was ever the goal), the problem seemed to be the title as Green Dessert was one such record minus the sessions tagline and the shortest album to produce. Having been slightly disappointed that we’d not realised the full potential of Mythos and the quick turnaround of Green Dessert I was struggling a bit with the band. We could either drown or make something we weren’t happy with. It was strangely amusing to read about similar arguments that had taken place in Tangerine Dream. I needed a bit of a break and recorded my second solo album ‘The Second Sun’, it took about a year to make and Graham was gracious enough to work together on the track ‘Air’, this was very cathartic and working together again seemed like fun, we just had to remember not to take the process so seriously! Putting together ‘Scattered Thoughts’ whilst not our most popular is one I’m particularly proud of.
However, throughout all of the above I've often recorded pieces between albums without any ambition without the burden of a concept. With Perge having completed its 10th album and reaching a bit of a crossroads again it was possibly time for that ubiquitous Best Of. It occurred to me that the only reason folk buy those things is for the unreleased tracks they contain, so why not make one with just those? Therefore, I also started dusting off the Perge archive, revisiting those recordings, improving them to put together an album. I was inspired by this process and started recording some new music. What had intended as a simple concept had ballooned into a 2.5-hour epic!

This album represents many years of being a musical hobbyist, it is also a nod to all the people this hobby has introduced me to, and the friends I've made. I would like to thank all of you for your support, guidance and friendship, and particularly to Graham Getty; your devotion to the ‘Dream put me on a path I hadn't thought possible. Best of luck matey, I'm sure we'll cross musical paths once more as there is always room to dream.

Perge was founded in 2011 with the ambition of recreating the excitement of classic melodic Electronic Rock typified by the live performances of Tangerine Dream. Perge has continued the ambition evolving the sound and exploring the history of electronic music for each subsequent release.

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