Pipedream (1996)

http://www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue9/pipe01.html wrote:Pipedream is the result of suburban boredom, records, and time on our hands. None of us had much experience with instruments, let alone playing in a band. In late summer 1992, Jupiter Six borrowed and eventually acquired, DT's neighbour's bass guitar and amp. DT fetched his dad's acoustic guitar from the back of a closet. I gathered an assortment of percussive junk (paint tins, a plastic garbage can, metal and plastic objects, and a rat-cage), arranged them on the frame of a broken couch, and for several months we marvelled at our ability to create and maintain the semblence of a tune and rhythm. Since then Pipedream has really just been a continuation of the basic theme of sustained breaks and motifs that characterized even the worst of our formative efforts.

We do rely quite a bit on some unreliable old synths. The appeal, like I mentioned, was the pursuit of the familiar. We wanted the sounds that were behind Pink Floyd, and early Tangerine Dream. Some of Nick Mason's techniques on "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and "Saucerful of Secrets" were of more influence. But still, not having much experience drumming with my feet, I have followed the sustained momentum of the oscillators, tremolos, and droning chords with the sort of soft-attack, cyclical drum riffs heard on the CD. For some time I was wary of the snare and hi-hats, and tried not to disrupt the warmth or flow of sounds, but I've come around and in later recordings used them considerably more than the toms.

[The CD is titled after a] Rick Wakeman record sleeve. He released a record on which he interpreted Jules Vernes' book 'A Journey to the Center of the Earth.' In the accompanying photo booklet/gatefold, one of the pages had "The Journey from Hamburg to Iceland Begins" written on it. We liked it and its panoramic uncertainty, so we used it.