Islands in the Stream

The Album

Welcome to Islands in the Stream. This album of experimental electronic music uses a variety of techniques and styles to create a concept album based on impressions of a stream. The pristine, audiophile sound quality and beautiful cover art combine with the music to create a wholly artistic and satisfying package.

Islands in the Stream covers a range of contemporary classical musical styles and techniques, focusing primarily on sounds generated by modular, analog, patch-panel synthesizers, as well as the musique concrete manipulations made possible by digital sampling. The rich warmth of older analog equipment is contrasted and balanced by crisp digital timbres, creating a sound that spans the history of electronic music from the early sixties to the present day. Great care and attention have been directed to the sounds themselves, which range from the sharp and percussive blasts of 'Prelude' to the ethereal, hypnotic waves of 'The Stream (10 Feet from the Shore)'.

The Music

  Click any song to download the MP3

 

Year Released

1994

Format(s)

Compact Disc

How do I get it?

Available through:

CD Baby


Reviews

ProFile Column, Electronic Musician, November 1995
Stream of Consciousness

Nick Peck's electronic island cruise.
By Mary Cosola

Some things you have to learn the hard way. Just the other day, I learned that I should never listen to experimental electronic compositions with one of my 20-pound cats sitting on my lap. On the whole, cats don't take loud surprises very well. A couple of subtle bleeps and bloops, followed by a loud wash of sound emanating from stark silence, and I'm in a world of hurt. As my cat edged near the stereo speaker, hunting the aliens within, I nursed my wounds and turned my attention to the compositional technique and musical themes behind Nick Peck's Islands in the Stream.

As its title implies, the CD is a musical representation of a stream, including the rocks and other disruptions that pop up along the way. And just as a stream gathers its force from other streams, lakes, and tributaries, Islands bends and weaves its way through the musical landscape, drawing on a variety of musical influences.

"I had done progressive rock for a long time and wanted to do more purely synthesizer-based electronic music," says Peck. "I wanted to create a contrast between the flowing pieces that were all conceptually related and the other pieces that were larks or separate, distinct investigations that I was doing at the time."

These musical "obstructions" to Peck's stream are realized in works such as "The Rose Mirror," an acoustic piano piece, and "Imagining a Radio-Free Europe," which, with its Eastern European-influenced scales, conjures up images of a techno Turkish bazaar. Another island in Peck's musical stream, "A Fugue Made of Concrete," takes on a structure borrowed from a Bach fugue. Instead of orchestral instrumentation, however, Peck uses rattle, bangs, and grinding noises sampled with an E-mu EII+HD and manipulated in Digidesign's Turbosynth software. And where the theme in a Bach fugue is inverted by pitch, Peck inverts the low and high harmonics of his sonic constructions.

"Mpathy" is Peck's tribute to his progressive-rock influences. "I used M, an algorithmic composition program, to create themes based around performance techniques of artists I really dig," explains Peck. "I played back these themes using only FM synth sounds from a Yamaha TX816. The opening melody is sort of a reworking of a motive from King Crimson's 'Frame by Frame' off Three of a Perfect Pair. Also, I used a lot of motion and diatonic movement that reminds me of Rick Wakeman, particularly his soloing style."

So, has this shift from playing progressive rock to programming electronic sounds helped Peck find that elusive artistic voice? "Absolutely," responds Peck. "As Cage said, 'All sound is music.' And where that is for you depends upon your ears and nothing else. It's perfectly fine for someone to define music as something that happens in a diatonic universe with guitar, bass, and drums. That's completely wonderful, but it's just one archipelago in the musical ocean."

In Review, Keyboard, April 1995

By Robert Doerschuk

Fourteen selections, ranging from less than one minute to more than ten, highlight Peck's diverse aesthetic. In general, he's an abstractionist, with academic leanings. Yet his music is accessible to listeners more stirred by emotion than technique. Lots of rich analog work here, with one piece realized on a Serge system, another on a Buchla 100, and so on.

FishNet Indie Review, May-June-July 1995

By Michael P. Dawson

This is the first solo CD from the keyboardist (and sometimes lead singer) of the excellent Bay-Area prog-rock outfit Episode. But Islands in the Stream is not prog-rock; nor is it a typical synthesist's solo album, ringing changes on the Tangerine Dream/"Hearts of Space" formula. Peck has crafted a diverse and exciting collection of sounds rooted in academic (or "classical") music traditions, with a very modern twist.

The album is structured with the seven musical "islands" alternating with a series of compositions called 'The Stream,' all of which deal in an impressionistic was with images of water. Much of the music, including the vividly colorful 'Prelude,' makes intelligent and fascinating use of sampling to create a modern equivalent of the musique concrete of electronic music pioneers like Schaeffer, Henry, Varese, and Stockhausen. 'The Rose Mirror,' by contrast, is a piece for solo piano with only a few electronic trimmings, which hints at a variety of classical styles and eras. Peck hasn't forgotten about prog-rock either. 'Mpathy' sounds like King Crimson playing glockenspiels. Even better is 'Imagining a Radio-Free Europe,' a gorgeous fusion of progressive, ethnic, and electronic sounds, which will probably be most prog-heads' favorite track on the CD. It even contains a theme that sounds like one of Keith Emerson's Moog riffs from Tarkus transposed into a middle eastern mode!

Gibraltar, April 22, 1995

By Michael Taylor

Nick Peck, keyboard player for San Francisco Bay-area band Episode, has released a solo album completely unlike anything he has done in the group format. Billing himself as a "sound artist," Peck has, over a period, created an incredibly interesting and explorative collection of music. A study of contrasts, Peck draws from the yin and yang of digital and analog instruments to create flowing streams connecting islands of solidarity. The connecting stream is, for the most part, brief snippets of abstractions, collages of disjointed timbres, filters and other electronics.

Occasionally, the stream runs deep and Peck plunges headlong into the running waters of the six minute "The Stream (Diversions from a Natural Course)" and the 10 minute "The Stream (10 Feet from the Shore)." Residing as structured islands in the non-linear stream, songs such as "Imagining a Radio-Free Europe" and "The Rose Mirror" are more concrete ideas. Herein, the synth tones become more identifiable, from "traditional" synth leads to chiming bell tones, and the rhythms are firm.

Each song title in the nicely produced booklet is accompanied by a brief statement of the vision in Peck's mind that is the foundation for that song. Whether the song is "Mpathy," a tribute to Peck's prog influences, or darting schools of fish in "The Stream (Dropping Stones in the Water)," Peck presents to you potential imagery. You are also free to use your own imagery. One very interesting piece is "A Fugue Made of Concrete." Peck explains the piece thusly":

"The structure of a Bach fugue forms the backbone of this piece, with subject, countersubject, and episodic material represented by sounds rather than sequences of notes. The sounds are processed corresponding to Bach's manipulation of melodic material. For example, when Bach's subject material is inverted by pitch, my subject is spectrally inverted - the high and low harmonics switch position."

The song really has to be heard to be fully understood. After a stretch of stream, Peck offers a study on the piano ("The Rose Mirror"). This contrast between the fugue and the piano is indicative of the experimental thought that pervades throughout this album. An innovative work of experimental electronics and highly recommended to fans of such.

After Dark column, Pacific Sun, January 25, 1995

By Ben "Jacobs"

Of course, these dark, still winter nights are also perfect for long walks in the rain. And, after a cozy evening in the cafe (with a stimulating beverage or two under the belt, perhaps), we highly recommend taking headphones along. For appropriate ambience on cue, Islands in the Stream would be a good musical choice (this being the debut recording from Mill Valley composer, keyboardist, and electronic musician extraordinaire Nick Peck.

Local enthusiasts may well be acquainted with Nick's contributions to progressive rock outfit Episode, but Islands takes off in an altogether different direction. This is abstract stuff, neither alternative rock nor relaxing new age fare. Strands of sound drawn from identifiable real world sources weave freely in and around purely electronic ideas. The sounds move in a variety of directions; anything can happen. But an overarching structure does begin to emerge, and the musical thoughts all finally return to the same underlying, watery theme... like the path one's own late night steps would probably take at this time of year.

alt.music.progressive newsgroup, January 15, 1995

By Phil Kime

Nick Peck is quite well known for his work with Bay Area band Episode, but this new solo album is quite a departure from progressive rock. What we have here is an album of experimental and avant-garde music unified by one of the cleverest and most appealing themes I've encountered.

The album depicts a stream in various states punctuated by compositions that stand out, indeed, as 'islands'. The album is therefore half programmatic as every other track is a continuation of the stream, treating a different aspect. The liner notes give the instrumentation of each track plus a brief description of the programmatic intent of each piece. Nick has strived to blend together old analog technology with the latest digital in an attempt to provide a wide variety of sounds and timbres. This is the most obvious and appealing aspect. There has obviously been a great deal of attention to the sounds on this disc and it shows... the first listen is a fascinating experience.

The watery theme lends itself well to a faithful evocation of events and changes in the stream. While the stream pieces are very effective, the real delights come as the island compositions. "Mpathy" is a "homage to the progressive rock greats" and consists of some great complex keyboard lines in fairly rapid succession. "Imagining a Radio-Free Europe" is as close to a normal tune as the album comes and has a driving drum pattern low down in the bass-end of the spectrum. Then things really get interesting. "A Fugue Made of Concrete" is an attempt to approach Bach-esque fugue structure treating the harmonic profile of sounds rather than notes. So, where a traditional fugue might employ a motif inversion, a spectral inversion of the sound is used. A really quite sinister crunching is transformed into a structured pattern of sound.

The highlight, for me, is "The Rose Mirror"... worth the price of the disc alone. This is a solo piano piece with subtle echo that, to my ears, constitutes a superb contribution to modern classical composing. "Mixed Bouquet" explores the effect of maintaining a tune whilst frequently changing the voice used to express it. The results are quite startling. The album ends with the abstract soundscape of "Taos Landscape", and the final stream piece.

Overall, this is a fine release that manages to glue a lot of seemingly disparate music together, a task reflected in the choice of old/new instrumentation. Every enthusiast of modern avant-garde and experimentalism should enjoy this disc a lot.