Chris Spheeris Passage

Release date:
April 19, 2019
Buy vinyl:

Vinyl LP pressing. Living and recording in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Chris and Paul composed and released several albums of folk-rock and album-oriented synth-pop before their attentions turned towards sound healing music in the early 1980s. The duo was approached by a company doing biofeedback therapy and asked to create an aural component for patients looking to regain control of nervous disorders. After extensive preparations and just one day of studio time, Passage was the result, recorded live with no additional overdubs. The LP consists of three long tracks which flow together as a single piece. Opener 'Prism' contains the album's most frenetic moments, glittering guitar and synth tones designed to draw the listener out of their distressed state. Next comes the soaring 'Mosaic', a renewing sunrise of warm chords that beckons slowly towards the album's summit, the over-20-minute title track which contains a sonic ecosystem of it's own. The album concludes in a state of pure serenity, in which the passage of time has seemed to slow to a halt, and the outside stresses of the world eradicated. Over 3 decades since it's initial conception, 'Passage' still retains all of it's inestimable healing power, but remains incredibly difficult to find in original form. It's an album that belongs in discussions of landmark early American ambient works, alongside names like Michael Stearns, Constance Demby, Kerry Leimer and Pauline Anna Strom. Emotional Rescue and Mountains In The Sea have teamed up to reissue 'Passage' on vinyl for the first time since it's original release in 1982.