This is the home site for the music of David Ryle (a.k.a. Kindred Lost).

It seems my taste and background in music tends to be rather introspective and dark. A bit on the weird side and filled with melodic repetition. I am a great fan of electronic music in the vein of Edgar Froese and Brian Eno, although not close to either in skill level or compositional mastery. I also have a tendancy to write with the bass guitar and keyboard first, though lately I've been drawn to guitar for some starting ideas.

Not all the compositions on this page are related to astronomy, but a few are and I hope they fit the format enough to give the reader/listener a glimpse into what I feel in a musical way about the beauty of space and my constant amazement of the vast reaches of the cosmos.

 -David Ryle

  

 

Note: the following MP3 files are low audio quality for fast download. For greater listening experience go to my other website. 

--Astronomy related tunes--

Sister Venus
 Our closest neighboring planet and closest to us in size is Venus. Although it is still quite a mysterious place, the natural beauty of the brightest 'star' in the sky serves to make this one of the favorite astronomy objects. This melody creates a sense of beauty and wonder with a warm familiarity despite the cold nature of the electronic instruments. A metaphor for our neighbor planet in the coldness of space.

 Opaque Night
 The darkness found at a dark site such as Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus which is the home of Three Rivers Foundation for the Arts and Sciences in Crowell, Texas is the inspriation for this song. It is a very dark melody which describes the overbearing thickness of a very dark outdoor night time observing session.

 34N98W
 The coordinates of my observing location in Wichita Falls, Texas USA. The peaceful feeling I get when observing the stars late at night in my own backyard is something I had to try to convey. This is sort of a wall paper sounding ambient tune.

March of the Great Red Spot
The Great Red Spot in Jupiter's cloud system is a 300 year-old cyclone and tirelessly marches on year after year. This song paints a picture of the various bands of Jupiter as different colors and speeds, and even includes an Irish jig for a melody, all the time the redundant repetition of the electronic voices reminding the listener of the repeating GRS. 

 Voyager's Eternal Farewell
 This tune was a format for coveying all the space related music from different movies, television shows and early satellite/short wave sounds that I grew up on. I have combined them into a simple repetitive song that reminds me of the long journey that Voyager 1 is taking since the 1970's. At the time of the composition Voyager was entering the outer regions of the Solar system at the Kuiper Belt.

 Electric Sun
 I enjoy studying the Sun and it's magnificent surface through telescopes. The violent activity caused by magnetic and thermal convection generates tremendous electrical forces that even affect us greatly here on Earth. A good hot day under intense sunlight reminds me of this electric connection.

 Plasma Cat
 Sometimes I get the impression the Sun and Moon are playing a cat and mouse chase in the sky. This is a tune about the way the Sun (Plasma Cat) chases and eventually devours the Moon at eclipse. The concept originated from the KP3 pad sound and reminded me of a plasma torch - much like the Sun.

 Until Dawn
 I stay up until sunrise when observing the stars and planets. A calm weariness creeps in about dawn. This song captures the sensation of a wonderful night of discovery and a blend of being tired but excited.

 As the Fly Crowes
 Time is like a straight line, and there are no straight lines in this curved spacetime universe. Infinity folds in on itself and everything is circular. Hence the twist on the cliche'. Albert Einstein's voice is inserted into this song with his famous E=mc2 formula quoted.

 Celestial Coincidence
 We reside on Earth at an epoch when the moon and sun are almost exactly the same angular size in the sky. This is of course a coincidence and is the cause of totality during a Solar eclipse.

 Ganymede Aurorae
 The mysterious aurorae on Ganymede is the basis for this dark ambient song. I like to imagine what it would look like if I were on the surface of Ganymede. I tried to convey the horror of isolation on this baren moon and the awe of seeing an aurora in the pitch black sky with Jupiter looming large above the horizon. The place is without sound but if there were enough of an atmosphere the electromagnetic crackle would be deafening.

 Precession of the Equinox
 The astronomer Hipparchus discovered and documented the westward movement of the points along the equinox. The drag caused by the gravitational forces from the Moon and Sun are causing the Earth's spin to wobble over the millennia. Eventually Polaris will no longer be aligned with the pole of the Earth's axis and we will see a different motion of the stars. This tune explores the nature of this change and includes a sound of a ticking clock and rolling ball as a metaphor for the spin and wobble of the Earth.

Time Traveler
 When I look through a great telescope like the ones in the 3RF inventory, I am actually looking back in time. We see the stars and nebulae as they were at a certain time in the past in relation to our Earthly time frame. Distance and time are wedding partners, forever connected by God. I'm just a time traveler witnessing their journey.

Rupes Recta
 A favorite feature on the face of a large and ancient crater. This straight wall fault line is a wonderful sight in a telescope at first quarter. I've seen a sunrise ray emerge from a break at the wall at the famous "sword's hilt".

 

--Other Songs--

 Rattlesnake
 Texas is known for it's boundless capacity for rugged terrain and creatures to match. The western diamond back rattler is no exception. This song is a slithering dark and dangerous sounding tune, befitting of the nature of this beast.

Heidelberg Sunrise Train
 When I was in Germany in 1971, we were delayed in flight from the US and arrived late in Frankfurt. We were unable to get the room in Frankfurt so we drove south early in the darkness until we reached Heidelberg. I remember seeing a train emerge from a tunnel at sunrise, and the beautful city of Heidelberg in the valley below. It was one of those moments I'll never forget. Germany is my favorite country. I later discovered Tangerine Dream which I always associate with the beautiful German countryside. This tune is an homage to early Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream and the warm feelings I still have for Germany.

 A Nightmare Holiday
 If you've never experienced a vacation or trip gone awry, then this may not make any sense. Just think of a Christmas trip spent at an airport and you'll get the idea.

 The Whole Idea
 I find it impossible to convey the full extent of my philosophy about life, God and love but then again, why not try? This is a shallow attempt to put into three verses some feelings I have about the subject.

Can-D
From the story "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" by P.K.Dick. 

Racetrak Playa
 The desert mountain dry lake of Racetrak Playa in California is just such a mysterious aspect of our wonderful planet Earth. The sliding rocks which to this day are not fully explained by a good scientific model are what I was trying to bring across in this melody. The long buildup to the broadly symphonic ending is a "hat's off" to the researchers that spent months out at the site trying to formulate a good explanation for the phenomenon.   

 Conservation of Energy
 One of the fundemental principals in physics describing motion. This song was made with a single synthesizer when it was new in 2008. The Waldorf Blofeld.

 Sinkerswim
 Sometimes life can mess up even the most well laid plans. In business and pleasure we have all experienced times when things go wrong. I like the analogy of learning to swim. It is un-natural for humans to swim yet when confronted with the task we either - "sink or swim". This is a song for those that try in life - despite the odds.

 Urban Orangutan
 If we could mix the mentality of a wild orangutan with the busy schizothymia of our urban lifestyles, would it sound something like this?

 The Long Mill
 As a machinist I have a tendancy to listen to the machines while running them. It can put me into a trance-like state. I've tried to relay that feeling in this long, patience-testing electronic song. The rhythmicity I encounter of milling and lathe machinery is the point of this song.

 For Lost Children
 After losing several children and remembering the feelings I had for each as they were carried by my wife, I decided to try to put into music the various emotions of happiness and grief from that time. Nothing can convey it perfectly, but if there ever was a point to music, then why not try?

 Rivers
 Guitars, guitars - guitars! I am still learning how to play the electric guitar. This is a voyeuristic attempt at being a rock star I suppose. It was fun trying to sound like some 1960's rock & roller. Not much of a song, and less of a musical accomplishment, but the point was to record thrashing guitar and drum sounds for the heck of it. The cachaphony at the end is an example of what only an electric guitar could produce. Nothing else is capable of such rich distortion and thickness.

 Fredrick 
A song I wrote in remembrance of my grandfather Fred Aston. His tender and creative personality was one of the greatest influences on my early childhood. My mother (his daughter) instilled the love of music in me from an early age.

 Tonto in Tokyo
 I guess I could be accused of boredom with the likes of this tune. I was interested in combining the pentagonic scale which is prevalent in eastern and native American indian musical styles, into a single flavor. The third and last portion was a musical description of the cavalry coming in the form of the European settlers. Maybe a bit dramatic?

 Splooze
 I played in some blues bands in the eighties, and that portion of my past needed some ghosts exorcised. This will be a good example of why all the other songs are instrumentals.

 Zacatecas
 This was an early melody that was inspired by the city of the same name in Mexico. I was enchanted by the winding mountain road to the top of the mountain where the National Museum and burial place of many important Mexican patriots were found.

 Chopped N Dropped
 For bass guitar players everywhere! This short snippet has the most low-down kik'n bassballs to date for me.A combination of synth bass and play'd guitar, it is a simple funk tune that reminds me of a low-ride cruisin' down the block.

 Ortho
 If music could be geometry (my other great visual love), then this would represent the idea of a two dimensional song. It has right-angle turns and infinitly small points pasted into a rumbling beat melody. Mathmaticians - Drink Up!

 Herbie Meltdown
 Herbie Hancock is one of my favorite and most eloquent funk, jazz and synth keyboard players. Although this has hardly any resemblance to his inventory of work, it is my tribute to his colorful influence on music.

 HBP
 I like all different forms of music, but especially the newer Euro-Techno beat stuff. This has decended from the European Disco and German Techno groups such as Kraftwerk and has morphed into it's own general style. Squarepusher is another good example, but greatly removed from the former in skill levels. This is a quick and dirty attempt at the "High Blood Pressure" effect of this style. Only one instrument, (KP3 pad) did it all except for some over layers of sound effects. 

 Swing Set
 Another trance tune with a couple of tongue-in-cheek jabs at swing blues thrown in. This tune has some elements of one of my favorite musical pieces - "Music for eighteen musicians" by Steve Reich. The basson and flute pulses along with the synth pulse makes the middle section a bit thicker.

 Harry
 A short tune inspired by Roman Polansky's film starring Gene Hackman - "The Conversation". When I started writing this I was unable to place the familiarity. It dawned on me at almost the end of recording that it was similar in many ways to the soundtrack from the film. I added the wandering piano and even a synthetic saxophone to imitate Harry's sax playing.

 Ragtime Mythology
 Somewhere in my musical background I found ragtime music to be fun and thorougly pleasing. This piece came about rather unexpectedly, but the general theme reminded me of Scott Joplin's "Entertainer", so I mangled it into a tune. The background voices are from an accidental cell phone recording of a conversation with my Aunt and Uncle. Hint: listen for the word "myth".

 GC3 Groove
 Some of the repetitive and rhythmic machinery in my machine shop was the inspiration for this song. I recorded the gear cutting machine as it cut teeth on a sprocket. Other sounds were the machine startup, a squealing fan or two and a large 80" plate of steel being turned on a lathe. The drum beats came from three different sources and was a blast to put together. The last portion was a loop pieced together from a Kontakt2 sample.

 Don Quixote
 For the most part this piece sounds like a soundtrack for an English bobby movie chase scene. Somehow it still reminds me of the fictional character Don Quixote of the "Man From La Mancha" fame. I could see the quirky yet galant Spaniard charging the windmills. The structure of the song consists of 15 or so "piece grabs". Each grab contained an eight beat segment grafted from a long extended jam with a distorted bass guitar and a couple of keyboard parts. These grabs were strung together to form verses with each verse ending in the noble theme repeated from the first few bars of the song. A center section breaks the flow and adds a secondary theme with a vintage moog sounding lead line. The Spanish influence is heard in this line too.

 Slots Heaven 711
 Gambling machines in a store run by mid-eastern clerks is the basis of this impressionistic piece.

The Conceptual Truth in Clocks
 The model of time and the ability for us to make the concept a tangible reality is part of the psychosis of our brains and how we deal with life. If it weren't for this catagorization of events we would be insects, yet at the same time, it is a false model but one that is impossible to deny. This tune is a way for me to address the continuum of time and how it is entirely flexible. The arpeggiated lines are started fast and slow at the mid-part. The pitch and flange effects are a metaphor for the flexability of time too.

 Bad Night in Baghdad
 The first few years of war in Iraq were dangerous and destructive. The battles seemed fairly simple from our view back home, but no doubt were more confusing and risky than we knew. This trance tune is a modest attempt at trying to put the sounds of battle juxtaposed against the religious prayer chants of the Islamic people of Baghdad. The sound clips are from actual footage of Coalition military counter-strikes on ambushes by Islamofascist cowards. My deepest respects to those soldiers and civilian corps who risked the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of liberty.

 Jaython's Light Saber
 My grandson is a big Star Wars fan, and when he saw my laser pointer that I use for astronomy, he just knew I was a Jedi Knight. I had to put it away and like any good Grandfather, I told him a lie about loosing it in battle. This song is a fun piece about the innocence of youth, with a machine-gun sounding techno beat. Prepare to battle!

Sweet Nothing's
 Who said romance is dead?

Curious Butterfly
 I am alwys projecting my mind onto animals and how they must think or feel. It seems butterfly's tend to ride the currents and follow whatever path it takes them on. When they land it seems as if they are curiously sensing the environment and moving on. This light hearted but questioning tune relays that emotion.

Epiphanic Sleep
 Sometimes dreams can take on a symbolic meaning that seem significant and important. Upon wakening life can seem dull in comparison. This retro-ambient song is a dark portrayal of such a feeling.

Christ, my joy and comforter
 There is an inner peace and solice that occurs when I meditate and pray to God. This wonderful temperal experience cannot be fully expressed in words or sounds but I will try as a testiment.

Swiss Swim
 As a young man in Switzerland, I tried to swim a glacier lake to get to a beautiful resport on the other side. I suffered hypothermia and had to return. The frightening but beautiful experience was unforgettable - and cold!

DejaVuFO
 Imagine the experience of alien abduction seeming familiar. This tune explores the classic UFO sounds and eerie TV and movie soundtrack sounds. The song tries to invent a feeling of DejaVu and the usual flying saucer effects.

Right English
 As the title implies, this ambient piece contains the familiar wetern elements but breaks from the proper tuning and grammer slightly to render an oblique effect.

This was the original Phosphene Studio where many nights of cosmic serendipity produced stellar music.	Some keyboards by Korg, Clavia and Yamaha	Digital Heaven! Waldorf MicroQ, MicroWave XT, Access TI and Lexicon MX200	The man and the machine. Edgar Froese and the PPG Waves.

 _________________________________________________________________

 NOTE: All files for listening are compressed for quick loading on the internet. Fidelity is lower than usual due to this constraint.

            All music copyright DRAudio 2007.


_________________________________________________________________

Some current equipment includes....

Guitars; Fender Stratocaster, Jazz bass, OLP 5 string bass Gibson Les Paul special 6 string acoustic	Hardware; Boss CS-3, Boss AC-2, Maxon OO-9, Lexicon MX200,Zoom H4, Mackie 1604 Yamaha MG12/4	Contollers; Novation ReMOTE SL37 Korg PadKontrol Korg Kaoss KP3
Synthesizers; MicroWave XT, Micro Q Korg R3, Yamaha PSR-510 Clavia Nord Lead 2X, Arp Axxe PAIA P4700J, 5U & Euro Modular	DAW; Cubase 4	Interfaces; MOTU 828 mkII MOTU midi express 128
Software VST's; FM8, Kontakt2, M-Tron, Arturia MinimoogV, Addictive Drums, Waldorf PPG Wave 2.v, D-Pole, Attack, NI Synthetic Drums 2, Halion, Prologue, Mystic, Belamedia Anthology Celtic Winds	Computers; Apple iMac  Alienware PC Windows XP2	earlier equip; Emu Proteus X2 Emu Emulator X2 Emu XBoard