Giles Reaves is a multi-instrumentalist sound artist and audio engineer who has composed albums of

space music Space music, also called spacemusic or space ambient, is a subgenre of new-age music and is described as "tranquil, hypnotic and moving". It is derived from ambient music and is associated with lounge music, easy listening, and elevator music. ...

. His most recognized album, ''Sea of Glass'', 1992, peaked at #11 on the Billboard Top New Age Albums chart.

Biography

Reaves got his start in the Nashville country music business in the 1980s, as an engineer working for producer Marshall Montgomery. MCA producer Tony Brown overheard Reaves' space music improvisations in a studio late one night, and signed him for a contract that resulted in two solo albums and a collaboration with Jon Goin on the MCA Master Series. AllMusic : Giles Reaves - Biography/ref> MCA provided little promotion or distribution for these albums, but 1986's ''Wunjo'' received critical acclaim from ''Electronic Musician'' magazine, which named it a top electronic album of all time. ''Wunjo'' first appeared on the U.S. public radio show

Hearts of Space ''Hearts of Space'' is an American weekly syndicated public radio show featuring music of a contemplative nature"When you listen to space and ambient music you are connecting with a tradition of contemplative sound experience whose roots are an ...

(HoS) in PGM 113: ''Scorpio'', 1986. Pieces from Reaves's albums have appeared in 17 HoS programs broadcast during the show's 25-year history. In February 2000, HoS broadcast a retrospective program dedicated to ''Wunjo'' since it was long out of print at that point. (PGM 551: ''Wunjo Revisited'') In 1992, HoS producer Stephen Hill contacted Reaves to tell him about fans of HoS who still wrote to him wanting copies of ''Wunjo'', which were unavailable because of MCA's original limited distribution. With the expiration of the MCA contract, Reaves had another album of unpublished music that interested Hill. Reaves signed with Hill's

Hearts of Space Records Hearts of Space Records is a record label owned by Valley Entertainment. The label represents several sublabels, including Hearts of Space, Hearts O'Space, Fathom, RGB, and World Class. History Hearts of Space Records was founded in 1984 as an ...

for the release of ''Sea of Glass'', which remained on the new age charts for four months. Music journalist Bert Strolenberg wrote about ''Sea of Glass'' in 2007, "This classic space music recording by Nashville-based synthesist Giles Reaves is one of those milestones that can stand the test of time for decades, as it still sounds fresh and inspiring after all these years." Later in the 1990s, Reaves joined the improvisational space music group Spacecraft, described by

Star's End :''Star's End is also a 1974 album by British composer David Bedford and a 1982 novel by Glen Cook.'' ''Star's End'' is a weekly, five-hour-long new-age music radio show broadcast by 88.5 WXPN, the University of Pennsylvania's radio station, in ...

radio as "one of the leading voices in the spacemusic community".Profile: Spacecraft
Star's End Radio Reaves also appeared on

Tony Gerber Tony Gerber is an American filmmaker and the co-founder of Market Road Films, an independent production company. Personal life Gerber was born in New York City. He is a 1981 graduate of the Hackley School, and a 1995 graduate of the Columbia Un ...

's ''Blue Western Sky'' on the Lektronic Soundscapes label. In 2001, ''Kaleida Visions'' was released by the Space for Music team. SFM included Reaves as an original member along with Kirby Shelstad, with whom he also collaborated in live performances and on recordings. In 2002, with Spacecraft and also as a solo artist, he performed at the Nashville Space for Music Festival, along with other noted Nashville artists including Aashid Himons & Future Man from

Bela Fleck & the Flecktones Bela may refer to: Places Asia *Bela Pratapgarh, a town in Pratapgarh District, Uttar Pradesh, India *Bela, a small village near Bhandara, Maharashtra, India *Bela, another name for the biblical city Zoara * Bela, Dang, in Nepal * Bela, Janakpur, ...

, Robert Rich, the West Tennessee ensemble Zero Ohms, and others.Space for Music Festival offers Nashville fans alternative
Nashville ''TheCityPaper''] The space music festival had been founded by fellow Spacecraft band-member Tony Gerber in 1986.Tony Gerber of Spacecraft (Interview)
Jerry Kranitz, ''Aural Innovations'' #6 (April 1999). Reaves also creates 3D renderings that have been used for CD cover artwork. Beyond space music, Reaves has another career as an engineer and co-producer for the Nashville rock music scene, including work with

Dessau Dessau is a town and former municipality in Germany at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the '' Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it has been part of the newly created municipality of Dessau-Roßlau ...

and Grinning Plowmen. He also collaborated with Afrikan Dreamland, Bedlam, Lisa Germano,

Jaime Kyle Jaime is a common Spanish and Portuguese male given name for Jacob (name), James (name), Jamie, or Jacques. In Occitania Jacobus became ''Jacome'' and later ''Jacme''. In east Spain, ''Jacme'' became ''Jaime'', in Aragon it became ''Chaime'', and ...

, Tom Littlefield, Bill Lloyd, and Lounge Flounders.

Discography

* 1986: '' Wunjo'', MCA Master Series * 1988: '' Nothing Is Lost'', MCA Master Series * 1989: '' Letting Go'', MCA Master Series * 1992: ''

Sea of Glass ''Sea of Glass'' is an American dystopian science fiction novel by Barry B. Longyear. A bildungsroman In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and mor ...

'',

* 2001: '' Kaleida Visions'', Space for Music * 2001: '' Sacred Space'', Space for Music

External links

Space for Music Giles Reaves Homepage
* Allmusic Giles Reaves - detailed credits list

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reaves, Giles Living people American multi-instrumentalists American audio engineers MCA Records artists American electronic musicians Year of birth missing (living people)