Album Notes

Ozma was the brainchild of electronic artists Mike Metlay and DAC Crowell, recorded in two frantic weeks at the Towers Of Duh in Tallahassee, Florida, one steamy autumn in 1995. Delayed by label and production hassles, the long-awaited disc has finally been released to an eager public on Metlay's own Atomic City imprint.

The tracks on A HUGE AND SILENT PLACE were improvised live on analog and digital electronics and recorded live to 2-track. Overdubs were kept to a mininum, and there are no edits. The ten tracks--five long sequences often named for small and nearly-unknown stars near our own solar system, and five transitional pieces called "actualia"--have been sequenced and crossfaded to provide an encompassing hour-long audio excursion into the cold of deep space, populated by the dim red stars and passing clouds of dark matter that surround our world.

We recommend listening to this CD as an immersive experience, in a darkened room or under a starry sky while wearing headphones. The album rewards repeated listenings, works well looped in the background as the listener sleeps and dreams, and should not be absorbed hastily or in a haphazard fashion.

We have mostly chosen the Actualia to represent Ozma's music here, despite the fact that they make up less than a fifth of the record's running time, due to the time constraints of the playable samples.

A HUGE AND SILENT PLACE is the latest release in the Atomic City roster, and a powerful and involving listening experience that fans of ambient electronic soundscapes will not want to miss. This is not "space music" in the sense of being IN space... this is "space music" in the sense of BEING Space itself.