Paul Riordan met Artist Ivan Rados through a mutual friend, Graham Williams, owner of Telstar Records. Paul was brought on board to initially create background music for Ivan’s performance art and exhibitions in the UK.
As Paul said; “Ivan gave me a couple of his treasured cassette tapes of traditional Yugoslavian folk music and chants. I was immediately struck by the beauty of the sounds. We created a system of musical loops, with a sound system that would never play the same loop twice.”
This was the genesis of the album project.
During the course of Ivan’s exhibitions, where the initial Rados tracks were played, there was an overwhelming request for copies of the music. This inspired Paul to produce a complete album, with the services of percussionist and sound engineer Kent Davies and vocalist Eve Ellis
- Rados ’The Transparent Man’ was made. It was an immediate success within the ‘ambient dance’ and Dance/Trance remix worlds.
‘My soul is at the end of the Universe’ (track 4) was included on many of the Euphoria dance compilations, both as ambient chill-out and full-on trance mix. The remixes quickly became favourites at the Whirly Gig’s famous end of the night ‘Parachute set’.
Paul Riordan started his musical career playing bass guitar in the now cult 60's psychedelic band 'Mandrake Paddle Steamer' with EMI. After Mandrake, Paul worked as a session musician for Pye records and EG management - touring as a support act with major bands and artists: Kings Crimson, Roxy Music, Randy Newman and many others.
In the 80’s he worked for the Britannia Row Organization (Pink Floyd’s Studio) learning his craft in the studio and touring with the Pink Floyd as Guitar Tec on the Wall tour. Paul started his own studio in the early 90's and gradually became involved in recording and composing music for television, and music production. In the early days he worked with Rick Smith of Underworld, it was Rick who introduced Paul to dance music.
Paul achieved UK chart success under the alias of 'Bravado' with the International hit single 'Harmonica Man' which reached top 30 in the UK charts and number 1 in the 'Kiss FM' dance charts.
More Recently Paul has been working with Kent Davies on remixes for artists such as Matt Darey, Digital Blonde and Weekend Players.And Has been putting the final touches on an album of early Bollywood remixes.
COMMENTS FROM PROUD OWNERS OF 'THE TRANSPARENT MAN' CD
"Just wanted to say that we recently bought your CD from Big Mind and I think it's absolutely brilliant. The atmosphere, the lush orchestrations, the words, the soaring melodies are just too much. - it's like being given a really good massage." - Lee de Montagnac
"this is a wonderful excursion through powerful and atmospheric down-tempo electronica, backed by glorious ethnic sounding vocals and thought provoking spoken samples. There are very few albums in my extensive collection that i'd give a 10/10 rating for - this is one of them. It's an astounding album -
Essential."- Richard Morley-Whirl-y-gig/Planet Angel-DJ
Thank you very much, it is fast becoming one of my all-time favourites (and we've got piles of music!) , - David & B. Dix
Down-tempo electronica mix with world voices and instrumentation to create an atmospheric, heady offering. The electronica has a distinctly U.K. feel to me, similar in places to Banco De Gaia - but overall Rados is perhaps more in the region of Deep Forest and Ikarus. Well worth a listen if you haven't yet heard. - MORPHEUS VIEW
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