Label: Space For Music

Tony Gerber, Giles Reaves, John Rose and Diane Timmons play together as Spacecraft. Their album Inside The Inside is a live recording from the 19 May 2001 Gathering concert in Philadelphia. Over the years the group has gained much insight into the complexity of the live environment. This setting offers them the opportunity to shed all vestiges of technique and exist in the spontaneity of the moment, reacting only to what they are each perceiving, hearing and feeling. The event becomes an experiment, the success of which relies on the variables of the venue, the abilities of the musicians and the interconnectedness of the group. For Spacecraft, rehearsing is the hard work - the actual public performance is where they relax.

The music on Inside The Inside is produced with electronic instruments but is really the product of a group dynamic; each member intuitively exchanging positions between prominence and background, spotlight and shade, with no two performances being exactly alike. The tracks "Madden's Farm" and "Return", with their multi-layered, interlocked sequencer patterns beneath shifting harmonies and lite synth melodies, are prime examples of classic spacemusic. The remainder of the album finds, Spacecraft wandering out into the night, improvising and inventing the space as they pass through it. Each member of the group has their moment; voices rise and harmonize, sweeping synth tones mingle and diverge, a plucked guitar grounds us to a terrestrial landscape and the sound of the night centers the listener with its reassuring chirps, peeps and buzzes.

Part impulse, part plan, Inside The Inside is concerned with the relationship between these four musicians, their musical sensibilities and the unique manner in which the audience shapes this encounter.

- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END   10 March 2002