TRACKLIST

1. Currents. . . . . . .10:01 2. Woven Planet . . . . .4:51 3. Wandering Thought. . .5:42 4. Endless Road . . . . .4:43 5. Windspell . . . . . .18:37 6. First Light. . . . . .7:30 7. Alturas . . . . . . .22:37

Craig Padilla, a Redding-based musician has been composing and performing his electronic/space music for over 10 years. Very much inspired by Klaus Schulze, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream he's given his own positive personal touch to both spacey ambient (check out his sound explorer project) and new age.
Over the years his music featured on KCHO/KFPR's "Music for a New Age" radio show as well as various locally produced television programs; and he's composed soundtracks for various television and theatrical productions, including KRCR TV (ABC), KIXE TV (PBS), and Shasta College Theatre. His music has been recently accepted for a worldwide "Tribute to Jean Michel Jarre" compilation cd.
He can sculpt space, explore it and invite you to a drift away with him in wide and beautiful soundscapes.

Craig Padilla does not suffer when compared to his monumental predecessors. Distinguishing himself in the American musical order that birthed Steve Roach, Jonn Serrie and Paul Ellis, Padilla offers his own distinctive voice to the field. On Below the Mountain (73'58") he takes an outside-in approach. This CD captures the color and drama of Mt. Shasta and beautifully evokes the grandeur of the entire planet. Below the Mountain covers a distinctive sonic terrain on each of its seven tracks. From introspective stillness to a palpable sense of propulsion, each piece creates a unique energy. Padilla excels in the generation of engaging arpeggio patterns and the album runs through a fascinating range of polymorphous sequencer motifs. Strong melodies entwine and rise above loping patterns and whirling synthesizer effects. Rhapsodic lead lines flow through electronic bleeps as the emphasis moves to the lyrical. In a prolific career Padilla is rarely repetitive. With this work he embraces a worldly landscape, and turns in into an internal expanse. ~ by Chuck van Zyl

The Spotted Peccary label has been consistently putting out great ambient, space and synth music albums. Their latest release, Below The Mountain, by Craig Padilla, is no exception.
While Padilla's last two releases, The Light In The Shadow & Genesis, had more of an ambient or space music feel, Below The Mountain shows his classic synth music side.
Fans of the Berlin School electronic music of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream and of the classic seventies synth music of Michael Stearns and Steve Roach will find plenty to enjoy here.
The tracks on Below the Mountain explore various combinations of drones and modular-style sequences. Some, like Current and Wandering Though, have more of a West coast space music feel. Other tracks, like Woven Planet and Endless Road, have a more Berlin School feel.
Woven Planet is one of the highlights of the album. It starts with a sequenced bass that’s treated with a analog tape-style sync’d echo. Over this, Padilla layers muted synth string melodies that float across the stereo soundstage. The track builds as Padilla evolves the bass sequence and modulates the bass synth filter, bringing focus on the bassline and then fading it back down. A second sequence joins the first, and they interlock and dance with their echoed reflections. The track brought Michael Hoenig’s Departure from the Northern Wasteland to mind.
Another highlight is Endless Road, which is reminiscent of Thief-era Tangerine Dream. A simple bass sequence carries the track along, while other synth and percussive sequences fade in and out. The result is an entrancing, constantly shifting collage of sound.
Craig Padilla’s Below The Mountain is a welcome journey through classic synth music styles that proves that they still offer a lot of room for exploration and creativity.

SPOILER!

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008 EAC extraction logfile from 17. August 2008, 8:56 Craig Padilla / Below The Mountain Used drive : HL-DT-STRW/DVD GCC-4241N Adapter: 1 ID: 0 Read mode : Secure Utilize accurate stream : Yes Defeat audio cache : Yes Make use of C2 pointers : No Read offset correction : 102 Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface Used output format : User Defined Encoder Selected bitrate : 768 kBit/s Quality : High Add ID3 tag : No Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\wavpack.exe Additional command line options : -hmxd -w "GENRE=%m" -w "DATE=%y" -w "COMMENT=Released by a-one" %s %d TOC of the extracted CD Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector --------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 0:00.00 | 9:59.31 | 0 | 44955 2 | 9:59.31 | 4:50.49 | 44956 | 66754 3 | 14:50.05 | 5:41.41 | 66755 | 92370 4 | 20:31.46 | 4:43.27 | 92371 | 113622 5 | 25:14.73 | 18:37.26 | 113623 | 197423 6 | 43:52.24 | 7:29.66 | 197424 | 231164 7 | 51:22.15 | 22:36.53 | 231165 | 332917 Range status and errors Selected range Filename C:\Rips\Craig Padilla - Below The Mountain.wav Peak level 96.6 % Range quality 100.0 % Copy CRC 2291AA01 Copy OK No errors occurred End of status report

SPOILER!

REM GENRE Ambient REM DATE 2008 REM DISCID 50115607 REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb4" CATALOG 0600028140421 PERFORMER "Craig Padilla" TITLE "Below The Mountain" FILE "Craig Padilla - Below The Mountain.wv" WAVE TRACK 01 AUDIO TITLE "Currents" PERFORMER "Craig Padilla" ISRC USSP50814007 INDEX 01 00:00:00 TRACK 02 AUDIO TITLE "Woven Planet" PERFORMER "Craig Padilla" ISRC USSP50814008 INDEX 01 09:59:31 TRACK 03 AUDIO TITLE "Wandering Thought" PERFORMER "Craig Padilla" ISRC USSP50814009 INDEX 01 14:50:05 TRACK 04 AUDIO TITLE "Endless Road" PERFORMER "Craig Padilla" ISRC USSP50814010 INDEX 01 20:31:46 TRACK 05 AUDIO TITLE "Windspell" PERFORMER "Craig Padilla" ISRC USSP50814011 INDEX 01 25:14:73 TRACK 06 AUDIO TITLE "First Light" PERFORMER "Craig Padilla" ISRC USSP50814012 INDEX 01 43:52:24 TRACK 07 AUDIO TITLE "Alturas" PERFORMER "Craig Padilla" ISRC USSP50814013 INDEX 01 51:22:15