"I simply close my eyes and imagine what it would have been like to exist in another time, another place, and then the music comes."

Deborah Martin's passion is to visualize and create music that takes each listener on a journey through time and space. With a vivid imagination and a deep love of historic places and peoples of the past, we see her as being blessed; for they are few, those visionaries, who can bring forth into the present, and into our hearts, the spirit of that which has been so utterly lost in antiquity.

Deborah has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and the North American continent, experiencing firsthand the diversity of cultures and the historic threads that weave together connecting us all. This perspective enables her to recognize and uncover links between present and past, and to interpret the resulting panorama with a compositional style all her own.

Deborah joined Spotted Peccary Music in 1991, with musical contributions on the album "Tracks in Time." Deborah states, "I wanted to combine visual elements of places, people and events of long ago with sound." Her three compositions, "Tracks In Time," "Watercolors," and "Forgot In Stone" did just that and much more.

Continuing to be inspired by the past and by the enthusiastic response of the "Tracks in Time" compositions, Deborah created "Under The Moon", which received extensive airplay at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. "Under The Moon" takes you on a compelling voyage, from dusk till dawn, by lunar light and shadow, to an inner realm of serenity and grace. Deborah enlisted the aid of noted bassist and friend, Tony Levin, in bringing her vision to life, creating a truly magical experience for the listener.

Following the success of "Under The Moon" Deborah began working on "Ancient Power" collaborating with Steve Gordon. "Ancient Power" was pure magic from the beginning," states Deborah, "everything just fell into place." Deborah worked closely with Edgar Perry, a White Mountain Apache of the Eagle Clan, to complete the project. "Edgar told us stories of the history of his people. It became the basis for the music, which comes from a very deep and ancient place within each one of us."

Deborah joined again with guest artist and friend Tony Levin for her next solo musical vision. Both delicate and powerful, "Deep Roots, Hidden Water" provides whispery melodies and lush, haunting chordal movements that fans of Deborah’s music have come to expect and enjoy. The canvas for the dramatic coloration of this project is enriched with bowed basses, textural guitars, and Taos Drums. With Coyote Oldman contributing tracks of various Native American flutes the journey was completed. The effect is simple and sublime. Deborah explains, “I wanted to continue exploring paths of how we came to exist, to search deeper into the legacy of our past - the imprint of our footsteps through time.”

After the release of "Deep Roots, Hidden Water", Deborah continued to work on various collaborations with other recording artists to create that elusive musical magic that seems to happen when artists combine creative ideas together. “I love working with other artists,” Deborah explains. “You never know what’s going to happen and then all of a sudden, there’s an explosion of ideas and the music just flows. It’s very stimulating and exciting.”

"Convergence" was a collaborative result of live concert performances with fellow Spotted Peccary artists Greg Klamt and Mark Rownd. "Convergence" is a magnificent contemporary album, warm and inviting, a truly unique listening adventure.

After the release of "Convergence," Deborah embarked on a journey with artists Cheryl Gallagher and Mark Hunton. Recording the sights and sounds of the peoples of Nepal and Tibet they experienced firsthand the majesty, beauty and spirit of that ethereal part of the world so often referred to as "the land above the clouds." Deborah and Cheryl began work on a project based upon the experiences of the trip. The resulting "Tibet" is full of richly textured and highly expressive musical impressions intended to take the listener on the same journey these artists had experienced. Critically acclaimed and embraced by all who hear it, "Tibet" remains one of the most honest and truly heartfelt albums ever to bear the name of that majestic and inspiring land.

Deborah's most dark and mysterious release to date is "Anno Domini", a collaboration project with Spotted Peccary artist J. Arif Verner. “Anno Domini” returns to historic themes and the connection between past and present while invoking the theme of sacred spaces. On "Anno Domini," Martin and Verner use ambient textures of synth and guitar to set the stage and Deborah’s haunting and beautiful Latin vocal phrases and melodies act as a beacon to guide the way through the depths of the soul.

Whether collaborating with other artists or working on her own projects in the future, Deborah Martin, one of Spotted Peccary Music's highly acclaimed top selling artists is sure to inspire listeners with visions of the past and present; and when the time comes for her to reveal the next installment of her musical saga, it is certain that it will be one for the ages.

As a recording artist, Jon Jenkins sees it as his responsibility to reach out, grab the listeners by the ears, drag them into another world and show them around a little bit. "I've always been fascinated by the ability of a good piece of music to stimulate the imagination and transport the listener to another place in their mind without ever leaving their chair."

When you put on a copy of his solo debut release, Flow, you'll know he's not kidding. By the time the first track is over, you've been grabbed by the ears, pulled through a sonic wormhole and dropped into a world of many wonders where the music flows as powerful as a river, as deep as the sea. On his next release, Beyond City Light, Jenkins takes this wide angle approach to the next level with deeper spaces and more powerful grooves.

“Growing up, I listened to a lot of music like Pink Floyd, Genesis, Marillion, Peter Gabriel, and Tangerine Dream because they always made albums to be experienced rather than just listened to, and they all maintained a nice balance between power and space." It was his hunger for this kind of musical power and space that led Jenkins to begin experimenting with his own compositions. "I couldn't get enough of that stuff, so I just started to create the music I wanted to hear."

His 1995 debut, a collaboration with Paul Lackey entitled "Continuum", was called "The perfect marriage of classical, ambient, and world music that defies classification," by Dream's Word magazine.

On his new release, Treasure, Jenkins has found the perfect musical collaborator in David Helpling. The two express their vision on an epic and expansive scale, rich in organic textures and moving passages. One reviewer summed up Treasure perfectly when he wrote, “…imagine David Lean rigging his Panaflex with Korgs.”

With four outstanding releases to his credit, Jon Jenkins has established himself as a unique artist with a distingushable style. Not an easy task in the Electronic/Ambient musical realm. In fact, not only has he managed to discover something quite precious - his own musical space, but he can convince you that it is yours as well.

"I'm never going to fly, or visit another world. I'm never going to travel back in time, nor will I see the distant future. This is why I write music."

John Flomer began laying the foundation for his career as a "visual musician" early on. His first musical instrument was a little red accordion. With it he taught himself to play themes from various film scores. Even at an early age, it became apparent that cinematic music would be a defining influence in his work.

As times and influences changed, so did John's instrument. Now he was playing guitar in a rock band. "We moved from guitar instrumentals, to "British Invasion" rock, to progressive heavy metal, then finally to the last desperate act of survival.....'Cat Scratch Fever'."

After a decade of bars, ballrooms and concerts, John put his guitar in its case for the last time and purchased a multi-track recorder and a synthesizer. He then enrolled in the media arts program at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. It was here that John reconnected with the past to discover that for him music had always been a visual experience. Every style and rhythm defined a plot; every sound, playing technique and melody shaped the characters, the action, and emotional charge.

Coming to Spotted Peccary in 1996 with his first release, Mysterious Motions of Memory, John focuses his theoretical eye on the concept of genetic memory. He entertains the notion that memories and experiences, accumulated from antiquity through to the present, become assimilated into our genetic code to pass along a generational thread into the future. The idea that this information surfaces from time to time within our dreams, the curiosity of "deja vu," or the recollection of certain past life experiences, is the underlying theme that runs throughout this creative and outstanding gallery exhibition of music and art.

John Flomer's newest Spotted Peccary release Night in the Vapor Jungle, invites us to enter a deep, interior world of spectral mood and motion, where magic is made in the re-awakening of our lost passions and dreams. The inventive chordal arrangements and rich orchestral textures create fields over which alluring piano melodies traverse. Plucked instruments and bells sprinkle the view with eerie light and shadow as vocal and electronic color flow through the panorama, charging the atmosphere with a sensibility that is both intimate and immense.

John Flomer's inspiration thrives in that gray area between fantasy and reality; where everything is liquid, fragile, wondrous and possible. He sums it up this way - "I have met the wind with wings outstretched and have flown. I have walked on many strange and beautiful worlds. I have traveled deep into the distant past and have seen how we came to be. I have passed in awe through the portals to the future . This is why I write music."

Even at an early age, David Helpling was an inquisitive spirit, a kid with a wild imagination who was always looking under stones for bugs and frogs and things. Now, David roams a musical landscape, exploring different textures and unearthing various moods, and it is that same curiosity that makes his music so stunning and unique.

A self-taught musician, David’s ability to "feel" the music has resulted in two captivating albums that showcase David's atmospheric depth as well as his rhythmic sensibility. David's debut release, Between Green And Blue, was a finalist for the 1997 INDIE Album-Of-The-Year award, and is considered a favorite among listeners to this genre of music. On his second release, Sleeping On The Edge Of The World, David takes his unmistakable style and dense sound sculptures to a deeper level of introspection.

As a full-time composer, David has written music for several successful feature films. One of which, Trade Offs, had David immersed in the music of India. Featuring several guest artists including vocalist Nidhi Bhatmuley, this score has become a favorite world-wide.

Among other musical influences such as U2, and Bjork, one of David's main inspirations is film music. The dark and moving scores of Elliot Goldenthal, Edward Shearmur and David Julyan are just a few of his favorites, and it would seem that David has a constantly running soundtrack of his own as well. "Music is always in my head. That's how I write. I'm always dreaming."

David's latest collaboration with Jon Jenkins, Treasure, marks David’s return to the musical form for which he is most passionate. Working side by side with Jenkins, David’s driven pursuit to create the music of his dreams is on and better than ever.

If there's a musician who's experienced bringing music alive, it's Mark Rownd. As a composer, Rownd has a distinct style of creating pieces that, much like the sounds in nature, flow together in ever-changing and unpredictable rhythms.

Rownd compares his composing technique to abstract painting. "As you start working on the blank canvas, soon the work begins to speak to you," he said. "Once you've created something that speaks on many levels, you've got a piece of art."

Like painting, Rownd's music comes alive first as improvisations as he allows the energy and feelings of the moment extend into sounds. "The ideas express themselves," he said. "They sort of well up and then come out. Once you have established the beginning of a composition, then the piece itself starts telling you what to do next."

Rownd's first two CDs were both well received. He drew international attention when he self released his first work, Desert Waves, which he describes as embodying a contrast between very rhythmic and textural music. Desert Waves was placed on New Age Voice Magazine's international airwaves charts. The artist garnered widespread acclaim from his second CD, Painting Twilight, which was released through Spotted Peccary Music in 1998.

The CD, described as a textural, almost ambient, sublime work, earned Rownd the distinction of New Age Voice Magazine naming him an Ambient Album-of-the-Year finalist and also placing the work as the number four pick on its top 50 airwaves list. Star's End, Wind and Wire Magazine, and Exposé Magazine all included 'Painting Twilight on their 'best of 98' lists. Rownd is now in the formative stages of a third project, which will feature more intense acoustic rhythmic recordings.

Rownd began playing drums at the age of 9, and later studied vibraphone and piano. The artist has also been influenced by his education in fine arts. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in art and art history from Rice University. After studying piano, Rownd began composing with electronics and midi instruments in the early 80s, as the new technology was first introduced.

"I became interested early on in the new composing tools available through computer technology," he said. While Rownd has performed many styles of music, especially Jazz, on the drums, Rownd said he was attracted to a minimalist approach to composing on piano, keyboards and electronics. "It was my interest in minimalist composers such as Steve Reich and John Adams that lead me to an interest in Ambient music," Rownd said. "Even though my background is in percussion originally, I became interested in 'minimalist' music, which I found to be very meditative, much like the spirit of ambient music."

Like the large-scale color abstract work that Rownd painted in college, he enjoys creating sound fields with Ambient textures and poly-rhythmic percussion. The result is a unique sound that may be fully appreciated only by the deep listener of Rownd's work as he produces rhythms some have described as rising out of the air like heat distortions. "I listen to the harmonic overtones as they present a melody that you haven't played," says Rownd of the way his music begins to take on a life of its own as he creates it. "Listen carefully for those melodies within the overtones."

A multi-instrumentalist, J. Arif Verner has worked as a professional musician and composer for more than 20 years. He has performed as a soloist and with numerous ensembles in musical genres as diverse as standard jazz, pop fusion, contemporary avant-garde and impressionistic new age. In 1988 Verner's debut recording, "Clear Colors," was released to great critical acclaim. His projects since then have focused on the blending of acoustic and electronic music with MIDI guitar synthesis -- a rather unusual and specialized form of digital instrumentation. On his Spotted Peccary Music debut, entitled "A Vision Beyond Light," Verner uses the mesmerizing sound of aeolian wind harps and acoustic guitar in concert with MIDI guitar synthesis to create a singularly unique sound.

Verner views music as an evolutionary process -- a reflection of his inner being in relation to the world. He realizes this process by approaching music as a composer, writer, and engineer. Verner is first and foremost a composer with a predilection towards atmospheric and impressionistic instrumental music. In addition to music composition, his position as a writer for numerous music magazines including MIDI Guitarist, Musician, Keyboard, MIDI Magazine, I/E Magazine, and Roland Users Group Magazine, allows him to stay current on technical innovation and trends in the music industry. The frequent opportunity to review new and exciting equipment from the industry's leading manufacturers helps his ability to add more colors to the palette he uses to create musical texture. As an engineer, his recent accomplishments include contemporary minimalist David Borden's Places &Times and Cayuga Night Music, urban jazz performer Karlton Hestor's Musicism, and avant-garde composer Karta Iglesias' Well Tempered Sequencer and Machines. These three aspects -- composing, writing, and engineering -- lend a sense of wholeness to his art.

Citing an extremely diverse list of musical influences which includes Edgar Varese, Mississippi John Hurt, Erik Satie, and The Ventures, Verner emerges with a highly ambient, yet at times still somewhat structured style of musical expression that carries the listener through the work from beginning to end. He programs and designs the vast majority of his synthesized, sampled, and electronic sounds himself, creating the completely original textures heard in his music. In addition, he also uses various acoustic instruments, such as guitars and percussion, to add a depth of aliveness, expressiveness, and intimacy to his work. This more abstract, stream-of-consciousness based approach makes Verner a significant contributor to the New American music movement and an excellent addition to the Spotted Peccary catalog

"When I am making music, I am breaking the silence; and if the music is good it will connect directly to the heart with more clarity than the spoken word or a picture on a wall."

Erik Wollo grew up in a small mountain village in Norway where his ancestors have lived and farmed for hundreds of years. Weaving through this exotic and timeless landscape of snowy peaks and deep valleys, you can still hear the music of those centuries flowing through a people whose culture is deep, alive and thriving.

Erik believes that all human beings have a particular and unique set of rooms, or tones, within themselves that set the stage for our journey through time. They reflect who we are, what we will become, and what we will leave behind; the place of our birth forming the basic chord of our life, and places where we dwell influencing the color and shape of these tones. Erik's cultural ties to the music of his homeland, and his keen interest in world history through the ages, is reflected in his approach to music. Acoustic and electric instruments, and samples of older primitive instruments mingle with contemporary, electronic atmospheres, to create a thematic foundation that is both ancient and modern.

Guitar Nova, Erik's Wollo's debut American release on the Spotted Peccary "Wanderings" label, introduces a refreshing perspective and imaginative insight into the musical side of the guitar.

The melodies are lyrical, enticing, and flawlessly performed, dancing over and through fields of textured rhythms and layered guitars. Deep and muted timbres pass through light and airy spaces, creating a contemplative but joyous weave of radiance and drama. Erik states, "the key elements in my music must be melodic and rhythmic, arranged together with a sense of lyrical atmosphere; all the time varied with different instrumentation."

The real richness of Guitar Nova can be found in its artistic sincerity. This is music from the heart that will warm the heart, composed and performed with a spirit that will lighten the soul.

Green Isac is a Norwegian-based duo featuring multi-instrumentalist Morten Lund and imaginative percussionist Andreas Eriksen. Together Eriksen and Lund spin electronic and ethnic instruments alike into kinetic rhythms, sometimes electronically powered, but more often acoustic, with accents from manipulated guitars and quirky synths, setting it all in alien landscapes with an air of mystery and intrigue.

Craig Padilla has been composing and performing his electronic spacemusic inspired by Klaus Schulze, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream for nearly twenty years. Never letting technology overcome the humanity in his compositions, he creates electronic music that is rooted in tradition while still sounding new, interesting and fresh. With more than 40 releases over the course of his prolific career, Craig has proven to be a driving force in the current electronic music scene.

Byron Metcalf
Byron Metcalf is a drummer, percussionist, recording artist, and record producer. Byron’s highly successful music business career spans over four decades and covers a wide variety of musical styles and genres. A professional drummer at age 15, Byron has played on several gold and platinum albums (most notably Kenny Rogers’ album “The Gambler”). He has performed at top concert venues including Carnegie Hall, The Greek Theater, The Grand Ole Opry, Wembley Arena (London), as well as television shows such as The Tonight Show, The Grammy Awards, Fantasy Island, and many others. During the past decade, Byron has been producing solo CD projects and collaborating with other artists including Steve Roach, Mark Seelig, with Ron Oates, Jack Coddington, and several other musical guests. Visit Byron Metcalf's website


Mark Seelig
Since an early age Mark Seelig has been fascinated by the world's spiritual traditions. After many years of therapeutic and academic training Mark left the scholarly world behind and increasingly focussed on his longtime passion of being a musician. After receiving classical training on the violin from age 8 through 14, followed by guitar playing and singing, his musical focus shifted again, and at age 42 Mark felt encouraged to take up the North Indian bamboo flute 'Bansuri'. He studied the instrument with the Indian Bansuri Maestro R.K. Bikramjit Singh for several years and is now pursuing devotional meditative music based on Indian classical Ragas, as well as ambient shamanic styles in his collaborations with Arizona based Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf. Visit Mark Seelig's website

Dean De Benedictis' music is the result of his will to tie an essential common thread together between opposing genres and mentalities, as well as draw from them a natural sense of emotion, expanse and mystery. This Southern California-based artist, also known to the electronic ambient community as SURFACE 10, has always utilized his interest in a variety of styles and cultures to enrich the quality of his musical expression. Like many other artists, much of Dean's music was composed as a dedication and utility for his own life experiences one example is how many of his pieces were actually created to take with him and listen to at specific locations (deserts, canyons, jungles, mountain regions, coastal regions, and unpopular-unpopulated areas), thus permanently marking the region with the music in his memory. He aspires to communicate a similar functionality for the experiences of his listeners.