Barry Schrader “Ambient : Aether”

Acclaimed electronic composer Barry Schrader has a new release out titled “Ambient : Aether”.

You can find an interview I did with him in 2015 here. It includes many of the rare and unique instruments he has used over the years. You can find additional posts featuring Barry Schrader here.

Press release follows (note the accolades):

At 80, Barry Schrader — hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “a composer born to the electronic medium” — releases his first album of new music in over a decade. Ambient : Aether blends ambient textures, distortion, and noise with Schrader’s celebrated sound design, creating an immersive journey through Earth’s atmospheric layers into the unknown.

Composed in 2024–2025, the work experiments with stylistic features of ambient music and controlled distortion. While ambient elements have appeared in Schrader’s earlier works, this is the first album to intentionally embrace the style — yet it remains rooted in his techniques of musical development and timbral transformation. All sounds were created using computer and software; no acoustic sources were used.

Track List

1. Cloudrise (15:12) — Ever‑changing skies in sound.
2. Atmospheric Rivers (13:32) — Torrents of vapor dissolving into rivulets.
3. Supernal Ascent (15:50) — Layered voyage through: Troposphere [0:00], Stratosphere [2:52], Mesosphere [5:30], Thermosphere [8:30], Exosphere [12:26].
4. Aether (15:42) — At the edge of mystery.
5. Selected Review Quotes

ATMOSPHERE & IMAGERY

“Schrader feels vast, expansive, timeless.” — Perfect Circuit “Imbued with mystery… ageless appeal.” — AllMusic

TECHNICAL MASTERY

“A composer born to the electronic medium.” — Los Angeles Times “Uses timbre fully as a structural tool.” — Gramophone

EMOTIONAL IMPACT

“Conjures up a whirlwind of emotion from some primeval source.” — Bebe Barron. “…outsynthesized Tangerine Dream in its hypnotic electronic coloration.” — New York Times

Barry Schrader has been acclaimed by the Los Angeles Times as “a composer born to the electronic medium” and described by Gramophone as a creator of “approachable electronic music with a distinctive individual voice to reward the adventurous.” His works for electronics, dance, film, video, mixed media, live/electro‑acoustic music, and real‑time computer performance have been presented worldwide.

He is the founder and first president of SEAMUS (Society for Electro‑Acoustic Music in the United States) and recipient of the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award. Schrader has authored Introduction to Electro‑Acoustic Music and contributed to The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Grolier’s Encyclopedia, and Contemporary Music Review. He taught composition at CalArts from 1971 until his retirement in 2016 as Professor Emeritus, and has also taught at UC Santa Barbara, California State University Los Angeles, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His music is released on Innova, SEAMUS, Laurel, Opus One, Centaur, Pure Destructive Records, and Ex Machina."

You can find Barry Schrader’s full bio at https://barryschrader.com/bio-works

https://barryschrader.bandcamp.com/