3.5

Release data:

David Lange – Return of the Comet
CD, Hearts of Space, 1985/1988

David Lange is a California-based independent filmmaker whose album “Return to the Comet”, created in the early days of digital recording, is generally regarded classic electronic space music for star gazing, comet tracking and other celestial experiences.

Lange creates his music visually first, starting with the songs titles and working backwards. He says that each piece represents an integral part of the whole experience as well as an event.
In addition, the music with re-occurring themes was produced without overdubbing or use of multi-track tape, which allowed him to achieve a more human feel in his music.For this purpose, David recorded the songs live into a 14-bit digital recorder that used a consumer videotape recorder to store its information.

Originally released on tape in 1985 for the return of the Halley’s Comet, the 50-minutes of music consist of quiet, warm synth washes, nice piano interludes and lush, joyful and uplifting solo sounds, occasionally running into symphonic realms as on the title track.

After being out of print for years, David re-released “Return to the Comet” in 2007 together with its companion album “Mars Rising” as a 2-disc set, as -according to his opinion- these two projects always were meant to be heard together.
“Mars Rising” was completed 18 months after “Return of the Comet”, but was not released due to business constraints at the time. Safe Journey which found its way onto the “Comet” cd was actually the first track of Mars Rising”.

The digital masters were misplaced for 17 years until they were discovered in a storage locker. The recordings (“stream of conciousness improvisations” as David likes to call them) were restored and released as the limited edition double album 20th anniversary set, featuring both albums in their original song order.
These cds quickly sold out, and in order to satisfy the demand immediately, David resorted to a digital release available from Apple iTunes, Amazon.com as well as other popular digital retailers.

Website: www.returnofthecomet.com