Picture yourself in elementary school, on a school field trip to the local planetarium. Hear the faint ambience of “space sounds” as a half-sedated man does his very best to convince you just how insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things. Now imagine you’re at a nightclub, with those same sounds pounding a steady beat somewhere, but certainly not where you are. No, the beat is somewhere lightyears away from here, at an astronomical distance to the order of magnitude that exceeds even the number of atoms in your puny human brain. And yet its sounds still reach you, pulsating from billions of years ago. You know they say that if the history of Earth was a 24 hour clock, human existence would begin about a minute before midnight. The universe is at least three times as old. Don’t you realize how small your problems are now, kid? Now get on the bus, it’s time to go back to school!
Long story short, this kind of space music has to be some sort of memo from a place a long time ago, in a galaxy far away (totally punintentional). Without the images of stars and planets to display the sheer wonder and magnitude of space, though, the music takes on a more tame identity. Ambient music isn’t meant to command the listener’s full attention, anyway.
Mike Frasier Music 