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ultralight

“Ultralight” is Ethan Janais debut solo album. After a prolific eight-album stretch of work with Echo Us, his music has returned to the synthesizer as its main source of musical inspiration.

Ultralight is short, sweet, and unwavering in it’s harmonically rich atmospherics. Stacking chords on top of chords, alongside gentle beats and lyrical mysticism, the album features three vocal pieces and three instrumentals that swoop and change in the blink of an eye, and return to their familiar themes.

With age, one can get extremely scrupulous about what is worth pursuing musically. For that reason, and many others- Ultralight is not part of my former Echo Us project. It was also fitting that for the first time, I created an album entirely by myself with no other musicians”. –Ethan

For over two decades Ethan’s musical output has ranged from heavy metal to progressive rock – many times combining Celtic, classical, and jazz underpinnings. However, his first love is electronic music of all varieties. Clocking in at just under 40 minutes, Ultralight features both digital and analog synthesis.

ethan janais:

synthesizers / sampling: rhodes chroma polaris, technics wsa1r, roland jd-990, kurzweil k2000rs, ensoniq sd-1, yamaha tg77, kawai k5000s, roland d550, korg wavestation a/d, waldorf microwave xt.

hardware processing: eventide orville, lexicon pcm81
software: logic pro 9, vital wavetable, savant audio labs quantum 2772 evolution, sixth sample deelay.

strings and hits: moondrum (parisol), classical guitar, hammered dulcimer, snare drum, found percussion

produced and mixed by ethan janais matthews

mastered for cd and lp by dana white (specialized mastering, portland, or)

lp lacquer by gus elg (sky onion mastering)