Bruce Lehrer
Seraphim
Here's yet another unknown new age obscurity. Bruce Lehrer released Seraphim in 1991 on Ashlay Music (probably his own record label), and if I had to guess, I'd venture that the music was produced almost exclusively with Ensoniq sampling keyboards and synthesizers, since the only reference to this album I have been able to find is in a 1992 issue of the Ensoniq enthusiast magazine Transoniq Hacker. Apparently he submitted the album for review to their "Hacker Basement Tapes" section, but since not every issue has been digitized yet, I don't know if the album was ever actually covered.
The music of Seraphim fits squarely into the ambient-leaning new age camp, never using drum machines but still providing a sense of rhythm through slow arpeggiated lines. Lehrer doesn't do anything truly impressive here, never straying far from a pretty stereotypical set of new age patches, but he has enough melodic sense to keep the album from becoming overly stale. For me the highlight is the first track, "Pyramid", which has some cool pitch-shifting stuff going on. The final three tracks on the B-side are mixed together into a longer suite.
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