Archives: Different Modes of Travel (EP) - CD

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of The Raylius Experiment, Raylius has dug into the archives and put together a 4-song extended EP of his most important early electronic instrumental music that prefigured the series of albums that would begin with Adventures in a Forest. With the earliest two tracks written and recorded when he was still only 19, the EP includes, in chronological order:

"Lafayette Street Hymn," from early May of 1984, recorded in Williamsburg, Virginia, during a 2 month break from the relocation to Los Angeles that had begun the prior year. It was created using the most primitive multi-track recording setup imaginable: recording a track on a Marantz Superscope portable mono cassette recorder, then playing that back on a cassette deck through stereo speakers while "overdubbing" an additional track playing live and recording the combined room sound onto the portable cassette deck, and then repeating that process. It comprises an initial recording of strings played on the Roland Juno 60, overdubbed with a Juno 60 organ, and then overdubbed with an acoustic guitar played through an amp with slow attack from use of a volume pedal and switching to the Yamaha CP70B Electric Grand Piano through the middle section. The title comes from the recording location—the street name of the duplex he was staying at near the William & Mary campus.

"On the Road," from later that same month but recorded on a reel to reel recorder with sound-on-sound. Although the original reel to reel tape was long since lost, he fortunately had a transfer recorded onto two tracks of a Tascam 4-track cassette deck made soon after which preserved the original recording fairly well. It is notably his earliest piece to feature an extended ostinato over a slowly evolving (and at times surprising) chord progression—a technique revisited in later songs like "Cosmic Awakening," "Nocturnica 2," and "Riding up the Coast."   

"The Amazing Adventures of Dee Dee Leigh" is likely the first song produced by Raylius on his newly acquired 244 Portastudio Tascam 4 track cassette recorder—the same one that would be used to record Adventures in a Forest, Daydreams, and Celestial Snowfall. From January, 1985, recorded at his West Hollywood apartment, he plays a Kramer strat-style electric guitar with a Roland Boss Digital Delay pedal, the Juno 60, and the Sequential Circuits Pro One mono analog synth. It features the earliest example in his work of music spinning around the listener, a spiraling audio effect that comes back in various forms in later albums like Ever Expanding Inner Universe and Outer Realms.   

"Cold Water" is also from early 1985 and is a take on the classic story of the lost soul trying to find its way. Influenced by the Brian Eno/David Byrne album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and various spoken vocals in Talking Heads songs, Raylius incorporated multiple bits of speech here including the narrated story, the recitation of Sanskrit verses, excerpt readings from classic novels, and random improvisations.  

All of these 2025 versions benefited greatly from the application of modern electronic audio tools to help clean up tape hiss, background noise, ground hums, and unintended transient spikes. However, no other sophisticated techniques have been applied to improve the tracks from their "rough demo" status. We have here simply the preserved recordings after removing the dust and cobwebs.   

Different Modes of Travel was the working title of a larger album that was to contain these four songs plus additional ones including "Sailing," "The Wait," and an all-electronic version of his Elegy for Piano and Orchestra (1978). However, those pieces could not be adequately cleaned up and restored. 

Track Listing

1. On the Road - 6:46
2. The Amazing Adventures of Dee Dee Leigh - 7:41
3. Cold Water - 7:17
4. Lafayette Street Hymn- 4:23

Total Running Time: 26:07