DAVE RYMAN'S MUSIC PAGE
This page represents some of my favourite artists - you may or may not like them, but I would urge you to have a look if you are not familiar with all of an artists work - I've included a few samples, too. Some of these samples have been taken from CDs, and are in MP3 format, but are of short duration and of limited quality: There are two reasons for this: Firstly, I do not want to be providing the artist's work for free, and secondly, I need to reduce the amount of my webspace being used. The downside to this, of course, is that the poor quality does not do full justice to the music. Other samples are links to files on the artist's official home pages.

Click on the name of the artist to go to an appropriate website, or one of the icons on the right to hear a sample.

This page is not officially connected with, authorised or sponsored by the artists involved.

Gary Numan	An Artist most of you probably remember for "Cars", but who is still writing and recording. His new material is arguably his finest yet, and is much more "Gritty" than the 80's hits people tend to be familiar with. Having said that, his very early work was "Gritty", so I suppose it's back to his roots in some respects. Gary Numan has been famous for many things (including flying), but two that tend to stick in the memory for most are the use of Electronics in Pop/Rock music (being the first to get regular hits with Synthesised sounds) and the frequent change of hair colour. A couple of points should be made here. The first is that his music has often blended the old with the new: A lot of his material involves guitars and drums (unlike, for example, Kraftwerk, whose music is virtually all synth). The other point is that his Musical style has varied more times than his hair colour. We've had Black, White and even Blue hair, but we've had Punky stuff ("The Plan"), New wave/ Electronic ("Tubeway Army"), Electro/ Pop ("Telekon"), A more beaty sound ("Dance"), Various different styles since ("Berserker"), and now a more Gothic sound in "Sacrifice", "Exile", "Pure" and "Jagged". Suggested 'Starter' albums: "Replicas", "Pure", "Berserker" or almost any compilation album. The samples provided here are links to MP3 files hosted by Numan's official wesbite. Please drop me a line if these links have expired.
Vangelis	Probably the greatest Synth Soloist in the world. You're probably either thinking "Who?" or "Chariots of Fire", unless, like me, you've been exposed to this Artists work, and know it - because it's more than likely you've been exposed to his work even if you didn't know it. How about "Bladerunner", "1492: Conquest of Paradise", not to mention his music being used on television, in Sports events or being covered by other artists all over the shop? He's one of those few musicians whose music has maintained an excellent quality all through his career - and he started in the Sixties with Aphrodite's Child (becoming solo in the very early Seventies). Suggested 'starter' albums: "Voices" (the album, not the compilation); "Spiral"; "Apolocalypse d'animaux" or (again) almost any compilation - but be aware that there are several examples around of Orchestras doing cover versions - these are not really a patch on the original work. The Hyperlink on the left is for the official homepage, but at the time of writing, it's not fully up and running. The samples provided here are short low quality MP3s taken from CD. I hope that they're good enough for you to get a taste, but not so good that I'm about to get sued for hosting them. I hope that Vangelis' official home page will be up and running at some point, and that I'll be able to link to files hosted there.
Frank Tovey (aka Fad Gadget)	Frank Tovey started recording at the end of the seventies under the name "Fad Gadget". During the Eighties, he returned to his own name for the new work. He has not been heard of by many people, but has a global following and has influenced many artists. His early work was a blend of Electronic and Gothic, with a few other influences, and is unique. In later years, he moved to a more acoustic sound, but retaining his good song writing ability. Sadly, Frank Tovey died in 2002, just after returning to performances once again and poised to make a come back with a larger audience than he had previously been able to reach. He will be sadly missed. Samples here are the low-quality MP3s hosted here, as for the Vangelis samples.
David Sylvian	David Sylivian's career started with the New wave group "Japan" in the late seventies, gaining several hits with the group in the early eighties. Following the split of the band, David then went solo, and embarked on a singing and song-writing career which has lasted ever since, producing some superb songs in the process. His style has varied tremendously in that time from the highly experimental to the instantly pleasing. I would recommend the album "Everything and Nothing" for anyone unfamiliar with his work, or anyone who hasn't heard his music since the "Japan" days - it's a kind of "Best of" compilation, and covers a variety of work and styles. The sample link links to a file on the official website. Please email me if this is a dead link.
Tangerine Dream	A Band who have been around about as long as Vangelis, and who have been even more prolific. A dip into their homepage will show you just how busy the've been over the past few decades- it's a very well organised page, and you'll find that the "Discology" section provides a very comprehensive view of the albums. The band have gone through very many styles, although the progression has tended to be an evolving one, rather than involving sudden change - it has also had little to do with the current fashion: I would therefore advise the curious to play samples from the homepage, skipping around the various eras to find out what suits the listener. You used to be able to get a VERY large collection of unpublished work and bootlegs of concerts via the Tangerine Tree project, which provided so much material it was mind-boggling. This has now been discontinued. However, the archived files are still available out there - they can be found (for example) on the eMule P2P file sharing network: Just search for "Tangerine Tree". These files are organised into volumes (a volume being roughly equivilent to an album), complete with disk covers and labels to print-off, if you want to make proper CDs out of them. The volumes are grouped together for each release. For example, Tangerine Tree part 1 consists of volumes 1 to 8. Buying Tangerine Dream albums can be a little daunting: I now have around 20, and it still seems that my collection is incomplete. The good news is that the albums occassionally turn up discounted by stores, because the music's not mainstream: I have bought earlier albums for as little as four pounds on CD. A while back, I had a spate of indifference to Tangerine Dream - the reason being (believe it or not) that I went to one of their concerts! The problem was (I think) that I wasn't a "Pink Floyd" fan. Thanks to my ever-growing collection of Tangerine Tree recordings, I can identify that the end of the nineties produced concerts which weren't my cup of tea. Thankfully, for me, the recordings I've heard of stuff from 2001 onwards seems to be much more in keeping with my tastes. My recommendations for first purchases would include "Force Majeure", "Tyger", "Poland" and "Goblin's Club", although I would suggest checking these (and others) out on the bands homepage. Samples were to be links to the tangerine dream official homepage (RealPlayer), but I can't get them to work, so some locally hosted MP3 samples have been included.