New Release From A Produce

This is the new, expanded re-released of the ambient cult LP The Clearing that was originally self-released on vinyl in 1988 by A Produce, the moniker used by the late Barry Craig, who was a prolific artist operating on the fringe of the experimental and DIY music scene in Los Angeles from the 1980s until his premature death in 2011. First becoming known in underground circles as guitarist in early 80s postpunk group Afterimage, then via his Trance Port Tapes label, Craig was responsible for documenting what he coined in his own words “the growing trance music scene” emerging in LA at the time. Craig described his privately released, small-run debut LP as “an album of conceptual space,” rooted in LA’s early post-punk / DIY scene but containing an intersection of styles incorporating the new experimental or trance music that was starting to coalesce in the mid-to-late 80s. The result is a masterpiece of flow and cohesion, blending early electronic rhythms with keyboards, guitar, and synthesizers which careen from lively, hypnotic grooves to deeper, inward-looking minimalist ambient passages.

In 2008, Craig re-mastered the album with the help of electronic artist Loren Nerell and self-released a very limited CDr version which included one bonus track (“Raga Riley”) that was included on the Independent Project Records compilation Source in 2021. The original album was licensed to the UK label All Night Flight in 2019 for a limited edition vinyl re-issue of 500 copies, and this will be the first time that the album is being made available as a replicated CD. This is also the first release in IPR’s extensive reissue campaign of the A Produce catalog. This expanded edition adds three more bonus tracks, which are solo recordings that Craig included on his three L.A. Mantra compilation cassette releases on Trance Port Tapes between 1983-1985. This will be the first time these three tracks have been made available since their original cassette tape release in the early-to-mid 1980s.

“As A Produce, Barry Craig created sweeping expanses of sound that owed a debt to Steve Roach.  But unlike Roach, A Produce usually had a hint of melody in his music, even in some of his most abstract, drone-zone works.” – Echoes.org

“There are moments of deep introspection and sulking, minimal drum machines followed by pieces of more outward expression only to be plunged back into tense, oppressive atmospheres.  Yet despite these shifts in style, the sense of mood and cohesion throughout is ever-present.” – Digital Regress

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Label: Independent Project Records