Magnetic South
Loose Salute
Nevada Fighter
Tantamount
And the Hits...
Ranch Stash
The Prison
Radio Engine
Infinite Rider
The Newer Stuff
The Older Stuff
Tropical Campfires
Rays
Complete
The Garden
Solo 63-66
Monkees
Soundtracks
The Ocean
Around the Sun


Rays

Since this album is a digital download, I'm not sure if there are actual liner notes. This is what is available at Videoranch about the album.

April 3, 2006 - Michael Nesmith has just released his latest album Rays; a cinematic journey of sound with elements of swing, jazz and instrumental funk that come together to form what he calls "New Century Modern". Once again, Nesmith pioneers a new genre, contributing fresh, inventive and timeless dimensions to our current musical landscape. This beautifully packaged album comes with a 9 X 14 inch poster of the Drew Friedman Art Nez had commissioned for the album!

"For a time I thought Rays had come together differently than any other project I had worked on, until it dawned on me all the various works I had been involved in had happened the same way and doing Rays was simply the first time I had seen it. Rays was my own personal Copernican Shift. For years Rays laid around in bits and pieces, and there were long periods when I would put them all away, like disparate parts of disparate building blocks. As if one was a recipe, another was a blueprint, another was a map. I couldn't see how they fit together. I kept going, as much for not having anything else to do as for the curiosity of how it would all turn out, but I did keep going, and I'm glad I did. It was when I was putting on the horn parts, dreaming of Memphis and Stax Volt that it all came together. It was as if I had come into the garage one evening, and was looking at the detritus of a failed effort laying all over the floor, when suddenly there was this array, a kind of order to it that I had never imagined. That was exciting. It felt new, and gave me the inspiration I needed to finish. This after four years of wandering in darkness --- which actually happened to be one of the lines from Rays. I had always imagined "emergence" as the gradual appearing of something that already exists but was just unseen. Rays was the first time I ever actually saw that happen. And now that I've seen it I am aware that all the past works have happened the same way."

"I love to put Henry Mancini's music on in a convertible with the top down. He's one of my favorite composers the theme from "Mr. Lucky," or you know, those great movie and TV theme songs he did. I put the top down on the convertible on a nice sunny day and drive along a country road somewhere, and I am literally and figuratively transported to another place. That's what I hope will happen when people listen to Rays. That it's evocative, it's transporting. The listener will find themselves in a place they can't get to any other way. And they're really happy to be there, and the next thing you know, they move in, they plant a garden, they start hanging out there, and they got a little second home there, in Raysland."

- Michael Nesmith


 




Back to Rays