Himan Music (also referred to at different times as Hi-Man Music and Heiman Music) was the brainchild of the Latvian-born Israeli musician and composer Nachum Heiman.  Born in 1934, he had scored an early commercial success in the music industry as co-writer of the song 'Le Jour Ou La Colombie', which was recorded by the Greek singer Nana Mouskouri in 1967.  Moving to London in 1971, he continued to write music for film and television including a library album called Percussion Workshop for publishers KPM.  Wanting to be his own boss, Nachum (who was also known as Nick) set up his own company in 1975 on an initial investment of £400 to produce jingle-length library music pieces for use in adverts.  By the following year Himan Music had become affiliated with a new music publisher named Fuse Music that was handling the publishing for both Genesis and Peter Gabriel amongst others.  Through this connection, Ant was given the opportunity to write and record some short pieces of music of around 30 seconds duration for Himan as jingles for potential use on adverts.

1976 Jingles production
Recorded in the Summer of 1976 at Send Barns

Ant wrote and recorded a number of pieces in this genre in the Summer of 1976 for what would be his first library music project, taping the tracks on 4-track in his home studio at Send Barns.  In this early period there was no music issued on vinyl LPs and Himan Music would make material available to their clients on quarter-inch tape.  Rather than give the tracks individual titles, a series of reference numbers were instead allocated to the individual pieces for the purpose of identifying them.  Ant's notes from the time indicate that sixteen of the tracks that he wrote and recorded for this project were given these numbers, with variant mixes of a track having an 'A' added to them.

Many of the tracks recorded for this project have not been released in any form but the following pieces from it would appear elsewhere later on, with four of them also receiving a release on Ant's commercial albums.

AP 3004 was released in a newly mixed form as Romeo and Juliet on Archive Collection Volume Two in 2004.  This track is also known to have been used for a television advert for Wizard Air Fresheners.

AP 3005 was subsequently released on the 1990 Atmosphere library CD Christmas, Kids and Comedy (ATMOS-CD15), where it was included as Lullaby 1.  The track was later released as Marionette Vignette on Private Parts & Extra Pieces I in 2015.

AP 3010A was later given the title by Ant of Last One To Leave and was performed by him under that title as the closing piece on the session he recorded for Radio Clyde in July 1978.  It was released in 1980 as Postlude: End of the Season on Back To The Pavilion

AP 3013 was subsequently released on the 1983 Atmosphere library LP Landscape (ATMOS 005) as Bright Guitar Theme.

AP 3015 was also released on Christmas, Kids and Comedy as Lullaby 2.  The track was later released on Private Parts & Extra Pieces I as Lullaby - Old Father Time Variation.

Himan Music would subsequently promote this first project the following year by issuing a quarter-inch tape compilation of fifteen tracks from it as one of a number of such titles issued in a series that they called "Jingletime".  Each track was identified by a voiceover recorded by Nachum Heiman, which stated the reference number given to it.  The label on the tape box for the "Jingletime" compilation read as follows:

Anthony Phillips in “Jingletime” is the fourth in our series of productions in which today’s pop groups are recording jingle length music in their own styles.

This production features Anthony Phillips, one of the original members of the group ‘Genesis’.  He is now a multi-instrumentalist and composer in his own right, and his first solo album will be released here shortly.

1977 Jingles production
Recorded in the Summer of 1977 at Send Barns

The following year Ant wrote and recorded another smaller selection of jingle length pieces for Himan Music in a similar style to the tracks he had produced the previous year.  Further details about the tracks such as any reference numbers that Himan may have allocated to them are unknown and none of these pieces have been released in any form.

1979 Library Music production

Recorded in the Summer of 1979 at Atmosphere Studios, Lexington Street, London

Ant's next project for Himan Music would be recorded in the summer of 1979 after he had returned from a trip to the USA where he had given a number of radio and press interviews to promote the release of Sides.  As he recalls, this opportunity to work on the library project came at a time where he was unsure where his future musical direction lay: "I was a little bit of a lost soul at that point because Sides hadn't really set the world alight and the music scene was changing so I wasn't sure where I was going.  So for that library project I was allowed to potter about and use a studio in the evenings and small hours to record the tracks."

In the spring of 1979 Himan had acquired some new premises in Lexington Street in the West End of London, with Atmosphere Recording Studios and Mag Transfers being establised as divisions of the parent company.  This arrangement gave Himan two fully equipped recording studios and a magnetic transfer unit to cater for film sound work.  Working with engineer John Reiner in this new facility, Ant recorded a large number of pieces for the library production which once again were subsequently made available for use by broadcasters and advertising agencies on quarter-inch tape.  Drums and percussion parts played by a drummer (whose name is currently elusive) were also added to some of the tracks.

For the project Ant recorded a mixture of pieces of different duration, some being of the usual jingle length of around 30 seconds with others being of a longer duration.  Variant mixes of some tracks were also made during the sessions which resulted in some cases of there being a number of different versions of the same piece.  For example, the track recorded under the working title of 'Scottish Theme' (which was subsequently released on Archive Collection Volume 2 as Highland Fling) was recorded in both short (around 30 seconds) and long versions (around 90 seconds).  Three mixes of the 30 second version and two mixes of the 90 second version were then made.

The tracks were given working titles by Ant in order to identify them, with Himan later allocating reference numbers to the pieces which took a shorter form than those used for the 1976 project.  When Himan Music was subsequently absorbed into Atmosphere Music, the pieces were registered for copyright purposes under new titles in the Spring of 1982, although it is not known exactly which titles were given to all of the tracks.

As with the 1976 production, many of the tracks recorded for this project have not been released in any form but the following pieces from it would appear elsewhere later on and several of them would also receive a release on Ant's commercial albums. The titles listed in quotes are Ant's original working titles for the pieces.

"Elgar Classical" - two variations of this track were subsequently released on Finger Painting as A Song (0:36) and And A Prayer (1:08).  The piece was subsequently revisited when Ant was collaborating with Andy Latimer on some co-written material for potential inclusion on the Camel album The Single Factor.  A recording of a new version of the track with working title of Hymn was begun during the sessions for the album at Abbey Road Studios in January 1982 but it was ultimately never completed or mixed and remains unreleased.  Ant remembers: "It was a shame that that never materialised.  I think at that time the pressure for Andy was to go very much more single-orientated as it was for so many of us - hence the album title - and a lot of the more classical instrumental pieces were being given short shrift.  That was a great shame as it sounded quite epic, almost hymn-like and it had a lot of emotion and power to it with the drums."  

"Our Man In Japan" was given the reference number AP 37a by Himan Music.  Subsequently titled Gliding by Atmosphere, it was issued on their first vinyl LP release Electronic Music (ATMOS 001) in 1983 and was later released on Finger Painting as Tierra Del Fuego.

"Computers on Ice" was given the reference number AP 55 by Himan and in this incarnation was used both on a television advert for the company Weatherseal and also in the 1980 short film Great North Face Air Race, which documented various attempts to race down the North Face of the Eiger mountain.  The film was shown in cinemas as a supporting feature and was later broadcast on television.  Given the new title of Abstract Atmospheric by Atmosphere, it was issued on their first vinyl LP release Electronic Music (ATMOS 001) in 1983 and then on the 1989 library CD Soft Science (ATMOS-CD7).  It was given a commercial release on Archive Collection Volume Two in 2004 as Polar Lights.

"Scottish Theme" - a 30 second version of this track was included on the 1983 Atmosphere LP Landscape (ATMOS 005) as Highland Melody.  In 2004 a longer version of the track (1:52) was released as Highland Fling on Archive Collection Volume Two.  The track had originally been written as a potential piece for inclusion on Sides the previous year.

"South Pole" - later titled Ice by Atmosphere and issued on the LP release Electronic Music (ATMOS 001) in 1983.

"Snow" - two variant mixes of this track were also released on Electronic Music as Arctic Waste and Arctic Waste (B) respectively.

"Annette" was subsequently given the title of French Love Theme by Atmosphere and one version of it was picked up for use on a television advert for the beauty product Oil of Ulay.  In 1989 Ant created an extended version of the track (dur 2:07) which combined a solo piano recording with a fuller version in reverse, for inclusion as Paradise Found on Finger Painting.

"Chinese Wanderer" (as Our Man In Japan - not to be confused with the working title for the library track Gliding mentioned above) and "Fauré" (as Lofty Vaults) were both released on Archive Collection Volume Two in 2004

Another track from this production without a working title was used on an advert for Lucozade that was shown exclusively in the Far East.  Ant remembers that the advert had four different directors who argued and contradicted each other! 

As well as the writing and recording of jingles and pieces of library music by the composers that worked with them, Himan Music had begun to pick up commissions for providing original music for television programmes.  Through this route and with Ant being one of the few Himan composers who had some experience of classical music, his name was put forward to write the music for the ATV series Rule Britannia, for which he would go on to write and recorded the music in October 1980.  After Atmosphere Music had been established other commission pieces would follow in subsequent years, including the music for an advert for New Zealand Lamb which was later released as Fountain Pool on Finger Painting.

1981 Small Orchestral Library Music Project
Recorded in May 1981 at Atmosphere Studios, Lexington Street, London.

Following the completion of work on 1984, for his next library music project Ant was asked to write and arrange a selection of pieces for a small orchestral group.  The pieces were recorded at Atmosphere Studios by various session players including the members of the Gabrieli String Quartet, with the assembled musicians being conducted by Ant's friend Jeremy Gilbert.  

Five of the pieces recorded for this project were subsequently released as the first side ("Classical Orchestral") of the 1983 Atmosphere LP release Landscape (ATMOS 005), with some of them appearing on later Atmosphere library CDs and two of the tracks being included on Ant's commercial album releases.

Soft Landscape was subsequently released in an edited form (2:05) as Boulevard of Fallen Leaves on Finger Painting.  The edited version of the piece was later included on the 1999 Atmosphere library CD English Pastoral (ATMOS-CD117).

Malvern Hills was originally written and recorded in a synth-based form for Rule Britannia.  The orchestral version of the track was later included on the 1988 Atmosphere library CD Classical Spirit (ATMOS-CD4), alongside Morning Dew and Animal Life from this project and on Travelogues 2 (ATMOS-CD24) from 1991.  In 2005 the track was included on the compilation CD For Ever For Everyone (where it was erroneously credited to the "Anthony Phillips Orchestra") and in 2020 it was included on Extra Missing Links, the additional CD that was included in the Missing Links I - IV box set release. 

A couple of the pieces from this project were used on the six-part TV series "How We Learned To Ski", which was broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK in November and December 1983.

Following the recording of these orchestral pieces, Atmosphere Music was formally registered as a company in June 1981 and in due course took over the whole catalogue of library pieces recorded under the auspices of Himan Music.  Nachum Heiman went on to sell his share in the company and moved on to another musical enterprise after he met the Swiss entrepreneur and musician Patrick Mimran, who had acquired the car firm Lamborghini in 1979.  In 1982 the pair of them teamed up to form Lamborghini Records, which was officially launched in March the following year.  The label signed up a selection of artists including Steve Hackett (with Lamborghini releasing his albums Bay of Kings and Till We Have Faces) but after a couple of years of minimal commercial success the label was closed down.  Nachum subsequently returned to live in his native Israel where he continued to write and record music as well as becoming involved in the preservation of traditional Hebrew folk songs.  He died in August 2016, aged 82.

1981 Jingles
Recorded in August 1981 at Send Barns

Ant's final jingles during this early era of library music were recorded on 8-track during the last sessions at Send prior to him relocating to London.  As well as tracks like Eduardo and The Sea & The Armadillo, which would see the light of day on A Catch At The Tables, he also recorded a couple more jingle length pieces with a view to them being used on the broadcast coverage of the football World Cup that was taking place in Spain the following year.  Neither of these tracks have been released in any form.