Library Music: The Early Years 1976 - 1981

Ant's involvement with the world of library music began in the Summer of 1976 before the release of his debut solo album The Geese and The Ghost.  Whilst it seemed at the time that there was no immediate prospect of the album seeing the light of day, Ant continued to work on other projects one of which was the opportunity to write and record some short length pieces of music (around 30 seconds long) for the London-based Himan Music as jingles for potential use on adverts. 

During this early period the tracks were supplied to Himan's clients on quarter-inch tape and there were no library pieces issued on vinyl LPs until well into the 1980s after the company had been absorbed into Atmosphere Music.

Some tracks recorded during this era would be later released on library albums made available as vinyl LPs and CDs by Atmosphere whilst other pieces would be included on some of Ant's commercial album releases.  A summary of the library music that Ant wrote and recording during this initial period is documented in this section.

Various composers: Electronic Music (1983)

Atmosphere ATMOS 001 (vinyl LP)

Although Atmosphere Music was formally registered as a company in the UK in June 1981, it was not until early 1983 that they would start to issue library pieces on vinyl albums, with their first releases on this format drawing on tracks that had previously been written and recorded by different composers during the Himan Music era.  All of the vinyl releases had the tracks preceeded by a voiceover that identified the number of the track in the running order.

Electronic Music was the first such release and included four tracks (plus an alternate mix of one of them) that Ant had written and recorded for the 1979 Himan production.  All of Ant's pieces appeared on side B of the vinyl album (subtitled 'Abstract Atmosphere') as follows:

B1 Abstract Atmospheric (1:39)

B4 Ice (1:52)

B8 Arctic Waste (0:34)

B9 Arctic Waste (B) (0:34)

B12 Gliding (1:07)

Gliding was later released as Tierra Del Fuego on Finger Painting, whilst Abstract Atmospheric was released as Polar Lights on Archive Collection Volume 2

Various composers: Landscape (1983)

Atmosphere ATMOS 005 (vinyl LP)

The second Atmosphere LP release to feature some of Ant's library pieces was Landscape, which drew once again on tracks previously recorded for earlier productions.  The first side featured pieces from a small orchestral project recorded in May 1981, whilst the second side included two tracks from the 1976 and 1979 projects respectively.

Various composers: Modern Christmas Music (1983)

Atmosphere ATMOS 009 (vinyl LP)

This vinyl LP was released in two different editions - a first pressing (listed as a 'rush release' on the cover), which had a blue cover and blue labels on the LP and a second pressing (which was listed as the 'second edition' on the cover) that had the regular Atmosphere cover and label design. 

Both releases of this album included 'Jingles & Cut Downs' on the first side of the vinyl album whilst the second side featured 'Full length music tracks'.  The first pressing included two tracks by Ant on side A - Jingle Bells (0:28) and Deck The Halls (0:28) - whilst the second edition featured an additional piece by him - Good King Wenceslas (0:28) - which was also included on the first side of the album.

All three tracks were Ant's arrangements for a small brass band of these well-known Christmas Carols, which he remembers were recorded in the front room of someone's house in North London.

Atmosphere ATMOS 011 (vinyl LP)

Subtitled 'Atmospheric Themes & Abstract Effect Music', this release represented the first time Atmosphere would issue newly written and recorded library tracks by Ant on one of their LPs.  Eight of his pieces made up the first side of the library album whilst eight pieces by composer Geoff Leach were included on the second side.

Various composers: Classical Spirit (1988)

Atmosphere ATMOS-CD4

In 1987 Atmosphere obtained the rights to release some of the orchestral parts of Tarka as library pieces and to that end John Lee from the company together with producer Simon Heyworth made some new mixes of them in the summer of that year. 

To keep these library versions completely separate from the commercial release of Tarka (the recording of which would begin in October of the same year), the tracks were given new titles and were initially included on three library releases - the vinyl release of Classical Spirit and the CD of Short Cuts listed above as well as this CD edition of Classical Spirit, which included additional tracks not on the vinyl release.  In addition to the parts of Tarka, three tracks from the 1981 Small Orchestral project that had previously been released by Atmosphere on the vinyl LP Landscape (ATMOS 005, listed above) were also included on the CD.