Patrick O'Hearn
Patrick O'Hearn (September 6, 1954 – ) is a critically acclaimed New Age recording musician.
History
Formative years
Patrick O'Hearn began his career on the California coast, touring with Frank Zappa in the mid-1970s. By 1980, however, O'Hearn teamed with trumpet player Mark Isham and guitarist Peter Maunu to form Group 87, an ensemble heavily influenced by the instrumental rock fusion that had flourished in Scandinavia and Western Europe in the prior decade. Although only one self-titled LP was produced, Group 87 would heavily influence the musical direction of O'Hearn's solo career, and both Isham and Maunu would become important collaborators on O'Hearn's subsequent solo releases.
Following Group 87, O'Hearn joined another former Zappa musician, Terry Bozzio, as the bassist for the New Wave group Missing Persons.
Private Music
Increasingly disenchanted with the New Wave scene, O'Hearn's solo career was spurred in part by former Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann, who by 1984 was conceiving of a new music label that would showcase progressive instrumental music - a niche earlier explored by Group 87. Baumann signed O'Hearn as one of the flagship artists for Private Music (along with other New Age notables such as Yanni and Suzanne Ciani), and produced O'Hearn's solo debut album, Ancient Dreams.
Signature elements readily manifest in Ancient Dreams: found percussion instruments, hypnotic bass guitar patterns, synthesized pads, and minimalist harmonies. Perhaps biased by his preferred instrument, O'Hearn often adds jazz elements, particularly in his frequent use of the bass guitar (often a fretless bass) as the lead melody.
O'Hearn followed Ancient Dreams with two more albums - Between Two Worlds (1986) and Rivers Gonna Rise (1988). Notably, the albums gradually became brighter in tone as O'Hearn began to receive greater airplay on jazz and new age radio stations. O'Hearn also co-produced several tracks for guitarist Colin Chin's Intruding on a Silence, featuring Mark Isham on trumpet - as such, the output strongly echoes Group 87's earlier work.
The fourth album, Eldorado (1989), ventured decidedly into the World Music genre - infusing O'Hearn's signature sound with rhythms and timbres drawn from disparate sources such as South America and the Middle East. As such, O'Hearn's arrangements accommodated a wider array of instrumentation - such as human singing and the solo violin (most notably on "Black Delilah".) Commercially, Eldorado performed well among New Age audiences - some tracks remain popular on jazz stations today.
An album of techno remixes followed in 1990, featuring contributions from notable popular music producers, including David Frank and Carmen Rizzo Jr. However, Mix Up was panned by critics and fans, and remains long out of print. In a 2001 interview, O'Hearn said that the album was "the brain child of the A&R dept. of Private Music.... Overall, I enjoyed the outcome, but some of the stuff makes me cringe to this day."
Yet another major turning point in O'Hearn's music career was marked with the release of Indigo (1991). Ostensibly billed by the label as a "return" to the tradition of Ancient Dreams, O'Hearn downplays the use of synthesizers and instead focuses on manipulating space, acoustics, and textures to create a consistency of tone previously eschewed in albums like Eldorado.
Following the commercial success of Yanni's compilation albums, Private Music issued a retrospective - The Private Music of Patrick O'Hearn - in 1992.
Deep Cave
After a three year absence, which included a move from California to North Carolina, O'Hearn released Trust under the newly formed Deep Cave record label. Featuring contributions from David Torn, Terry Bozzio, and Warren Cuccurullo, Trust earned O'Hearn his first Grammy nomination.
Shortly after the release of Metaphor (1996), the Deep Cave record label folded.
Sampling Controversy
In November 1997, Patrick O'Hearn filed suit against electronica musician Robert Miles. O'Hearn alleged that Miles illegally sampled "At First Light" from O'Hearn's Ancient Dreams album - using it as the foundation for the international hit single "Children".
Today
O'Hearn's five year absence ended with the release of two albums under his eponymous label: So Flows The Current (2001) and Beautiful World (2003). Beautiful World was voted the #1 New Age album on the nationally syndicated radio program Echoes.
Slow Time (2005) marks a departure for O'Hearn, in that he ventures into the experimental realm characterized by musical movements in the 20th century - including references to Steve Reich and Pierre Boulez. Says O'Hearn on his website:
Slow Time is for me an interesting record. From cyclical sounding, music for three vibraphones -- a complex arpeggio or round, of two simple Major 9th chords -- which never quite repeats itself, to the ambient leaning title track, slow time. The album explores or touches upon territories of the tonal, abstract, experimental and traditional.
Discography
| Image | Release date | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Ancient Dreams | Private Music | |
| 1986 | Between Two Worlds | Private Music | |
| 1988 | River's Gonna Rise | Private Music | |
| August 4, 1989 | Eldorado | Private Music | |
| September 11, 1990 | Mix Up | Private Music | |
| September 24, 1991 | Indigo | Private Music | |
| November 10, 1992 | The Private Music of Patrick O'Hearn | Private Music | |
| July 25, 1995 | Trust | Deep Cave | |
| 1996 | Metaphor | Deep Cave | |
| February 20, 2001 | So Flows the Current | Paras Recording | |
| November 4, 2003 | Beautiful World | patrickohearn.com | |
| June 28, 2005 | Slow Time | patrickohearn.com |