Remixed and remastered for 2026! My instrumental album "No Words" is now louder than ever. Featuring some experimental tracks, a bunch of straightforward prog-inspired rockers, and as an added bonus my Latin fusion track "Hola Hermosa Señorita" (previously released as a single on YouTube and available for non-exclusive sync licensing at Pond5).
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This album features the first ten ambient tracks composed for the podcast "Project 2025 Read by Douglas Wayne Ricketts" (available at RSS.com). Instruments used include many libraries from the EastWest Composer Cloud, MASSIVE by Native Instruments, u-he's Zebralette, Independence Free from Yellow Tools & Computer Music, KV331's SynthMaster Player, and much more. Called an "... uncompromising, meticulously tailored piece of work" by Google Gemini, while Microsoft CoPilot chimed in with "That album does not appear to exist."
All of the music on this album is available for non-exclusive sync licensing through Pond5 (link goes to related LinkedIn post with track descriptions)
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Download or stream mp3 tracks 1-5 at RSS.com
Downlaod or stream mp3 tracks 6-10 at RSS.com
This album represents over twenty years of jazz experimentation and includes some fun cuts, tracks inspired by bebop & film noir soundtracks, and a few introspective piano pieces. Includes "Solo Piano 02" and "Midnight Memorial" which were featured in the short "Upper West Side Story" directed by Leon Chase, and the track "Nova Bosso" which was used for the opening & closing credits in the short "No Peas for the Weary" directed by Aaron Franke. Both are credited under my old radio alias, Rick Sparks.
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From time to time I wander into rock styles when composing stock music and songs for spec projects. The tracks on this album were started between 2008-2011 but ended up being ignored for years until I focused on finishing them during the fall of 2023. Every note was played on my trusty MIDI keyboard with the exception of the light percussion loops on "Slow Monday."
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The music on this album was composed between 2008 and 2012. Every single note was played on my trusty MIDI keyboard then sat on an old hard drive until I made time to master the cuts. The majority of the instruments are part of the EastWest Symphonic Orchestra Silver library. Some guitars, synthesizers, and percussion came from a variety of sources, including the Independence Free CM Edition released in 2008.
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Outside of jazz projects I rarely compose instrumental pieces in a major (positive) key. All twenty-three cuts on this predominantly orchestral album were selected from over two-hundred themes I've produced since 2008 to fit the overall theme of "Joy." No loops or construction kits were used for the songs on this album, every note was played on my sturdy MIDI controller.
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I began composing the pieces on this album in 2008 and let them rest for about twelve years before making time to revisit them during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each track on every song was played live with a MIDI keyboard controller. Some cuts utilize a hybrid of orchestral & synthesized instruments. In the cases of orchestral instrumentation I strived to make sure none of the individual notes sounded impossible for real humans to play live.
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The music in this collection was developed between 2001-2009. About half of the tracks are wholly original compositions while others were constructed through the manipulation of samples & instrument loops. When reviewing these tracks after years of neglect I found they came together as a complete album. And the beginning of track two ("Can You Dance") starts with a sample from a Sony Acid pack which Beck also used in one of his songs, that was a fun copyright strike to challenge!
Reviving the tracks was a bit of a chore since a lot of the apps I was using at the time they were created were not compatible with my modern computer. Thanks to the magic of VirtualBox I was able to clone an old Windows XP system so they could be remastered. And if you find a version of any of these songs credited to Rick Sparks? That's my old radio name, tell him he owes me money.
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After spending many years gathering sampled instruments & synthesized sounds, I found myself drawn to producing dramatic & ambient tracks in late 2004. Most of the instruments were played live using a Yamaha DX-7 synthesizer to control the software sampler Mellosoftron III. Sharp-eared listeners will recognize the rare occasion when I shoved the controller through a quantizing program to generate abnormally perfect timing for some instruments. This album was composed & recorded from December 2004 to March 2005 then remastered in May 2021.
"Music For A Dark Film (That Hasn't Been Filmed Yet)" was blatantly inspired by the works of John Carpenter & Brad Fiedel, strings & percussion influenced by the classic Kurosawa films I was ingesting at the time of production, includes a touch of David Lynch/Angelo Badalamenti atmospherics, mixes in a love of Peter Gabriel's introspective soundscapes, and is peppered with a smattering of digital decay as a result of the inexpensive sampling software I was experimenting with at the time.
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Purchase or stream on Bandcamp and Amazon Music