Maptiler Engine

Cyber Zen Sound Engine is a duo from Houston consisting of GraceNoteX and Smith6079, who produce soft space music built around slowly pulsing hypnotic sequences. The music that comprises Moonscapes: How Stones Become Enlightened grew out of two and a half hours of evolving ambient music first composed and recorded for an art gallery in Houston. The work was so well-received that they extracted 13 passages from the initial compositions and created arrangements so that they could become distinct pieces. Moonscapes… is a very unique recording. These guys have really struck something with this work. Moonscapes… is a very tranquil and minimalistic recording that's both evocative and provocative…

These 12 songs were recorded by Twin Engine in 1971 with the intention of getting an album together for release on United Artists, but they weren't issued until more than 30 years later. The music has very much of a 1970 aura, mightily influenced at different points by the Let It Be-era Beatles (particularly in the guitar sound of "Give My Love a Chance," "The Time Is Now," and "Mistress of the Morning"), Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (a riff in "The Time Is Now" seems airlifted directly from Neil Young's "Cowgirl in the Sand"), American Beauty-era Grateful Dead, and the country-rock being laid down by the Flying Burrito Brothers/Byrds axis in Southern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. (That last influence may not have been entirely due to chance, as Byrds and/or Burritos members Chris Hillman, Clarence White, and Sneaky Pete Kleinow are all referred to in the packaging as having played on the sessions, though it's not specified who played on what track). It's very accomplished, and Twin Engine's duo harmonies are quite cheerful and invigorating.