Biography

Where did the dreamy, ethnic-tinged, celebratory Light Ambient Style of Yarred come from?

“It all began, as they say, when I was a little boy and my parents bought for me a Casio SK-1,” Yarred explains. “You could simply press a button, sing or play into the microphone, and then perform the sounds across the whole keyboard range. It was the most basic of samplers, but it made an impression on me I'll never forget."

Yarred went on to study piano & recorder, eventually training in classical/baroque recorder music with world-renowned Kit Higginson. Yarred joined his family's Celtic music band Distant Oaks at the age of 11, and over the next decade would perform across hundreds of concert halls, music festivals, and theater shows throughout the Western United States and abroad in Scotland, as well as record six CDs of Celtic and Medieval/Renaissance music.

All throughout this time, Distant Oaks was the dominant musical force for Yarred and his brother Shayne and parents Christopher & Deborah. But Yarred yearned for something more.

“As much as I loved being a part of Distant Oaks, there was something about the magic of the studio and the infinite possibilities available through synthesizers and other electronic instruments that haunted me. I knew that some day I would focus my attention towards a new style of music.”

In 2006, Yarred and his brother formed a duo called Binary Sea and released their first studio album Compass in 2008, featuring melodic electronica inspired by trance beats, downtempo, and ambient genres. It was followed up in 2010 by their EP Land Ho! This was a proving ground for Yarred's production sensibilities and formed the genesis of what would become his signature style.

“The Binary Sea project was an attempt to pay tribute to the electronic artists we grew up admiring, such as Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Robyn Miller of Myst fame, and Enya. Our aim was to carry the tradition of melodic, soundtrack-like compositional forms forward as a counterpart to the 'dance' genre that has dominated electronica more recently,” Yarred says.

In September 2009, Yarred married the love of his life, Rosemary. Her musical tastes and career would be the final catalyst for putting definition on Yarred's Light Ambient style. As Yarred puts it: “After we settled into living life together, I began to get familiar with Rosemary's musical sensibilities as a massage therapist as well as a singer-songwriter. I might at one time have made fun of a track with nothing but bird song and harp music, but as I started to hear the tune behind the tune as it were, something resonated within me.”

In March of 2010, Yarred set forth to begin composing and performing a new studio album in what would become his Light Ambient style. His piece “Jubilance” had already been in the works from way back in 2007, so Yarred completed it and used it as the springboard to work on further compositions.

“The environmental, ethnic ambience of Jubilance was exactly what I wanted to portray on the rest of the album, and I was full of ideas after being exposed to the variety of 'spa' style music in Rosemary's collection. I knew I wanted to make music that could stand on its own integrity and be more than a background layer, but I also knew I would have to have to change my priorities as a composer. In other words, if I found myself falling asleep listening back to a composition, I was probably on the right track!”

Early on in the album project, Yarred spent time reviewing a number of different instruments and sound sources and labeled each one according to the color it portrayed in his mind. He states, “One of my goals for this music was to have a wide sonic palette on each track. I wanted a lot of variety, a lot of sparkle, a lot of finesse, and I knew I would have to be more intentional about which sounds I could arrange together at any point in time. If every sound I used on one track was a warm, low-key sound, and on another track lots of high-end treble and rapid motion, it just wouldn't do. Every track needed to present a rainbow of sound color.”

After assembling his “artist's palette” of sounds, Yarred began working on each piece to center around a certain environmental or ethnic emotion. Slowly but surely, an overall theme began to emerge. “I got more and more excited as I reviewed the latest mixes. I hadn't realized it when I first set out, but I was making a musical celebration of the Creator's beauty throughout the world. The sounds of peoples and natural places across the earth had blended together seamlessly!”

Thus was born Garden Journey, the first album in a series of Light Ambient music productions from Yarred. Dim the lights, turn up the music, and let Yarred's joyful and exotic acoustic and electronic sounds sweep you away into a vision of paradise.

Garden Journey is now available via all major online download stores.