Product Description
2 Late Rain
3 Deep River
4 Landfall
5 After the Flood
6 Homeland
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Limited edition of 300
Chain DLK: "What makes Late Rain so striking is its balance of meticulous composition and spontaneous energy. Recorded in a single session with musicians who had never played together before, the album captures the rare electricity of creation in real time."
Genres: Ambient, Electro-acoustic, Ambient Jazz
RIYL: Nala Sinephro, Taylor Deupree, Bohren & Der Club of Gore
Since the mid 80s, acclaimed ambient artist Jeff Greinke has been releasing compelling albums of evocative and seductive atmospheric music. On Late Rain, his 25th release, four featured musicians bring an abundance of acoustic instruments to Greinke’s electronic soundscapes for an extraordinarily textural, hauntingly ethereal, and wonderfully organic music that is both ambient and alive.
Jeff Greinke • synths, samplers, processing
Heather Bentley • viola
Greg Campbell • drums, percussion, cornet, French horn
James DeJoie • clarinets, flute, alto sax
Bill Horist • electric guitar
Following 2024’s Oceanic, where Greinke performed all the music himself, he envisioned a follow-up release based around an ensemble. Inspired to create a vibrantly energetic group sound, he enlisted four exceptionally skilled, intuitive musicians out of the Seattle new music scene to take part in his sonic adventure. Greinke sent each song-sketches from which to work out their parts. He later gathered everyone in a Seattle studio to record a live session of the album. This was the ensemble’s first meeting; in not knowing what the others had been working on, an excited anticipatory charge was felt in the room. Greinke created an enticing environment for the players to interact within, working around his open-ended compositions. A spirited, imaginative musical alchemy was captured during that session culminating in an album unlike anything in Greinke’s catalog.
John Dilberto of Echoes Radio writes: “I think this is what Andre 3000 is attempting to achieve except Greinke got there much more effectively. It’s both better composed and at the same time, more intuitive. Late Rain harkens back a bit to Greinke’s music from the 90s. He has been such a creative and underrated artist!”
What sets Late Rain apart from his prior recordings is the palpable collaborative spirit informing this music. “The dynamic and instinctually cohesive interplay that took place between all of us musicians is my favorite part of this music,” says Greinke. “Everything seemed to coalesce that day – the late autumn mood, the large, beautiful warm studio in the woods where we recorded, everyone’s excitement of not knowing what would happen and thrilled to be diving into the adventure with other amazing artists. I hear all of that in this work.”
The rich variety of colors brought about by the electro-acoustic mix of sonorities blends seamlessly with Greinke’s otherworldly soundbeds. The mood is enveloped in a soundscape thick and all-encompassing. The sonic layers are arranged, sculpted and processed with meticulous care resulting in an album of organically composed, thoughtful music rich in depth, atmosphere, mystery, and wonder.
Reviews Editor –
From Audion #82
Ever an intriguing artist, one never knows quite what to expect from a new Jeff Greinke release, as long gone are the days of emulating Brian Eno’s ambient style, with him forging ahead in new directions with each new album. For instance, here we tend to be treated to a mini neo-classical ensemble of assorted winds (clarinet, flute, alto saxophone), viola, electric guitar (from Bill Horist), drums, etc., with Jeff himself as the sound painter filling-in all the gaps and expanding the sound. Often Jeff’s involvement is less than that of all the featured collaborators, yet there’s that “je ne sais quoi” trademark sound of his that’s difficult to identify. Rich, beautiful yet enigmatic, Late Rain is both quintessential Jeff Greinke whilst also being refreshingly different. -Alan Freeman
Reviews Editor –
From Rockerilla
An ambitious project: to follow up on more than forty years of musical research with a small ambient orchestra. Jeff Greinke plays synthesizers, sampler and takes care of processing the sounds, obviously; Heather Bentley plays the viola; Greg Campbell the drums, percussions, cornet and French horn; James DeJoie the clarinets, flute and alto saxophone; Bill Horist takes care of the guitars. Six long tracks arranged following the rules of ambient, where pauses and silences count more than notes. The sounds are taken care of in the smallest details and the atmosphere, even in the most full-bodied passages, is always DREAMY AND DREAMY. -Roberto Mandolini
Reviews Editor –
From Star’s End
Striving in the infinite Jeff Greinke possesses an esteemed creative identity. His work, so imaginatively crafted, and showing particular expressiveness in its harmonic writing always seems an appreciation of the act of listening and living. The wonderful Late Rain (43:15) is powered by the craft of its excellent ensemble. Next to Greinke’s synthesizers, samplers and processing are players Heather Bentley: viola, Greg Campbell: drums, percussion, cornet, French horn, James DeJoie: clarinets, flute, alto sax, and Bill Horist: electric guitar. A story such as the one told throughout Late Rain requires inventive playing. A potent force, remarkable in their reserve, musicians of this subtle character are seldom celebrated. The instruments individually have their own range of distinct manifestations, yet each soloist bears a magical connection to the atmosphere as a whole.
Six tracks, six Ambient Adagios, tide pool small yet deep and teeming, leisurely pass into and out of our awareness. One after the other their textural testimony retains the bloom of discovery first found in the live studio sessions in which this album was realized. Counterbalancing Greinke’s tendency toward solo seclusion his chamber collaborators travel with him into the ether deliberately and with care – their production remaining so exquisitely balanced that one scarcely notices the constituent parts. Where electric guitar tones and breathing washes of warm chords are contrasted by crossed wires and subtle dream samples, further in sedated woodwinds and strings rise ribbon-like in a lost stare of wordless longing. Multi-layered and lulling this release’s long, lush unbroken lines of music absorbs us without offering the excessive eventfulness of more conventional efforts. Signaling new channels of possibility, so that we may look at the world in new ways, or simply drift languidly in reverie Late Rain assuredly resolves in a sonic state of wordless quietude – in an ambitious reach of imagination. -Chuck van Zyl/STAR’S END
Reviews Editor –
From Ondarock
Jeff Greinke is one of the most honest exegetes of post-Brian Eno ambient music, in his long career he has collected at least a couple of excellent albums (1985’s Cities In Fog and 1990’s Changing Skies), as well as an interesting collaboration with Art Zoyd and JA Deane, and an original project with Anisa Romero of Sky Cries Mary under the name Hana. The ambient music of the Seattle artist is characterized by a style that is as ethereal and vaporous as it is physical and sculptural, with sounds that evoke both Harold Budd and Jon Hassell.
For the latest album released by Projekt Records, Late Rain, Greinke has availed himself of the collaboration of four excellent musicians – Heather Bentley (viola), Greg Campbell (drums and percussion and French horn), James DeJoie (clarinet, flute and alto sax), Bill Horist (electric guitar) – a choice in clear antithesis with the previous album Oceanic: an album made in complete autonomy and very close to the hypnotic and austere ambient sounds of the early days.
The interaction between the musicians is the element that distinguishes the album from many stylistically similar productions, just listen to the first notes of “The Great Butterfly Migration”, to appreciate its structural and harmonic organicity. The musicians make good use of their technical ability, drawing without any limitations from jazz-rock sounds (the aforementioned “The Great Butterfly Migration” that could easily come from a Bill Frisell album), adding fine details to the more spiritual compositions (the title track ) or intercepting desert-blues sounds perfect for a western noir (“Deep River”).
Late Rain is one of Jeff Greinke’s most adventurous albums. The entrance of electronics into the free-jazz-ambient textures of “Landfall” and the open-source nature of the splendid “Homeland”, which the various musicians involved honor with performances of rare elegance, have few equals in contemporary ambient production. For Jeff Greinke, this project is the right opportunity to break out of an otherwise noble role of outsider, and thanks to the possibility of downloading the album for free with the nameyourprice system (available for a limited time), it is a necessary listen, to say the least. -Gianfranco Marmoro
Reviews Editor –
From Exposé
On almost all of the things I’ve heard to date by Jeff Greinke, they were essentially solo recordings (some featuring guests) using synthesizers, guitar, trombone, loops, samplers, percussion, and any other instruments he could get his hands on. And of course that wouldn’t include those by his group Land; Late Rain is a very different conception, both in its genesis and its execution. While the music herein remains atmospheric and seductive, from the outset Greinke wanted to create a group sound with acoustic instrumentalists joining in his textural ambient soundscapes, while remaining true to his organic and ethereal roots. The result is a powerful mix of electronic and acoustic sounds made whole by four experienced and skilled improvesers from the Seattle area. They are Bill Horist on electric guitars, Heather Bentley playing viola, James DeJoie on clarinets, flute, and alto sax, and Greg Campbell playing drums, percussion, French horn and cornet; Some of these players Greinke has worked with before, as guests on earlier albums.
For his part, Greinke composed the pieces and contributes synthesizers, sampler and processing, as well as the album’s mix and production. For the six pieces, Greinke sent each of the participating musicians song-sketches in advance to allow each of the players to arrange their own parts; when all the players gathered at Temple of the Trees studio in Seattle, it was their first meeting for this endeavor, never having worked together on these pieces together before, and so the recordings went forward in this true collaborative spirit, each without any idea what the other players had worked out for their arrangements. The instinctive nature of these outstanding players collaborating in real time, with Greinke as the creative focal point in their midst is at once adventurous and organic, full of shifting moods and sparse beauty, delicate and warm, Late Rain is certainly like nothing I’ve heard from Greinke before. Go have a listen at the link below, try on “After the Flood,” “Deep River” or the title track, but to be honest there isn’t a dull moment on this album anywhere, it’s truly engaging and holds up well to repeat listens. -Peter Thelen
Reviews Editor –
From Chain DLK
Jeff Greinke has always been a cartographer of sound, mapping landscapes that exist somewhere between the tangible and the imagined. With Late Rain, his 25th album, he steps beyond his usual solitary approach and invites a quartet of sonic travelers into his atmospheric domain. The result? An album that breathes – at times spectral and weightless, at others rich with tactile textures, like mist brushing against bare skin.
Greinke has been a quiet but constant presence in ambient music since the mid-’80s, crafting albums where electronics and acoustics dissolve into each other like fog into twilight. On Late Rain, his lush synthesizer beds remain, but they are now inhabited by the organic whispers of viola (Heather Bentley), cornet and percussion (Greg Campbell), reeds (James DeJoie), and the ghostly shimmer of Bill Horist’s guitar. This is not just an ambient album – it’s an ambient jazz album, though not in the smoky, noir-lit sense of Bohren & Der Club of Gore. Instead, it feels like jazz if the sky itself were improvising.
Take “The Great Butterfly Migration”, where drifting tones unfold with the patience of wings catching unseen currents. It doesn’t so much progress as hover, circling the same weightless moment over and over. The title track, “Late Rain”, is a study in restraint – subtle droplets of sound coalesce into a gently pulsing atmosphere, as if listening to a memory of rainfall rather than the rain itself. “Deep River” moves with an aquatic sway, the instruments wading through an electronic undercurrent, while “After the Flood” suggests not destruction, but renewal – like watching morning mist rise from damp fields.
What makes Late Rain so striking is its balance of meticulous composition and spontaneous energy. Recorded in a single session with musicians who had never played together before, the album captures the rare electricity of creation in real time. Greinke, ever the sonic architect, built the space, but his collaborators filled it with life. There’s a warm unpredictability here – notes slip into the mix like wandering birds, rhythms emerge and dissolve like ripples on a lake.
It’s tempting to say Late Rain feels like autumn – its sepia-toned hues, its slow, graceful decay – but that’s only part of the story. This is music of transition, of the spaces between seasons, where time slows and sound becomes weather. And much like the rain itself, it will find its way into your thoughts when you least expect it, a soft percussion on the edges of silence.
Would Greinke’s album appeal to fans of Andre 3000’s New Blue Sun? Perhaps – though where Andre wanders, Greinke drifts, content to let the landscape shape the journey. Either way, Late Rain reminds us that great music, like water, always finds its own course.
Just don’t be surprised if you feel the urge to stare out of a window while listening. -Vito Camarretta