aving pioneered the use of natural sound and the CMI in terms of jazz, Ron was soon conceiving of another highly innovative musical statement -- a progressive rock album based upon his 1984 “An Analysis of Rock Music” wherein he delineated the fundamentals of the form in ways that had never been recognized. The album itself was to constitute another soundtrack, this time for his ten-volume grand satire, the Mission Earth series. Telling of a resourceful Royal combat engineer’s attempt to foil an alien invasion, Mission Earth became an unprecedented publishing event, with all ten volumes successively rising to international bestseller lists. The work was further the recipient of numerous literary awards, and received much acclaim for its incisive commentary on this postindustrial twentieth century. Appropriately, then, Mission Earth, the album, was to likewise become a highly incisive commentary.The lyrics themselves are intrinsic to the story, and are regularly inserted to break the prose in the manner of a Persian romance, (most famously as in Ron”s long-time favorite, The Arabian Nights). “So this actually leaves the book full of lyrics,’ he explained, “and they are very often stated as songs.” In explanation of how he then composed, generally on his electric organ, he added, “one takes the meter of the lyrics, works it out on drums and then fits a melody to that meter.”
In further explanation of what he now envisioned, he detailed the use of counter-rhythms -- wholly unique to his music and constituting a second rhythm which “would underlie the drum rhythm usually at lower pitch than the drums. This counter-rhythm would surge exactly in the same way as the rest of the beat.”
The result, explained the album’s producer, was a sound so unique that “even those of us involved were unable to initially envision it.” Yet gradually laying down Ron’s counter-rhythms and heavy orchestration, “it slowly began to dawn on us that we were creating a whole new sound with a full symphonic backdrop to a surging rock ensemble.” The album further paints atmospheric scenarios in truly imaginative ways. Take the title track, for instance, wherein a troupe of Turkish percussionists -- discovered performing in a Los Angeles Middle Eastern restaurant -- supplied a fully unique counter-rhythm to the heavy main beat of the song itself. (“I’m certain those percussionists had no concept of how their work would finally turn out, but if ever one wanted an authentic sound -- those people supplied it.”)
