DIETER SPEARS, The Signal

As I chronicled in detail in my glowing, expansive write up on Dieter Spears’ 2024 breakthrough album Late Day Summer Breeze, the composer, keyboardist and master sonic architect Dieter Spears had numerous creative lives before emerging as an artist and co-owner of Wayfarer Music Group, one of today’s most prominent ambient music labels. Each of these experiences – playing on the club scene in Nashville in the 90s, achieving acclaim as a graphic designer, freelance photographer and owner of the photo licensing behemoth Inhaus Creative – informs his expressions as a visually driven narrative instrumental storyteller.

Though I fully embraced the magic of Late Day Summer Breeze, I found it interesting that the overall grooving energy and infectiously melodic flow of the album, as I said, “quite emphatically pushed the label’s trademark aesthetic and downtempo vibes.” It felt very much like an ode to his younger days when everything from 70s disco and early synth music caught his ear.

From the hypnotic wall of “wooshing” ambience and eerie space effects in the immersive opening minute of the title track, it’s clear that Dieter’s powerfully majestic yet intricately crafted follow-up The Signal will be a very different sonic experience – a multi-faceted ten track adventure more aligned with the kind of music Wayfarer Music Group is known and appreciated for. And that’s purely by design and intention.

“This album is a journey that comes on the heels of learning more about the ambient music space and our amazing roster of artists,” he says. “My goal was to create songs that blended me with that learning. When I started thinking about The Signal and what I wanted to achieve, I reflected on my first years in the trenches with Wayfarer – studying, absorbing and understanding the world of ambient music. I realized the average person might assume ‘instrumental’ music is just an easy way out, skipping the work of writing lyrics and crafting a conventional song. But like any genre, you find both the good and the bad.

“Thankfully our Wayfarer artists consistently deliver incredible compositions that greatly inspire me,” Dieter adds. “They understand that music has the power to create moods, uplift spirits and spark memories – both good and bittersweet. With The Signal, I wanted to aim more directly at what makes an ambient album truly work: slow, melodic movement, a sense of space travel, and emotional atmosphere. Those ideas became my guiding lighthouse.”

Beyond their inspiration, one of the great aspects of running the label is the opportunity to invite prominent artists from the roster to add their brilliance, not simply via their instruments but also their rich sonic visions. Emerging in the middle of the tracking, the two provocatively titled pieces featuring Wayfarer greats – “Evervastness” and “Sojourners Vision” – make splendid entry points into the full album experience.

Dieter had a few orchestral pieces in his vast folder of compositions, but after living with Christopher Caouette’s music, he challenged himself to create a breathtaking orchestral piece for the album. That led to his desire to add booming, cinematic drums. Drawing on Caouette’s gorgeous, free-flowing melodic piano sound and virtuosity with strings/orchestration, “Evervastness” over the course of five minutes takes us on a journey that begins with charming, romantic flair and gentle, lyrical grace before evolving into a soaring, emphatic swell of strings, piano and ambience with bird/nature sounds – and wrapped at the end by Metcalf’s trademark intoxicating tribal drums.

Tapping into the more rhythmic possibilities from the get-go, “Sojourners Vision,” true to its name, is a spirited travel piece, with Dieter’s array of synth sounds alternating to carry the whimsical melody over a persistent thumping groove created by synth and the seductive fretless bass magic of artist and label co-head Sean O’Bryan Smith. The most dynamic element is the way Wayfarer artist Billy Denk’s jangling rhythm guitar co-mingles with Dieter’s vibes on the melody (as if riding shotgun on the trip). Though he’s not on the roster, co-composer Perry Giedt (who brings additional keyboard energy) is a special guest of Dieter’s who is among many great musicians Dieter was privileged to work with over the past five years. He calls Giedt “one of the most incredible musicians I’ve ever encountered,” and it’s exciting to have him on board this unique track.

WMG has also become renowned for their special Listening Party experiences upon each label release, where the artist plays his/her songs and offers insight into and inspiration behind each. In Dieter’s session, he revealed the creative catalyst that led to the concept and development of The Signal. Late Day Summer Breeze featured a track called “Gotta Go Now,” which told the story of an astronaut who loses contact with ground control and drifts into the abyss of deep space – only to be discovered by aliens. Building from this original highly cinematic image, the synthesist came up with a fresh story for the new album that shifts the perspective to the extraterrestrials, who intercept the distress signal and come across the lost Astronaut. He told listeners, “Enjoy the journey – being taken by aliens and pulled deep into the heart of their spaceship.” Each song on The Signal represents a fresh destination, an unknown world, for our protagonist to explore.

Though it follows darkly haunting, tension and dynamics filled ambient wall and scarily seductive melody of the opening title track, the first piece Dieter wrote for The Signal was “Stargate Now,” a quirky, buoyant work of sheer techno-space genius whose high-pitched computerized tones and note patterns roll like the coolest, most addicting space invaders video game you’ll ever hear. To him, it felt like a strong step towards Space Ambient. At the time, he was studying Billy Denk, Ambient Solstice and sleep/space ambient music – but this piece went down a slightly different path, infused with his love for vintage sci fi films. The narrative of this piece finds the astronaut venturing beyond his spacecraft to explore the alien vessel, surrendering to the unknown.  

Dieter’s got such great accompanying stories for each piece that fans of The Signal may feel inclined to request that he create a video series for the album. Listened to collectively, its every bit the epic venture he set out to create. Yet each piece is its own self-contained miracle as well, showcasing ambient landscapes full of lush beauty, intrigue and freewheeling flights of imagination. Along the way, our astronaut friend encounters both a mysterious “Dimensional Shift” (via a cautious initial approach followed by an embrace with fast rolling passion), then a subtle seductive dip into a field of soothing “Magnetic Distortion” (spiced with an unforgettable repeating motif) that expands into a high octane, percussive jam. In this spacey scenario, surprises lurk around every tweaked synth chord.  

With a title like “error202,” one might think he’s entering into dangerous territory – but it’s merely a way for Dieter to communicate that he’s transporting into worlds with no control of his destination. Rather than sculpt a sonic landscape, this piece finds him experimenting with sound design and pushing countless knobs to see what might take shape. Later tracks include the chipper, funky super-bouncy techno feast “Far from Nuggin,” one of the earliest pieces Dieter ever composed which adds joy and levity to the album – as if to say, don’t worry about our astronaut, because he’s actually having a blast. “Parsect” begins with a fast- approaching ambient blast of wind, then eases into a playful tropical space jungle flow before Dieter unleashes the full force of his electronic percussion fire.  

The Signal closes with “Lost to a Starry Sky,” another track of pure ambient delight that achieves his aim of being a more traditional genre composition. A work of spacious, timeless beauty, it serves as the perfect bookend to the journey while capturing the weightless experience of our astronaut, lost in the vast unknown, floating atop Dieter’s the nonstop genius of Dieter’s sonic world from one wild experience to the next.

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