New York, NY (Top40 Charts) "Beautifully recorded with a high level of immediacy, Craig Safan's third and newest recording is certainly one to get the blood pumping... Safan's imagination is vast, and he is a master painter in the way he creates an individual world for each track. Fantastically inventive; brilliantly realized." Colin Clarke - Fanfare Magazine
Emmy-nominated and eight-time ASCAP award-winning composer Craig Safan has written an exciting, humorous, mystical homage to his home city of Los Angeles. A 16-track trip around the city, both in time, memory, and place, each track is unique, having its own style.
"Safan's music draws you in. It is visceral, and yet refuses to be pinned down in any way; it also seems to occupy vast terrains easily. This is a disc that is vital, primal, and often funny." Colin Clark
I've always boomeranged back to L.A. It has a deep hold on me. My father was born here as was I. I've lived in Boston, New York, London; but L.A. is home. "L.A. EX" is my musical impression of growing up in Los Angeles, parts of which no longer exist. Musical memories and a resonance with the past guided my composition. - Craig Safan
With his third original music album, film composer Craig Safan (TV's CHEERS, THE LAST STARFIGHTER, SON OF THE MORNING STAR, STAND AND DELIVER) explores his memories of growing up in Los Angeles with a musical celebration of life in the City of Angels. "I call this album L.A. EX, which obviously is a play on the airport, but also because a lot of what I wrote are things that now exist only in my memory," Safan explains. Through a mix of digital samples and live musicians playing real instruments, Safan creates sonic expressions of sounds, feelings, and images of people, places, and things in Los Angeles and its environs that have resonated in remembrance for a lifetime.
"L.A. is a city that leaves you alone," says Safan. "It doesn't stimulate you as literally as maybe London or New York, two other cities I've actually lived in, do. L.A. is very open, even if you're an apartment dweller you usually have a pool or a back yard. It's a very low-key, relaxed city, and yet underneath it there's this great creative energy. There's all kinds of people in a million different fields, a lot of really interesting and smart people, and to me it's an endlessly interesting city."
The tracks of this album are arranged essentially from East to West, with a variety of multicolored sounds evoking the flavors of streets, neighborhoods, parks, clubs, beaches, and more that have left resonating imprints on heart and mind. Craig Safan has reflected those imprints through an array of musical impressions, each one unique, each one a beguiling sonic landscape.
In L.A. EX, images become sound, memories become rhythm, thoughts become reactions that are reflected in music. Color and chrome, sand and surf, urban rock clubs and jazz joints, the joyful pizzaz of amusement parks and much more as we journey from sun-warmed beaches to moonlit mountaintop views and imaginary interactions. From ragtime and scat to modern jazz and psychedelia, let your mind journey through the musical memories of the L.A. that was.
