Artist description TouchXtone is a electronic media trio consisting of Michael Thomas Roe and Jim Combs on keyboards, and Frank Lopez on visuals.

Music Style Synthesized Ambient Space Drums'N'Bass Chill

Artist History After working solo on studio MIDI compositions and looking forward to a more live performance approach to his music, Jim took a chance and placed a "musician's wanted" ad in the November 6, 2002 Atlanta Creative Loafing. The ad read "Ambient/Synth/Electro artist seeks atmospheric sound and visual artists for collaborative multimedia performance group ala Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Jarre, Eno, Orb, Orbital." One of the first people to respond to the ad was Michael Thomas Roe. Jim was immediately taken by Michael’s musicianship and sense of drama in his compositions. They exchanged emails, talked a few times on the phone and got together once for dinner. After they realized they shared similar musical tastes and record collections, the two decided that a jam was in order to see if they could actually play music together. The first jam took place on November 19th in the basement of Jim’s neighborhood community center. Each brought a few hardware synthesizers to play: Michael brought his trusty Yamaha DX-7 and Ensoniq EPS-16 plus and Jim set up his Kurzweil K-2000, Roland JD-800, and Roland Juno-60. They came to the jam with few preconceived ideas, no plans on how to collaborate, and little discussion on how to start other than popping the tops on a couple of bottles of beer and turning on the CD recorder. That modest beginning of improvising live to two-track turned into the easiest, most fruitful and surprising collaborations of their musical careers, resulting in two CDs worth of music from only three 2-hour sessions (including December 5, 2002 and January 19, 2003). The CDs contain pieces created at each of the three sessions. Neither Michael or Jim quite know which side of their brains the songs came from and there are places in the music they're still not sure who played what. But both are pleased with the results and hope you will enjoy the sounds as much as they enjoyed channeling their creation.

Group Members Michael Thomas Roe, Jim Combs, Frank Lopez

Instruments Various analog and digital synthesizers, effects and visual devices

Albums One, Two

Press Reviews I think that improvisation and spontaneity have always been at the heart of ambient music. As a result of it's free form nature, it's a genre that lends itself well to the idea of letting things happen naturally, going with the flow. "One" by TouchXtone is a prime example of the results of that spirit of improvisation. The collaborative project of Michael Thomas Roe and Jim Combs, TouchXtone is the result of a series of three two hour recording sessions where both recorded live to a two track CD recorder. And it's a testimony to the talents of both how seemless the recording is, how natural it sounds despite the lack of rehearsals, or familiarity with eachother. Presented as a longform piece divided up into 6 smaller movements, "One" has an elegance and sophistication about it that I find most refreshing, most appealling. Dancing along the periphery of different styles, TouchXtone creates a work of great depth and great emotion having been able to tap into something primal and shared between us all made all the more impressive by it's natural origins. "One" by TouchXtone is a beautiful example of the power of spontaneity, and the inherent beauty of music in it's purest, most unadulterated form. Brilliant.

Location Atlanta, GA - USA

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