Biography
Emerald Web originated in 1977 in Connecticut when married partners Bob Stohl and Kat Epple established the project after first crossing paths at a University of Florida jam session earlier that decade. Both began as keyboardists and flutists before mastering synthesizers, launching their electronic explorations once they acquired an Electronic Music Labs SynKey 2001. Their initial long-player, Dragon Wings and Wizard Tales, emerged in 1979 on the duo’s own Stargate imprint, blending ambient and psychedelic elements. The pair shifted to the San Francisco Bay area the next year and issued the cassettes Whispered Visions and Sound Trek. Subsequent early-eighties efforts included Valley of the Birds in 1981 and Aqua Regia in 1982, as their style grew increasingly atmospheric and meditative while retaining experimental textures.
Throughout this period Emerald Web supplied live scores for planetariums, observatories, museums, zoos, and gatherings such as science fiction conventions, sharpening their improvisational approach across an arsenal of instruments that featured Moogs and the ARP 2600. Further releases arrived with the 1983 Jay Scott Neale collaboration Love Unfolding and the Fortuna Records debut Nocturne, followed by Lights of the Ivory Plains on the same label in 1984. The Grammy-nominated Catspaw LP appeared via Audion Recording Co. in 1986, the year Stargate also compiled Traces of Time: A Musical Anthology. A score for the 1987 documentary Together to Mars? preceded the 1988 Stargate album Dreamspun, which continued merging flutes with varied synth palettes; around then the couple returned to Florida.
Manatee Dreams of Neptune, often viewed as a pinnacle achievement, was tracked before Stohl’s fatal drowning accident in 1989, with the completed work surfacing as a multi-format edition on Scarlet Records the following year. Epple sustained a solo career in performance and composition while managing Emerald Web’s archive, culminating in the 2013 Finders Keepers and B-Music collection The Stargate Tapes 1979-1982. Later that decade and into the 2020s, younger listeners prompted fresh reissues and the restoration, digitization, and remastering of original tapes. From 1977 through 1989 the team’s textured, contemplative scores for film, television, events, and venues, along with their catalog of synthesizer-and-acoustic pieces occasionally incorporating voice, helped shape new age and progressive music through classical, environmental, and fantasy-driven experimentation.
Throughout this period Emerald Web supplied live scores for planetariums, observatories, museums, zoos, and gatherings such as science fiction conventions, sharpening their improvisational approach across an arsenal of instruments that featured Moogs and the ARP 2600. Further releases arrived with the 1983 Jay Scott Neale collaboration Love Unfolding and the Fortuna Records debut Nocturne, followed by Lights of the Ivory Plains on the same label in 1984. The Grammy-nominated Catspaw LP appeared via Audion Recording Co. in 1986, the year Stargate also compiled Traces of Time: A Musical Anthology. A score for the 1987 documentary Together to Mars? preceded the 1988 Stargate album Dreamspun, which continued merging flutes with varied synth palettes; around then the couple returned to Florida.
Manatee Dreams of Neptune, often viewed as a pinnacle achievement, was tracked before Stohl’s fatal drowning accident in 1989, with the completed work surfacing as a multi-format edition on Scarlet Records the following year. Epple sustained a solo career in performance and composition while managing Emerald Web’s archive, culminating in the 2013 Finders Keepers and B-Music collection The Stargate Tapes 1979-1982. Later that decade and into the 2020s, younger listeners prompted fresh reissues and the restoration, digitization, and remastering of original tapes. From 1977 through 1989 the team’s textured, contemplative scores for film, television, events, and venues, along with their catalog of synthesizer-and-acoustic pieces occasionally incorporating voice, helped shape new age and progressive music through classical, environmental, and fantasy-driven experimentation.
Albums
