Jeff Greinke

Jeff Greinke has earned acclaim as a composer working in dark ambient, electro-acoustic, and experimental idioms while also maintaining a parallel practice as a visual artist. Having once studied meteorology, he has kept meteorological phenomena at the core of his densely atmospheric music, which fuses electronic and acoustic sources to shape soundscapes that feel both eerie and welcoming. His first recordings took the form of hazy, low-fidelity cassettes and albums, among them Cities in Fog from 1985 and Moving Climates from 1986. Rhythmic elements began to surface in his output with Big Weather in 1994; around the same period he assembled the group LAND, whose sound drew on progressive rock, jazz, and world-music traditions. Late in the 1990s he formed the downtempo and ethereal duo Hana together with Anisa Romero of Sky Cries Mary. The 2005 album Soundtracks gathered several of his scores written for film and dance. Later releases such as Scenes from a Train in 2013 and Before Sunrise in 2018 introduced orchestral instrumentation, merging deep-space ambient textures with modern classical writing.

Greinke first began writing music in 1980 while enrolled in meteorology courses at Pennsylvania State University. In 1982 he relocated to Seattle with collaborator Rob Angus and together they established the label and production concern Intrepid. That imprint issued several cassettes by both musicians, including the 1984 joint recording Night and Fog as well as Greinke’s debut LP Cities in Fog in 1985. The German label Dossier put out Places of Motility in 1987 and Timbral Planes in 1988, while Greinke contributed tracks to numerous compilations devoted to dark ambient, drone, and industrial music. Multimood Records of Sweden released Changing Skies in 1990, and Ear-Rational Records issued a split CD pairing Greinke with the avant-prog ensemble Art Zoyd and trombonist-composer J.A. Deane. The same label brought out Crossing Ngoli, Greinke’s 1992 recording with Angus. Also in 1992, Lost Terrain appeared on Kim Cascone’s Silent imprint. Linden Music issued In Another Place in 1993 and Big Weather in 1994; the latter featured guitar contributions from Dennis Rea, Greinke’s bandmate in the Fourth World fusion outfit LAND. Extreme, an Australian label, released LAND’s self-titled debut in 1995, after which the group toured China in 1996 and performed at the Beijing International Jazz Festival. LAND’s second album, Archipelago, followed in 1997.

Prudence issued Greinke’s solo album Swimming in 1998. The next year he released the self-titled debut of Hana, his collaborative duo with Sky Cries Mary vocalist Anisa Romero; the record was among the first titles on the Seattle-based First World Music label, co-operated by Greinke along with Trey Gunn and Bill Rieflin, the latter also a member of LAND. After Greinke’s 1999 solo album Ride, the label brought out Hana’s second album Omen and LAND’s third and final release Road Movies, both in 2001. Dream the Red Clouds, a collaboration with the darkwave duo Faith & Disease, surfaced in 2002, as did the solo album Wide View. Weather from Another Planet appeared in 2003, succeeded by Soundtracks in 2005, which collected additional film and dance commissions. Greinke then moved to the Lotuspike label for Winter Light in 2007 and Virga in 2009. Scenes from a Train, featuring several of his former LAND colleagues, came out on Infectious Music in 2013. Five years afterward, Before Sunrise—an evocative blend of ambient and minimalist classical elements—was issued by Spotted Peccary. Other Weather followed in 2021 and Noctilucent in 2022.