“For a time I thought Rays had come together differently than any other project I had worked on, until it dawned on me all the various works I had been involved in had happened the same way and doing Rays was simply the first time I had seen it. Rays was my own personal Copernican Shift. For years Rays laid around in bits and pieces, and there were long periods when I would put them all away, like disparate parts of disparate building blocks. As if one was a recipe, another was a blueprint, another was a map. I couldn’t see how they fit together. I kept going, as much for not having anything else to do as for the curiosity of how it would all turn out, but I did keep going, and I’m glad I did. It was when I was putting on the horn parts, dreaming of Memphis and Stax Volt that it all came together. It was as if I had come into the garage one evening, and was looking at the detritus of a failed effort laying all over the floor, when suddenly there was this array, a kind of order to it that I had never imagined. That was exciting. It felt new, and gave me the inspiration I needed to finish. This after four years of wandering in darkness --- which actually happened to be one of the lines from Rays. I had always imagined “emergence” as the gradual appearing of something that already exists but was just unseen. Rays was the first time I ever actually saw that happen. And now that I’ve seen it I am aware that all the past works have happened the same way.”
"I love to put Henry Mancini’s music on in a convertible with the top down. He’s one of my favorite composers the theme from “Mr. Lucky,” or you know, those great movie and TV theme songs he did. I put the top down on the convertible on a nice sunny day and drive along a country road somewhere, and I am literally and figuratively transported to another place. That’s what I hope will happen when people listen to Rays. That it's evocative, it’s transporting. The listener will find themselves in a place they can’t get to any other way. And they’re really happy to be there, and the next thing you know, they move in, they plant a garden, they start hanging out there, and they got a little second home there, in Raysland."
– Michael Nesmith
Artist: Michael Nesmith
Track Listing:
1. Zip Ribbon (sample)
2. Dynaflow (sample)
3. Friedrider (sample)
4. Carhop (sample)
5. Boomcar (sample)
6. Best of It (sample)
7. Ed's October Cafe (sample)
8. Rays (sample)
9. Bells (sample)
10. Land O Pies (sample)
11. There it is (sample)
12. Follows the Hear (sample)
