Artificial Horizons was pressed and released by the Horizon label based in Sandy Springs, Georgia. From what I can garner this is Mr. Behren's sole recorded work. An extremely rare LP, the album may be found from time-to-time in second hand shops and small independent record stores on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. It's a remarkable disc before it even hits the turntable with a black and white mandala-styled sleeve that appears to have been generated by a good old dinosaur of a computer. On it you can read the slogan, "This music is the vessel in which you will travel to galaxies unknown," as well as other rather strange phrases. The sounds on Artificial Horizons also explore a certain window in time: a methodology of musical imagination that combines technical knowledge and experimentation as well as the occasional whimsy. The record is a smorgasbord of studio exercises from long wave phase-shift work to Tangerine Dream-like sequences to delicate acoustic pieces to jarring electronic tone generator sweeps. Tom's work here could be considered "progressive" in that many of the electronic techniques seem to be way ahead of their time; very expertly wrought. The moody atmospheric work of "Edsel's Lament" the final song on the album, featuring a unique guitar sound because it's not a guitar but a dulcimer, would definitely lend itself towards such categorization. This record has a very playful quality at times like with "Whistlie", which features some random electronic blips and bleeps as well as somebody (you guessed it) whistling. Other intermittent background voices creep up here and there throughout the disc - perhaps this is whoever was in the studio with at the time.Artificial Horizons on the whole seems like two complete works (side one and side two) because the songs flow into each other in a manner that makes it difficult to differentiate between individual songs, lending a wonderful sense of continuity to the music. One of the most powerful sections on this record occurs on the second side as the mysterious and atmospheric "Scene at Forty Five", with its almost gamelan-like instrumentations, smoothly segues into the majestic and somewhat menacing "Phase Interpretation". Tom Behrens's Artificial Horizons is an interesting and varied series of pieces that seems wander from some forgotten idyllic limbo and delightfully so! I heartily recommend this record ... if you can find it.

wow. Thanks for the very nice review on such a weird album @autochron. For those who are having trouble finding my disc, I have just a few copies still around. I'll be glad to take your questions on the pieces themselves. For example, the phase shifter used on the album was one that a Georgia Tech engineering student and I built from scratch. Very analog and rich due to the design of the nodes.