Japetus

Although Australian new age composer Japetus never formally studied music, he has been consistently producing it since 1977 and listening to it since he was a child. The pop songs he enjoyed in his youth made him want to be a musician, but after seeing the Beatles break up he decided that he would prefer to stay in the studio. At age 20, Japetus retreated to a small hut in the woods for a year, singing and playing his guitar and preparing himself for his leap into the music business. After his return, Japetus began self-releasing pop songs and sending them to record labels and radio stations around Australia, receiving some limited positive response. He wasn't discouraged, however, and continued to write and record music as well as study and develop his own ideas on spirituality and vegetarianism (he had become a vegetarian after having a dream about the similarity between a pig and human thigh). This all led to his decision in 1983 to switch to new age. It turned out to be a good move, as Japetus was met with much more success in that genre, winning recognition from the Dolphin Awards (an Australian prize given to musicians living in the Northern Rivers Region of the NSW state) and frequently commissioned to provide soundtracks to both books and television shows. A prolific composer, Japetus' music aimed to push the listener to higher levels of self- and world-understanding. His 1985 three-album Mystic Pathways Series, Egyptian Book of the Dead/Kundalini Yoga, The Major Arcana of the Tarot, and The Kabbalah/The Zodiac, was written to accompany Music for Inner Space by Nevill Drury, and explored five separate spiritual traditions, and in 2003 he celebrated his 20th year in new age by releasing the double CD Peace & Quiet. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide