Mystic Moods Orchestra - Biography
By J Poet
The Mystic Moods Orchestra was the serendipitous side project of audiophile engineer Brad Miller, who wanted to capture the sounds of the natural world in perfect high fidelity. In 1958, with the help of his pal Jim Connella, Miller started the famous audiophile label Mobile Fidelity Records. It was the dawning of the stereo age and Miller’s recordings of thunderstorms and bubbling mountain streams became popular hi-fi stereo demonstration records. Miller was also a steam railroad engine fanatic and recorded the sounds of the big steam locomotives that were slowly dying out. In 1965, Ernie McDaniel of San Francisco FM radio station KFOG played Miller’s, Steam Railroading Under Thundering Skies (1993 Bainbridge), an album of Southern Pacific steam locomotive sounds and an easy listening album on separate turntables and broadcast them together. The phones lit up and when McDaniel told Miller about his prank, The Mystic Moods Orchestra was born.
With composer and arranger Don Ralke, Miller recorded ten tunes using a string heavy orchestra and mixed in environmental sounds he’d recorded. Philips records released the record as One Stormy Night (1965 Philips, 1995 Capitol) by The Mystic Moods Orchestra adding a sultry album cover featuring an attractive woman peering through a rain splattered window. It became Phillips’ biggest album of 1965-66, loved by audiophiles, music geeks and romantics of all kinds.
Miller and The Mystic Moods Orchestra made ten albums for Philips following the same basic template; lush string soaked arrangements and overdubbed sound effects, often producing unintentionally hilarious moments. The titles are Nighttide (1966 Philips), More Than Music (1967 Philips, 1990 Bainbridge), Mexican Trip (1967 Philips), which featured train sounds, people in a marketplace and a children’s party, Mystic Moods of Love (1968 Philips), Emotions (1967 Philips, 1995 Capitol), Extensions (1969 Philips, 1995 Capitol), Love Token (1970 Philips, 1990 Bainbridge), Stormy Weekend (1970 Philips, 1995 Capitol), English Muffins (1967 Philips, 1990 Bainbridge), which mixed covers of The Beatles, Bee Gees and Roger Miller, and Country Lovin' Folk (1971 Philips) which included the sounds of bull frogs and farm animals behind the folk and country hits of the day.
Miller moved the Mystic Moods to Warner in 1972 and released Love the One You're With (1972 Warner, 1995 Capitol), Highway One (1972 Warner, 1995 Capitol), Erogenous (1972 Warner, 1995 Capitol), Awakening (1973 Warner), Clear Light (1973 Warner), and The Storm and the Sea: Sounds for Love (1973 Warner.) Warner put a lot of money into the cover art and sold some albums with a free pair of panties enclosed, but Miller’s hour as a recording artist had passed. He continued making ambient albums under his own name for his own Soundbird label as well as reissuing Mystic moods albums on the Mobile Fidelity label. The money he made went into research; he eventually created the Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs where his half-speed mastering techniques produced albums with amazing sound quality. When CDs and digital sound came in, Miller and Audio Fidelity upped their game with their 24-karat gold plated CDs. The label lost its distribution deal and went under shortly after Miller died in 1999. The new owner, Jim Davis of Music Direct, bought MFSL in 2001 carries on the label’s mission of delivering the best stereo recordings possible.
