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Third Contact
Media was formed in 1995 to
manufacture and re-issue the Synergy® albums to the
public. The World Wide Web has provided a perfect outlet to
distribute what the mainstream record industry would
consider a niche product. The Web also brings access to
Synergy recordings to parts of the globe that never had
proper distribution the first time around.
The name Third Contact refers to the
stage of a solar eclipse where the light of the sun is just
beginning to emerge from behind the moon. It seems
appropriate. The logo design was executed by fellow
synthesist/composer Wendy Carlos from original photographs
that Wendy had shot during her alternate career as an
eclipse chaser. Wendy composited and tidied up the image
using Adobe Photoshop® on a Macintosh computer. I sat in
the back seat giving encouragement while Wendy did the tough
work.
Third Contact is a growing label. In
addition to the Synergy reissues, Third Contact also has in
its catalog the current release by former Private Music
recording artist Joy
Askew called "Gorgeous
Creature" (3CR-1050, released July, 1997).
SYNERGY recordings on
Third
Contact are manufactured and
distributed by Universal/PolyGram's Chronicles label. CDs
can be bought through most record stores or a number of
online sources.
HOW TO BUY
THIRD CONTACT CDs
Go to the HOW
TO GET CDs page for a list of
online retailers and how to contact them.
business mail address:
THIRD
CONTACT
PO Box 425
Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922 USA
email: synergy@eclipse.net
For setting up commercial sale quantities of CDs outside of
the United States and Canada please reach Third
Contact at the addresses above or call
Sound
Choice (908-647-2650; fax:
908-647-2651). This is also the contact point for inquiries
about licensing SYNERGY® music for third party
uses in other media.
A LITTLE
HISTORY
From 1971 through 1988 Jem Records, Inc. was one of the
world's largest importer/exporters and distributors of
records. Building on a business of importing and
distributing British albums into the United States Jem grew
to have office and warehouse locations from London to Los
Angeles with the home office in South Plainfield, New
Jersey. Jem evolved into a publicly traded company
conducting millions of dollars in business each
year.
In 1973, Jem in association with Sire
Records launched Passport Records in order to manufacture
and release records from within the United States. The
Passport label eventually grew to become the Passport
Records Group which included the original flagship Passport
label, Passport Jazz, The Audion Recording Company, and
several other diverse labels. Larry Fast/SYNERGY was the
first US act signed to the new label.
For a variety of reasons too complex
to go into here, the Jem Records distribution division found
itself in financial difficulty in the mid-1980s. Though the
Passport Records Group was consistently profitable, the
parent company was unable to stay afloat and the entire
corporation was shut down.
After Jem Records went out of business
at the end of 1988 taking Passport Records and The Audion
Recording Company with it, there was no longer any
legitimate release channel for the Synergy recordings. When
the Jem assets were liquidated, all of the records in their
warehouses were sold off to the cutout market. Fortunately
(or unfortunately depending on your perspective) there were
not many Synergy records warehoused and a very small portion
of those were CDs. There were only several thousand copies
of each Synergy title when Jem/Passport/Audion turned out
the lights for the last time.
The actual ownership of the
intellectual property rights to manufacture and sell new
copies of the Synergy albums was in dispute until 1994 when
the rights clearly reverted to my production company
Synergy® Electronic Music, Inc. During the years between
1989 and 1994 I was contacted quite a few times by labels
around the world that wanted to sign Synergy to their
company. But after the experience at Jem I wasn't inclined
to subject the Synergy recordings to the complete control of
another company; no more conventional artist signings for
Synergy. But I still wanted to make the Synergy recordings
available again; Third Contact provides that
outlet.
The first Synergy
re-release,
Electronic Realizations for Rock
Orchestra went into
distribution on the web in mid 1995, the twentieth
anniversary of the original release. The second re-release
Sequencer was reissued late in
1996, followed by
Cords in the summer or 1997.
During 1998 manufacturing and distribution was licensed to
Universal/PolyGram's Chronicles
label. All nine of the original Synergy recordings
were reissued through Chronicles during 1998.
© 1997-2003 Synergy®
Electronic Music, Inc.
This page was last updated on
August 14, 1997
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