Telephant

Asleep In Green is the debut release from the Nashville based, orchestral, surrealist psychedelic pop band Telephant (Fifth Ace Music). The album is a collection of songs that musically stretch to incorporate the styles of world music, jazz, classical, rock, French music, with Latin rhythms, as well as poetry/folk. Vocalist and songwriter for Telephant, Ryan Hurtgen sculpted Asleep In Green as a representation of the human mind whose ideas arose from a reading in A Theory of Everything by Ken Wilber, a vision of an all encompassing view of the world, life and existence. Telephant is a reference to the global culture and society of the modern day. The morphing of the Greek prefix ‘tele’ as in the transmission over a long distance with the elephant that represents compassion and art exemplifies what the band stands for. The members of Telephant came together by combining their musical backgrounds; Ryan Hurtgen (piano, guitar, vocals, songwriter), with a degree in philosophy and history, spent his childhood in the Soulard District of St. Louis, Missouri relocated to Nashville to push his songwriting abilities while Tobin Sio (drums, percussion, engineering, mixing) in upstate New York in the school of Jazz made the change to Nashville to pursue a degree sound engineering. The two formed Telephant in 2007 after encountering each other watching local artist Thorton at The Basement in Nashville. Asleep In Green, released on Fifth Ace Music was produced by Michael Latterell in xxx studios in Nashville, Tennessee. Telephant is currently recording new material for their next album and will begin touring the US early 2010.