Watchful is an album by the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 experimental pop music

Art rock

Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...

 group Amoeba

Amoeba (band)

Amoeba is an experimental music group that fuses the pop and ambient music genres. They formed in California, USA in 1992. The core members of the group are ambient musician Robert Rich and guitarist/bassist Rick Davies....

. This is the first Amoeba album to feature the classic lineup of Robert Rich

Robert Rich (musician)

Robert Rich is an ambient musician and composer based in California, United States. With a discography spanning over 30 years, he is widely regarded as a figure whose sound has greatly influenced today's ambient, New Age, and even IDM music.-Early life:At an early age he thought he disliked music...

 and Rick Davies. The style of this album consists of subtle and largely acoustic pop compositions with heavy ambient

Ambient music

Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...

 textures.

Work on this album began in 1994. It was completed in 1995. Over the next two years they searched for a label to distribute the album. It was finally released in 1997 on the Lektronic Soundscapes label. When distribution problems arose with Lektronic Soundscapes, they moved to Release Records

Release Records

Release Records is a progressive music record label run out of Ontario, Canada. They have released singles from such artists as Medway, Peace Division, Benz & MD, and Flash Brothers...

, who had also released Rich’s solo album Trances/Drones

Trances/Drones

Trances/Drones is an album by the American ambient musician Robert Rich. It is a two-disc compilation of Rich’s drone music albums Trances and Drones plus other material that was recorded during that time.-Overview:...

.

Track listing

1. ”Inside” - 4:57
2. ”Skin” - 2:53
3. ”Origami
   Origami
   is the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, which started in the 17th century AD at the latest and was popularized outside Japan in the mid-1900s. It has since then evolved into a modern art form...
   
   ” - 2:17
4. ”Footless” - 5:02
5. ”Ignoring Gravity” - 7:21
6. ”Water Vapor” - 2:12
7. ”Desolation” - 4:39
8. ”Big Clouds” - 2:50
9. ”Saragossa” - 4:06
10. ”Any Other Sky” - 6:38
11. ”Watchful Eyes” - 5:20

Personnel

• Robert Rich - vocals, percussion, synthesizer
  Synthesizer
  A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
  
  s, lap steel guitar
  Lap steel guitar
  The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, an instrument derived from and similar to the guitar. The player changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings instead of by pressing strings against the fingerboard....
  
  , wind instruments
• Rick Davies - electric and acoustic guitars, bass

with:

• Hans Christian
  Hans Christian
  Hans Christian is a German-born musician and producer now based in the U.S. in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Christian is a multi-instrumentalist usually associated with Indian world music, ethnic fusion, chamber jazz, and sometimes New Age music, but who also plays classical music...
  
  - cello (tracks 2, 4 and 9)
• Don Swanson - drums (tracks 4, 5 and 10)
• Ivy Barry - additional voice (track 4)
• Scott Wright - soprano and alto saxophone (track 10)