I normally use a contact form so I don’t get as much spam at my e-mail address, but since you need my e-mail address to be visible, I’m hoping having this post here will suffice. I’m Kim Ahmad, I’ve been Ramp since 1989 or 1990 or so, and my e-mail address is kim@ambienautica.com.

I’ve set up a Ramp page on Bandcamp. It MAY replace this site in time. I’m as yet unsure. All existing tracks have been uploaded as “Pay What You Can,” including free (if you so choose). If you’d like to check it out, it’s here:

https://ramp-music.bandcamp.com/

Well, it’s been some time, has it not? After dropping the first new track in seven years yesterday (hopefully the first of more to come), I thought I should update the site on another important development. Over the course of the pandemic, I’ve had a lot of time to myself, free from the every day constraints of work and appearing in the world, and in that time I’ve had some realizations, among which are that I’m a (transgender) woman.

I’ve never felt comfortable with the gender assigned at birth, but I was also always conflicted enough that I didn’t feel like I fit anywhere else. If you’d have asked me ten years ago, I’d have likely said something like, “cis male by default, angry black scribble that I try not to think about if I’m being honest”. And despite all the evidence pointing me in the right direction for me, of which there was a LOT, that stood for ages. With life and everything else going on, I had neither the time nor the energy to give it full consideration. More importantly, I somehow convinced myself that it wasn’t my place to make that call, and that if I tried to, I would be appropriating something not mine. What I’ve since come to realize is that the way I came to realizing I was trans is valid, and it’s what’s best for me.

This likely has no relevance to the music, other than that I’ve swapped out the ancient photo on the About page with a more recent one. However, for anyone interested in the artist as well as the output, this is for you. 🙂

Literally years (four?) after setting up my “new studio” and then stepping away from the whole thing, I began climbing the learning cliff tonight.

If you’re following this site (and let’s be honest, who isn’t?!), you’ll have noticed that this page just updated with a gigantic pile of new content, all in semi-random order. That’s because there was nothing here, and I finally made a big push to get all my Stuff Re-posted. So it should be all here again!

You can sift through it much more easily by using the “News”, “Music”, “Videos,” and “About Me” filters above. Otherwise, it gets a bit silly. 🙂 This chronological default page will make more sense in the future when I’m not uploading everything all at once.

The one big news item and the reason for the massive push today is that “Star,” a track from the ages-old Ramp album, “Peristalsis,” was just featured as the outro music in Monkeyman Productions‘ excellent podcast, “Moonbase Theta, Out.” It’s a fascinating story, and you should all check it out. And if that’s how you found me, welcome! It’s a fascinating site and you should certainly check it out. 🙂 You can find that track in its full form along with all the other music (including downloads) on the Music filter.

I wish I had something new for you from the studio, but that’s likely a little ways off. Still, I have hopes. Until then, enjoy all the music, and with any luck, we’ll see each other again soon!

*tap, tap*

Is this machine recording?

…

Oh hey, hi! See that last post, dated half a year ago, saying that I was going to be reposting all the media shortly after having wiped the site due to possible security breaches? Guess who never actually did that?

Well, if it wasn’t me, this would be a super strange narrative.

My goal is to begin doing that today. That might involve figuring out exactly how I want to do that. If that doesn’t take a long time, I should be done in somewhat short order. If it does take a long time, then it takes a long time. I hope, however, that it won’t.

See you on the flip side! The dark side? The other side? Something like that.

Well, it turns out that this long-neglected site has been compromised a few times of late. Efforts were made to contain it at the time, but not to really repair the site. Finally, I decided that the best thing was to simply wipe the slate and start over. I’m re-uploading media and will put together new pages for the albums and songs soon. In the meantime, hang tight!