Mark Isham – Vapor Drawings (VG+/VG+) – LP, US 1984

Vapor Drawings is an LP by Mark Isham from 1984 released on the Windham Hill Records label.

About this album

Vapor Drawings is a graceful and quietly influential early statement from Mark Isham, blending ambient electronics, jazz phrasing and new age mood into a distinctive soundworld. Issued in 1983, the album highlighted Isham’s shift from trumpet-led improvisation towards atmospheric composition, with pieces that feel both cinematic and meticulously arranged. Its textures and melodic restraint helped define a more serious strain of early electronic ambient music, sitting between jazz, soundtrack writing and contemporary instrumental experimentation. The result is one of Isham’s most admired albums, notable for its calm intensity and lasting influence on later ambient and modern classical artists.