Dark Entries helps Suzanne Ciani come out of the closet as Steve! Legendary composer sound designer and Buchla maestra Suzanne Ciani has a staggering list of accolades and accomplishments from scoring Hollywood films to releasing influential new age records to literally designing the Coca-Cola bottle-opening sound. In the late 70s/early 80s Ciani while living in New York acquired an Eventide H 949 harmonizer which offered high fidelity pitch-shifting. In her words “When I adjusted the pitch of my voice to 0.80 my natural voice became re-invented as what was clearly a gay man who I called Steve. I became Steve; and Steve expressed himself as only he could.” Ciani adopted the male persona and collaborated with Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream on “Steve Goes to a Party.” The track features Ciani-as-Steve adlibbing in decadent and delirious fashion alongside Baumann’s robotically funky beats. Steve would emerge again a few years later at George Louvis’s Stardust Studios in New Jersey to create “Steve Saves the World” an absurdist and ecstatic proto-house groover complete with a gospel-esque chorus from the Stardust All-Stars. This EP is rounded out by a birthday wish to Ciani’s then-boyfriend Alfred on “Steve Happy Birthday Wishes” featuring Suzanne. Steve’s Out of the Closet perfectly captures the delirious techno-poptimism of the 1980s downtown avant-garde with parallels in Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives or Lynn Goldsmith’s project Will Powers responsible for the track “Adventures in Success.” The Steve sleeve was designed by Eloise Shir-Juen Leigh and the record also includes a birthday card with liner notes from Ciani.