Safety in Numbers is the second studio album by American progressive electronic composer and percussionist David Van Tieghem, released in 1987 by Private Music. Van Tieghem and Roma Baran produced the album. It was recorded at two separate recording studios in New York City, Battery Sound and Skyline Studios. Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra recorded his overdubs at Avic Studio in Tokyo. The sounds and sequences were digitally transferred to floppy disks and sent to Skyline Studio in New York, where they were realized onto multitrack tape by David Lebolt via Macintosh computer, MIDI interface and Mark of the Unicorn Performer software.
Tony Levin, the longtime bassist for progressive rock band King Crimson, plays Chapman Stick on the track "Night of the Cold Noses". Safety in Numbers music has been described as a "downtown" mix of pop, new-age, percussion music and electronic music. The album makes extensive use of the Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesizer.
After its original release, the album remained out-of-print on any format for many years. However, the album became available in 2017 via online MP3 download on Bandcamp.
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, critic "Blue" Gene Tyranny (who also played piano on "Crystals" from the album) wrote, "not comfortably labeled New Age, or percussion music, or pop, or electronic music, Van Tieghem's music has that "downtown" mix of all these and yet is distinctly his own...from the lush "Crystals" to the droll and rhythm steady "Night of the Cold Noses." This is twisted "easy listening."
Credits are adapted from the Safety in Numbers liner notes.
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