I think I had the same reaction that Darren Bergstein had. This is very shocking and unexpected news, and a great loss in the ambient music field. My first exposure to Barry's music was in 1994, thanks to Robert Morris, a really enthusiastic ambient fan who ran a small mail-order business called "Dangerous Dharma" in the Bay Area. I think "A Smooth Surface" and "Land of a Thousand Trances" were some of my first CD purchases from RM. Backroads also supplied A Produce stuff I bought later. I remember the article on A Produce in I.E. Those were the days, pre-Internet, when everything was by word of mouth, 'zines, telephone, and the dinosaur now known as the record store. I loved the detailed liner notes in the TrancePort releases as far as instrumentation and the Eno-esque descriptions of instruments/sounds. It was obvious Barry's music was influenced heavily by Budd and Eno, not just in style but also in the process of making music, a kind of "emotional intellectualism", if you will. His music always had a very mysterious quality to it that was unique and unlike a lot of his contemporaries.
My condolences to his family, friends, and fellow musicians who knew him.