"New Age Music", search and destroy.

I need to re-read this thread, probably, but what about those Steven Halpern records that sound almost like the more meditative Return to Forever pieces? Some of those are pretty cool, if one has a weakness for Fender Rhodes indulgiencia.

One of the reasons that I like that Waxidermy website is b/c they address interesting examples of new age odds and ends that I imagine most people could give a toss about or would condemn in kneejerk fashion.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/donslepian

if you like Structures From Silence & Stearns' Planetary Unfolding, you definitely want Slepian's Sea of Bliss / Sonic Perfume. sometimes it's too light for me, but sometimes it's just perfect.

made on the Alles, the same synth Laurie Spiegel used for her 70's pieces

i just got these on vinyl recently and i've been digging them:

steven halpern - zodiac suite (soundscape II)

steven halpern - spectrum suite (soundscape I)

Yes, I have a nice gatefold copy of Sonic Seasonings with the poster. It's good... though I prefer her soundtrack work and the aforementioned Beauty in the Beast.

Also, love the Tangerine Dream (70s model), and Harold Budd. Some Vangelis and Tomita. I need to comb through here for more good ideas as I am WAY down with good New Age musics.

from that clusterfuck genre thread, my off the cuff new age recommends:

new age: lotsa Eno, early Deuter, Manuel Gottsching, Steve Roach, Gabrielle Roth, Robert Rich, O Yuki Conjugate, Liz Story, Harold Budd, Philip Perkins, Jon Hassell (especially Aka Darbari Java), maybe some Andrew Deutsch or Jliat if you wanna cross over into drone.

some of those may be debatable but I stand by it.

jon hassell has been suggested for at least three of these threads lately, and in each case it seems appropriate. really want to hear 'power spot' and ''aka darbari java'

My favorite new age records:

Graham Lambkin - salmon ron
Rafael Toral - Violence of discovery...
Aphex Twin - stone in focus

what about spectral music, like the Grisey partiels and shit. There's a thread about spectral music?

can't link images from rateyourmusic

Sure you can!

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/s1818249.jpg

(click to enlarge)

i just got these on vinyl recently and i've been digging them:

steven halpern - zodiac suite (soundscape II)

steven halpern - spectrum suite (soundscape I)

Yeah, I remember Spectrum Suite being really great and having tracks devoted to balancing each chakra or some such.

I have this record by him called "Christening for Listening: A Soundtrack for Every Body" which includes these priceless liner notes:
...Christening for Listening is unique in that it is original music composed in a style suggested intuitively by the plants' own biorhythms, and is particularly sensitive and applicable to the needs of these serene green neighbors. Our recent research involving GSR polygraphs and Kirlian photography demonstrated that the most consistent, significant degree of postive affective response was found to relate to music that was in harmony with plants' slower tempo of movement." Put less scientifically, the plants dug this music-- and it showed up dramatically in the measurements.

It seems plants dance to the beat of a different drummer-- their own green beat as it were. They are able to respond to the fundamental element of music-- namely, tone-- without getting hung up in analytical interpretations. And in so doing, they participate in a viable "hear-and-now" musical gestalt...

what about spectral music, like the Grisey partiels and shit. There's a thread about spectral music?

there certainly should be -- there's these:
Gérard Grisey
Iancu dumitrscu and Ana Maria Avram: C/D, S/D

that's anything but new age though

Jon Hassell -- Classic Or Dud?
Steve Roach -- the endlessly meditative thread
Harold Budd - search and destroy

ok Iasos

Inter-Dimensional Music Through Iasos from 1975 is mostly flute-heavy drifty modal jazz, with a few 5 or 6 minute all electronic tracks that foreshadow real space music, but I just discovered the followup Angelic Music originally released on cassette in 1978, and I can understand his reputation now, this is distinct from most of the analog synth / space music of the 70's & looks forward to the good aspects of later New Age like Michael Stearns & Steve Roach. It follows on from side 2 of Vangelis' L'Apocalypse Des Animaux, but with two 30 minute long tracks that give you time to go a little deeper. This is exactly what I remember almost any given episode of Music From The Hearts of Space sounding like in the 80's -- back then I was on the fence about the whole genre but it's catching up to me now with a vengeance

http://iasos.com/detalist/angelic/

it's funny sometimes how threads get bumped on ilx and it happens to coincide with what you wanna read about at that moment. I overdosed on tangerine dream just last night and surely some of theirs is new age.

and i heard this beautiful recording once of nothing but droning trombones taped in some underground catacombs and i forget the title and it's been bugging me for years.
― scott seward (scott seward), den 23 mars 2004 18:01 (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
did you ever find out what it was? I badly want to hear this.

it was this, but i still haven't bought a copy. and apparently my memory is of hearing only trombones, but there are other instruments involved as well:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LB2kaFcKL._SS500_.jpg

(actually, looking at this amazon page now, there are solo and group trombone pieces on the dempster album. those are what i heard. though according to someone up top on this thread he made later trombone recordings in his giant cistern, so i can't be 100% positive. i always forget to look for his CDs.)

this also looks cool and i wanna hear it:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4182WVXD1PL._SS500_.jpg

that is _the_ Dempster album. He took ten students into the cistern with 45 seconds of natural acoustic reverb, and had them stand in a circle around the perimeter. then he stood in the center, and played slow notes holding his horn up into the center of the room. whenever he wanted a note sustained, he'd lower the horn until it was pointing at one of his students, and they'd pick up the note and hold it. it's an amazing piece of music.

same cistern as the first two Deep Listening records were recorded. I can't believe more people don't record there, though a more abstract bowed metal improv was done there recently by the group Doublends Vert -- if you like bowed metal albums, you want a copy of that album

xpost In The Great Abbey is just as good, but it's a solo record so it is a little less epic, more about details and contemplation

& by 'that it _the_ Dempster album I was referring to Underground Overlays

you could put the abbey record on the shelf next to:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Z3ER04RZL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

paul horn got inside a lot of stuff. i like his taj mahal record too. he should make a record inside my basement.

haven't heard that one, always read about it. it's just echoey goodness w/ trumpet?

flute. he would sneak his tape recorder into places like the taj mahal and the pyramid and play very lovely and droney flute. sounds amazing.

now I remember seeing that album in the bins, when it had this cover: http://cdbaby.com/cd/paulhorn4

ok this is pretty spaced, this goes on the list

he's definitely one of the pioneers of new age! you know? as well as a well-respected jazz dude. i've never heard the later stuff or his collabs with asian/world musicians. stuff like this:

http://store.canyonrecords.com/media/ccp0/prodsm/7020.jpg

such a hip dude. where is his hipster renaissance!?

http://www.dougpayne.com/horn.jpg

I don't consider Dempster a "New Age" artist at all. His albums are all on New Music (that 80's term for minimalist influenced modern work by academic composers) labels, and all of his collaborators (Pauline Oliveros, Peter Ward, Ellen Fullman etc) all have similar backgrounds.

Speaking of Fullman (and trombones), Fluctuations her 2008 improv collaboration with trombonist Monique Buzzarte, deserved its place on the Wire Rewind main list. Available on emusic, and there's a good 10 minute sample of a piece here: http://www.rootstrata.com/rootblog/?p=304

so Underground Overlays is a must-find then. Amazon says something about tibetan cymbals in the mix as well but I'm all up for that.

paul horn also produced one of the mellowest grooviest psychfolk records of all time:

http://www.geocities.com/asdfasedf2/ptarmigan.jpg

ok this is an off handed slow-day-at-the-office list of the forerunner New Age albums, the 70's ones released the decade before the genre name stuck...

Paul Horn - Inside The Taj Mahal
Henry Wolff & Nancy Hennings - Tibetan Bells
Vangelis - L'Apocalypse Des Animaux
Deuter - D / Aum
Popol Vuh - In Den Gärten Pharaos
Gail Laughton - Harps of the Ancient Temples
Eberhard Schoener - Meditation
Wendy Carlos - Sonic Seasonings
Tangerine Dream - Zeit
Eno - Discreet Music / Ambient 1
Peter Michael Hamel - Nada
Steve Hillage - Rainbow Dome Musick
Ash Ra Tempel - Inventions For Electric Guitar
Iasos - Angelic Music
David Hykes & The Harmonic Choir - Hearing Solar Winds
Kitaro - Silk Road (I still can't do this one myself)
Michael Stearns - Morning Jewel
Environments (especially #2 - Tintinnabulation & #7 - Intonation)

"I don't consider Dempster a "New Age" artist at all."

i brought up the dempster stuff on this thread cuz they used to play him on the new age radio show i used to listen to years ago in philly. they would play all kinds of stuff. krautrock, philip glass, electronic stuff, as well as more standard fare. anything you could smoke to or commune with angels with.

i dig a bunch of those. the cool thing about new age stuff is that i can still find it all fairly cheaply. well, not ash ra tempel records, but most of the other stuff. and i have a bunch of groovy private press records that i will have to digitize someday. and tapes! i still find privately released electronic new age stuff at the thrift store. tons of crystal worship suites and the like.

I dig most of them, some of them more on some days than others. things like Don Slepian's Sea of Bliss & Roach's Structures From Silence & Stearns' Planetary Unfolding definitely have things going for them, but they don't always reward deeper listening, they really are ephemeral mood music pieces

xpost not going to go too much into Ellen Fullman on a New Age thread! she's fantastic though, she needs her own thread. Staggered Stasis & her records with Sean Meehan are my favorites.

some of these really are on their own level, that David Hykes record & the Wendy Carlos are bigger than any label. things like the Stearns and this fucking Angelic Music record, if the 17 year old me had known he would have leapt through the dimensional gate to strangle me to death if he'd known it would come to this, but I am simply a mellow guy now

I like my New Age dished out in brutal chunks, floating an inch above the plate:

3. "THE ANGELS OF COMFORT" (10:59)
The Angels of Comfort are the carriers and distributors of a golden-pink energy called the Comfort Flame - an energy specifically created to bring comfort to all Life, wherever it is needed. This energy was created when humanity began experimenting with free will in a manner wherein they began creating discomfort for themselves. These angels "deliver" this energy wherever they are sent, whenever they are called forth, and wherever they are requested. (Note: This is the "original" version of "The Angels of Comfort", from which the extended half-hour version was made and included in Iasos' "Angelic Music" album.)
Recommended Focus: "I AM a Comfort to all Life."

you know what's really exciting? i have this great record from 1977 called *Cosmic Celebration* which was a live performance of a cosmic mass done in boston and you can not only get a cd of the album now, but a dvd of the mass!!! it's sufi-rific. um, i might actually be the only one excited by this news. and who knows if i will actually shell out for the dvd. it's a VERY new age album. more new age than it is sufi mystikal.

http://www.omegatheater.org/images/cosmiccdinsert.jpg

http://www.omegatheater.org/photoscosmicalbum/Album_Cover.jpg

http://www.omegatheater.org/cosmic-celebration.php

When you come down to it New Age and New Music are mostly marketing labels, and there is of course a lot of sonic crossover.

John Schaefer on WNYC has done a show called "New Sounds" for 26 years now, and his 1987 survey New Sounds: A Listener's Guide to New Music was probably my introduction to just about everything from Steve Reich to Steve Roach.

yeah that New Sounds book was golden. so many comprehensive reviews, and he went far across the genre lines, from the serious stuff to the sufiest, as long as it was interesting music. I inhaled that book whole in the late 80's, and reread it two years ago and thank god he wrote it, not only is it good to have it all under one cover, so many of those things are long out of print or only came out on cassette, that book is a precious document

i'm with you on the mellow. i like stuff like this:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/armstronglaroche4

(they were on philo, the folk label, originally. i have a nice promo copy and every time i think about maybe putting it on ebay or something i play it and i'm reminded how lovely it is!)

We should probably have a thread on modern Masses. There's Arvo Part's De Profundus, David Hyke's album Harmonic Meetings pretty much has the form, Daniel Lentz's "Missa Umbrarum"...there's a Lebanese female Christian chant album entitled Divine Rites credited to Vox...

Though that last album (Vox - Divine Rites) isn't really in mass form. Its rather similar to the Jocelyn Montgomery & David Lynch album of modern Hildegard interpretations, Lux Vivens, only with an oriental cast.

well start the thread, most of what I know about modern choral music is all secular & depraved so it'd be a nice break

the online samples of that 'Cosmic Celebration' record are beautiful! they really pulled it off, seems like

okay, obviously i don't read carefully enough. no need to send them my 40 bucks for this:

"DVD of a slide show of the Cambridge 1983 Production with some slides from others, with an introduction, and two Cable T.V. interviews and a live performance piece from the production: $40, plus shipping"

i was hoping they had the cosmic cameras rolling in 1977 :(

wow thanks for reminding me about stuart dempster. i really dig 'underground overlays', and i agree that calling him 'new age' is a stretch.

i saw him talk with ramon sender, morton subotnick, and don buchla (inventor of the buchla box- he even brought it along!), among others, when the book about the san francisco tape music center came out a few months back. i guess dempster played trumpet tones in the broadway tunnel as a part of sender, ken dewey, and anthony martin's "city scale" piece/installation in 1963. i guess the piece required audience members to be shuttled around town to experience things like said tunnel, a woman in a storefront window singing debussy, a 'book returning' ceremony at city lights, light projections on to the side of a wells fargo, and a lot more as depicted in the super abstract score in the book

I love Iasos' "Inter-Dimensional Music", if that counts.

welcome to the slippery slope, space brother

xpost Tony Martin / Ramon Sender play 'Desert Ambulance' w/ Pauline on Feb 22

I would pay all this money for Unarius Documentaries Soundtrack CD box set

i wonder if they can still be contacted. you could make some sweet compilations of this type of stuff... http://www.globalpeacefoundation.org/Video/GlobalPeaceCenter/GlobalPeaceCenter2.mov

thanks for the heads up about desert ambulance, btw. i will definitely be in attendance

Unarius is absolutely still active, they have a booth every year at the Whole Earth Expo. Video artist / scholar Nate Boyce took Drew & Martin & I on a expedition / homage trip to buy DVDR transfers of their films, and they were good people. The late 70's / early 80's was the heyday for their video production team, they're mostly recycling the effects from their early films, but anyone who's seen those early films agree that they are unconditional classics.

I just bought this for $2 the other day:

http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_lrg_images/203/60185203.jpg

/ recycling the effects from their early films these days... but they still believe

ok I made a seperate thread: UNARIUS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE

tell me this guy didn't have somewhat of an impact on the eventual arbitrary coloring scheme of the images coming back from hubble

http://iasos.com/artists/chandler/

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

and his record 'Starscapes' from 1980 is exactly the thing

We'd go through a whole box of Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger in a night.