Defending the Indefensible: Windham Hill

Never in a million billion years did I think I would ever be excited about anything the Windham Hill label — but here I am.

The first few Will Ackerman records are all very reminiscent of the oddball folky weirdo acoustic guitar noodlers (John Fahey and Leo Kottke, most obviously). Really been getting a lot out of them lately.

Picked up a couple Michael Hedges albums too (Breakfast and Aerial Boundaries). They're nothing if not technically impressive. Good tunes in there, too.

The only George Winston I've heard (Winter Into Spring) was so reminiscent of Keith Jarrett's 70's solo piano stuff for ECM that, being a fan of that stuff, I took to very easily.

Will Ackerman's 'Passage' been getting a lot of play around these parts, love Windham Hill vibes

yes! i think i found it for 50p somewhere and just liked the cover a lot, and it turned out to be a really present surprise

I think I put it on in a friend's apartment many years ago and straight up asked if I could have it. She gave it to me!

Every Ackerman album up till like 86 or so has worthwhile moments, though admittedly it's diminishing returns after 83's Past Light (the last one I like unreservedly). There was even a late 90s one my dad had that I remember liking but can't remember which one

Scott Cossu and Eugene Friesen’s REUNION is gorgeous

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L6FL1bedwe4

Agree with the Mark Islam love, too. Amazing composer and trumpeter

I have been returning to Aerial Boundaries a fair bit of late. This old fella needs the calm. I could probably do without the flute but it's used pretty sparingly.

i'm of the opinion sparing use of flute is almost always a good thing, except where Joan Baez and most Jethro Tull are concerned.

I spent way too much time making radio masters of Windham Hill holiday specials -- yes, this was over 20 years ago, but the trauma remains. ... the only defensible things are: (1) I got paid (2) while listening to this wretched music, I did regularly eat some tasty fried zucchini strips from the 24 hour Carl's Jr

I can guess at why a lot of this stuff is held in such low regard, but the thing that stands out to me is how the good bits i've heard hit the same pleasure centres as a lot of the ECM material I like best does. ECM are obviously hip as fuck. Windham clearly not... but their sleeve design dept was obviously trying to do very similar things. is ECM just german/scandi and thus foreign enough to have some sort of chic strangeness to it that good old American hippies can't also share?

I feel like ECM has been a four letter word among record collectors until fairly recently

I must admit that I've had a deep fascination with this mid-80s Will Ackerman album since I first heard it. I was often afraid of going to sleep as a child and would sit on my bedroom floor in silence, wrapping myself in a blanket and staring out of the window up at the moon for as long as I could. Maybe it's because the title evokes those memories — but even so, it still strikes me as a somewhat unique album for his 80s output. It's got a certain melancholy to it that just seems unique.

I think the thing with Windham Hill is that it was very hit or miss. For every solid Ackerman or Hedges album they released, it felt like there were two or three albums that were the exact kind of overly syrupy stock new age dreck that got the new age label a bad reputation to begin with.

And yes, I remember back in the late 90s and all through the 2000s working in record stores, admitting to liking ECM stuff was. . . well, an admission.

yeah ... I still kinda cringe at a lot of ECM stuff

That's your problem! This stuff is great

The two Interior albums are excellent Japanese ambient-pop outliers on WH, especially the first one produced by Haruomi Hosono.

breaking out the 1984 sampler on this icy Saturday

Winter’s Solstice got a play this year, still love that Qualey version of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”