"New Age Music", search and destroy.

Star's End - 25 Significant STAR'S END Albums
http://www.starsend.org/25albums.html

Also, seconding the Deuter recommendation. Codona too, if they count. I guess I don't think of those records that way, but they do walk a fairly fine line.

http://usuarios.lycos.es/audionautas/Paranoias/michaelstearnsmid80s.jpg

I mean, I'd pick up an album of his in the '80's, flip it round, and see that on the back, and I'd have to fucking buy it!!

Take the NPR shows "Echoes" and "Music from the Hearts of Space", there are times those two shows are great and there are times where I cannot turn it off fast enough.

I'll be the first to admit, I can't take the celtic or indian flute music other than as musak, but I tune in as there have been a few times those shows are fantastic. Echoes did a two hour tribute to Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh when he passed away and had an hour with Brian Eno a month or so ago that was great.

"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"

You might be thinking of one of the recordings by the Deep Listening Band:

http://www.pofinc.org/DLBhome.html

in the early 80's, there wasn't really anything else like Stephen Hill's Hearts of Space program on the air... occasionally too much flute, but frequently it was just solid, bizarre electronic drone. also it was truly independent, he'd play weird cassette submissions you couldn't hear anywhere else.

>Deep Listening Band:

they made a few recordings in the water cistern. the debut album and The Ready Made Boomerang. (My favorite album of theirs is Non Stop Flight mainly for the last 50 minute track.)

Dempster returned to the cistern with 9 other trombonists for Underground Overlays, which is staggeringly gorgeous.

side 2 of L'Apocalypse Des Animaux. rules.

Both of the shows I mentioned are still play some obscure, unsigned artists. I listen to both quite often, usually as I go to bed.

Someone that I heard on "Echoes" that I would like to hear an album is Cliff Martinez. He played drums with Beefheart and was an early member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and now he makes film soundtracks including many for Stephen Soderberg including Solaris, Narc, and Traffic. I've actually not seen these movies, but the music they played was interesting and had some really interesting sounds.

FYI - I got a great album in the mail. Eluvium - An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death (temporaryresidence ltd.)

Its solo piano by a guy named Matthew Cooper. Like Sate, Winston, and Budd all wrapped up in a big sad ball. Really beautiful stuff.

Winston: Fascinating guy to talk to, and he's extremely talkative. Deeply encyclopedic in his musical knowledge when it comes to ragtime and New Orleans piano music, and completely dismissive of the "New Age" tag -- he prefers "folk piano," which is kind of silly (cue Tom Lehrer joke here). I've seen him live twice, and didn't regret it either time -- he spends more time playing interpretations of Randy Newman, Frank Zappa, the Doors, etc., than doing his own stuff. Pretty good guitarist and harmonica player in his own right as well. Easily the humblest platinum-selling artist around, and though he's a bit eccentric, there's nothing terribly New-Agey about the fellow.

At least early on, WH was a fascinating business -- they completely owned its market, and it got record stores to create "Windham Hill" sections, a remarkable accomplishment for any label, let alone a relatively small Bay Area indie. But the market got polluted with lots of Narada knockoff shit, and today Windham Hill drinks its own Kool-Aid, releasing junk like Lullaby that repurposes the mid-'80, Shadowfax-sick back catalog. There's some amusingly angry agitation against the label on its own Web site (www.windham.com), with old fans demanding the re-issues of the (good) old records, which the label or its BMG parent has refused to do.

ok, will keep an eye out.

http :// www.mgmusic. ltd .uk/default.asp

3,000,000 sales over the last 10yrs apparently. that's quite a lot! Who buys it? What's it like?

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Does Jarre count as New Age? I mean, his two first albums were obviously classic at least. And "Magnetic Fields", "Concerts In China", "Zoolook", "Rendez-Vous" and part two of "Oxygene" all have their moments too.

I taped a song off of the radio in 1991 from what I believe was a public radio station. I lost the tape a long time ago, but I keep hoping I'll find this piece of music again.

I'm not sure if it would be qualified as neo-classical or new age, but I'll try to describe it: Pianos. It had to have been multiple pianos. I believe there was also a harp, and possibly synth choir sounds down in the mix. Really fast playing, minor chord arpeggios, but gradual transitions between chord changes. It sounded like rain falling in notes. It was a powerful song, I suppose "uplifting" would be a good way to describe it. It was really blissed out, and very very full sounding. Nothing minimal about this song.

I can't expect anyone to name a song from that description, but does that sound like any artists you might know?

The closest I've heard to the overall sound is Enya and Yanni, but this was more mysterious and edgy than anything I've heard from Yanni, and Enya is unmistakable.

that description's pretty vague but there's a good chance you were listening to an episode of "music from the hearts of space"

good luck:

http://www.hos.com/php/programsByYear.php?copyrightYear=1991

listening now in fact, thank you and RIP

Douglas Mcgowan with a remembrance:

https://numerogroup.com/blogs/stories/master-wilburn-burchette-1939-2023

Also Bill Perrine, who just published a book on 1970s San Diego experimentalism and included Burchette as part of it, is asking for anyone who might be able to help in preservation of his material to contact him at bill at billingsgate dot org

oh unbelievable. i love his music so much. i had no idea he was 1) still alive and 2) so close by!

his music means a lot to me, so it’s frustrating how hard it is to get in physical form. i particularly like the one with the giant flaming eye ball floating in space like a flaming eye ball nebula. i feel like it speaks directly to my innermost self

i am waiting for the new bill perrine book to show up at the brick and mortar, instead of mail order from massachusetts or whatever. very excited for this one!!