"Any New Age Music Listeners Out There?"

George Winston
Liz Story
Michael Hedges
Shadowfax
Mark Issam
William Ackerman
Phillip Aaberg
Nightnoise
Alex DiGrassi

Those are my favorites...play 'em a lot...mostly on vinyl.
 
Group 87 put out 2 really good albums, the first self-titled and the second the humorously named "A Career In Dada Processing." Both good examples of what the genre can be when its good.

I also liked Vollenweider in his early years.
 
????????

New Age?
Every few yrs down through the last 50 or so it seems everything I heard was titled New Something! I got so accustomed to this and loved so much of this "New" that it has become part of my Audio Trip.As far as actual names/groups/bands I don't have any,just the Music that I have liked many and that's about it:):thmbsp:
 
Everyone knows that if you listen to Rock music backwards, you get Satanic messages.

And if you play Country music backwards, you get your gun back, your dog back, your truck back, your house back, then, finally, your wife back.

So, what do you get if you play New Age music backwards??

-k


What I take from this is the lesson that it is perfectly OK to indulge in backwards playing of country music. But you have to be extra careful about knowing precisely when to stop.
 
I raided the New Age section of my local public library a few years back and copied about 25 CD's for review, not knowing what to expect.

The artists, album titles, and compilations from the lot that I have come to enjoy, and have listened to many times:

Steven Halpern - IMO a lot of his stuff sounds similar but "Deja Blues" is a departure and very nice
David Darling "Cello Blue"
Jack De Jonette " Music in the Key of Om"
George Winston "Forest" I like, not so much "Summer"
Troika "Shaman"

The Impressionists - a Windham Hill sampler of 19th century French compositions that reminds me of chamber music (maybe that is what it is IDK)
Musical Massage: Resonance
Reiki: Mind, Body and Soul Series
 
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Do any of you try have those more esoteric "new age" (for want of a better term) CDs with wind chimes, or the ocean or forest sounds.... or rain falling?
 
If you want to have fun with the ambient side of New Age music there are three iOS app's from Steve Roach, and Eric Freeman you can use. Immersion Station I, II, and III They are all available on iTunes.

An interesting story about Immersion Station. I was over at a friends house. They had a very fussy baby. I accidentally started Immersion Station II on my iPod Touch 5 the speaker on the Touch is not the best but it was good enough for that child to hear it and it settled him down right away. Cindy gave Paul one of those looks an he was out the door to purchase an iPod Touch like mine. They have it in a docking station with speakers and Paul tells me they are having a much easier time with their son now.
 
Do any of you try have those more esoteric "new age" (for want of a better term) CDs with wind chimes, or the ocean or forest sounds.... or rain falling?

There are a whole series of these natural soundscapes some are pure environmental sounds while others have electronic sound enhancement.
The very best of these recordings are done binaurally you listen to them with sound isolating headphones close you eyes and you are there. Go here to listen to some. If you have never listened to a Binaural recording before you will not believe what you are hearing. :D Go here:

https://soundcloud.com/groups/binaural-recording
 
One of my favorite new age albums is The Velocity of Love by Suzanne Ciani. I became aware of Ms. Ciani through her sound work on a pinball game (Bally's Xenon). Reminds me that I need to seek out her other pieces.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
 
I also love Brian Eno's "Ambient" series of recordings, especially I (Airports) and IV (On Land) and the more recent Lux. IV (On Land) reminds me a lot of Robyn Miller's great sound design on the computer game RIVEN (part of the Myst series). I (Airports) is almost trance-like where IV is more situational/emotional.
 
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In retrospect, many of the first CDs I bought were Windham Hill. I was probably 16 at the time, and wanted to try DDD albums and I'll bet I saw an ad or review in Stereo Review. I remember listening to Liz Story, Kitaro, Flim and the BBs, Spyro Gyra, Tangerine Dream, etc. I wonder where all those CDs ended up...

On a side note a good friend of mine from college has become a rising star in contemporary new age music. Her name (these days) is Onyay Pheori. Check out her stuff, you might like it!

http://www.onyaypheorimusic.com/
 
Do any of you try have those more esoteric "new age" (for want of a better term) CDs with wind chimes, or the ocean or forest sounds.... or rain falling?

Yes, guess it could be called "environmental music".
Tony O'Connor that I mentioned earlier fits this description.
A couple of his titles I own include:
Rainforest Magic
Kakadu
Bushland Dreaming

I highly recommend these :)

Roger
 
Here's the Catch 22 for me:

I intuitively define New Age Music to be music written to relax me, remove thoughts and tensions, etc.

So, as soon as I start actively liking something, I automatically stop thinking of it as New Age.

-k
 
can someone please explain....

It seems to me that "New Age" is a vague grouping that includes many different sub-genres. I am looking for what I believe to be a sub-set of New Age.

What I am curious about is a type of music where there is no discernible tempo. Not to say that there is an absence of drums or percussion, although neither of these would be necessary for the musical style that I am thinking of.

A kind of floating, drifting, ethereal sound where, again, there is no tempo.

In post #27 Kreshna used the phrase "ambient trance" and I thought that might be a match. But I checked out all of those links and each selection did have a discernible tempo. All very nice sounding stuff but not what I am trying to describe here.

Anybody know what it is I am grasping for here, lol? Does it have a name?
 
It seems to me that "New Age" is a vague grouping that includes many different sub-genres. I am looking for what I believe to be a sub-set of New Age.

What I am curious about is a type of music where there is no discernible tempo. Not to say that there is an absence of drums or percussion, although neither of these would be necessary for the musical style that I am thinking of.

A kind of floating, drifting, ethereal sound where, again, there is no tempo.

In post #27 Kreshna used the phrase "ambient trance" and I thought that might be a match. But I checked out all of those links and each selection did have a discernible tempo. All very nice sounding stuff but not what I am trying to describe here.

Anybody know what it is I am grasping for here, lol? Does it have a name?

ambient
 
Jonn Serrie is my favorite. Listening to his music is like having your own private space ship to traverse the galaxies. Or maybe that's the dope. :smoke: I kid!
 
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