Welcome To The New New Age…
One of the most exciting musical developments of the last year or two – for me at least – has been the rebirth of interest in what has loosely (and often derisively) been termed “New Age Music”. In the spirit of these newly enlightened times, I have put together a little mix of some of my favourite ambient/cosmic/electronic music.
These tracks stretch from ambient pioneers such as Vangelis and Steven Halpern (who some consider to be the originator of New Age Music), through Global Communication – creators of what I feel to be the best album of the ’90s ambient revival – and on to current electronic titans such as Emeralds and Oneohtrix Point Never. I also slotted in a couple of vaguely Chinese-themed tracks to reflect our band’s particular interests.
I would never claim to be anything approaching an expert in this field of music, and for further listening I would strongly suggest a visit to Crystal Vibrations. This blog (where, in fact, I sourced some of the more obscure early items in my mix) is run by the brilliant electronic composer Greg Davis and is, in my opinion, the best place to find out about good New Age Music. Well, without further ado, here it is:
Stream the mix
- Steven Halpern – Attunement 1
- Sean McCann – Stasis
- Stellar OM Source – Sand Lie
- Marc Barreca – School For Whales
- Vangelis – The Little Fete
- Oneohtrix Point Never – Months
- Christopher Franke – Electric Becomes Eclectic
- Emeralds – Goes By
- Global Communication – 4 14
- Rene Hell – Open Vic Flower
- Lucia Hwong – Generic Actress #3
- Michel Genest – Shangrila
I agree fully! There are some amazing records out there that have been overlooked or are maligned because of some new age reputation, but if you listen to a lot of these records, many of them are as beautiful and confounding as some of the best spacey krautrock music. And what’s great is a lot of this stuff still sits for dirt cheap in record shops. Here’s a list I made of some new age/ambient/electronic records I like: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/ignatius/aural_coma__an_account_of_my_top_ambient_drone_minimalist_new_age_
Love your band, BTW! Come to Seattle sometime!
Thanks Norm! I think that recent developments in underground/electronic music have shown that a lot of people feel the same way, so maybe past snobbery about this sort of music is finally on the way out. Some really awesome-looking stuff in your list, a lot of it I don’t know, so plenty of cool things to seek out! OK, well, cheers, hopefully we’ll make it to Seattle some day…