Simon Reynolds on the decade in ambient and new age

  On 2/3/2020 at 9:23 PM, Salvatorin said:

what the fuck kind of grammar is this?

I had a nightmare last night that people were playing really horrible new age music and I tried to sing over it so I wouldn't hear. Then I woke up to my own singing. Lol.

I think I need to give this a rest. *skis off to listen to rainforest spiritual enslavement*

There are degrees. Some of those early-mid 80’s synth sound signatures haven’t aged well.

The ambient thread here is prob one of the better ones for scope & detail, some wicked tracks.

@zkom this is your worst nightmare:

https://www.discogs.com/Merl-Saunders-Blues-From-The-Rainforest-A-Musical-Suite/release/1892351

  On 2/4/2020 at 3:35 PM, cwmbrancity said:

@zkom this is your worst nightmare:

https://www.discogs.com/Merl-Saunders-Blues-From-The-Rainforest-A-Musical-Suite/release/1892351

Yeah, lol it's pretty terrible

Anyway, people have their tastes and who am I to criticize? Fortunately I don't have to listen to this music, unless it's some backpacker bar in S.E. Asia but even then I can just get the fuck out. Also I think some of the new age stuff that was popular back in the 80s and 90s would not survive in the current culture wars and identity politics environment. Cultural appropriation much?  

  On 2/3/2020 at 4:05 PM, droid said:

Its a bit silly to dislike music based on an arbitrary application of a label. There's a ton of brilliant new age. Music from that tradition has as much of a claim to being ambient music as anything else, certainly more so than the avant roots that are normally cited for the genre. 

 

 

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This is stunning, almost “barely there”, but does so much with so little. Sublime.

There's a lot of new age stuff that just seems tagged with the label, a lot of the minimalist Japanese stuff for example (e.g. Hiroshi Yoshimura), but a lot of it came from the new age movement more generally (i.e. people involved in various woo-ey meditation, crystal healing, counter-culture offshoots, someone like Iasos say), there's some great music in both camps though, as well as plenty of cheese. 

I've found a bunch of great things like this over the last few years for example

Ha! Music for massage. One of my favourites. The liner notes are great. There's a track for each area of the body IIRC. Vol. 2 is essential as well.

Aye Caze, that Ojas album you linked us was lush

  On 2/3/2020 at 10:02 PM, ManjuShri said:

Colin Stetson is the name that immediately springs to mind wrt brass ambient/drone due to his circular breathing and neck/throat pickup technique.  Would be grateful for any recs from other people in this idea too.

 

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  On 2/3/2020 at 10:45 PM, droid said:

Every record with a trombone is brilliant, its one of the ur-ambient instruments.

 

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brasses are so fucking great thanks for these reccs

  On 2/3/2020 at 4:05 PM, droid said:

Its a bit silly to dislike music based on an arbitrary application of a label. There's a ton of brilliant new age. Music from that tradition has as much of a claim to being ambient music as anything else, certainly more so than the avant roots that are normally cited for the genre. 

 

 

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and the title trawk off this, see if the time-stamp works first from 54:40

  On 2/3/2020 at 4:49 PM, Atop said:

I wish we could put new age, ambient, and drone into one category. The individual artists will always be what truly matters.

This, much of the context regarding the use of "new age" as a descriptor is re-appropriating the term as a musical genre and ethos, like the term "world music" it was dragged down by late 80s and 90s era commercialization and appropriation to the point were it became a watered down superficial aesthetic - muzak, mall shops, and well, all the all but discarded pop culture minutia that vaporwave has since re-evaluated.

"New Age Music" included a lot of experimental and avant-garde music of the 1970s through 1990s - ambient, kosmische, drone, fusion, left-field jazz, etc. Part of it's resurgence has been the rediscovery of private press and/or niche releases from that era that were either skipped over because of the stigma of their overtly new age themes. This started in the 00s via reissues and re-evaluations of Laraaji, JD Emmanual,  Iasos, etc. Besides the Light In the Attic releases there have been reissues and new releases by rediscovered artists via Leaving Records and a plethora of tape rips via Sounds of the Dawn and various blogs and YT channels. It parallels similar re-discoveries of Japanese City Pop Hell, 80s and 90s era library music, leftfield and DIY electronic tape releases, etc. Hell even I've contributed to this. This tape I ripped and uploaded help shed light on the late Jaxon Crow of Texas, who was featured in a great write-up on Ultravillage.

Nice Youtube channel - I see you even have some Dan Gibson up there. Interested in some MP3 trades,? Youve got a few things there I dont have.

  On 2/6/2020 at 4:49 PM, joshuatxuk said:

This tape I ripped and uploaded 

Diolch yn fawr iawn

  On 2/6/2020 at 4:56 PM, droid said:

Nice Youtube channel - I see you even have some Dan Gibson up there. Interested in some MP3 trades,? Youve got a few things there I dont have.

eventually yes, I have a lot of stuff on a couple external HDs and no working PC at the moment

thanks for posting this here, cool seeing a WATMMer mentioned on a Simon Reynolds piece on RA

Rob Lowe’s sounds (solo, collabs & Lichens) fit that space beyond bs gallery, theory-driven wank Reynolds described as Conceptronica

the more you dig, the more you find:

https://www.discogs.com/artist/630881-Robert-Lowe-2

https://www.discogs.com/artist/376305-Lichens

https://www.discogs.com/Robert-Aiki-Aubrey-Lowe-Ariel-Kalma-We-Know-Each-Other-Somehow/release/6902541

Lastly, Ariel Kalma is someone who’s maintained quality control across a raft of decades, can seem quite new-age at times, but overall continues to inspire. Very humble bloke too.

*side note - wonder what tunes have been played at the Esalen Institute over the years.

Kind of related. Black Swan's new Evolution EP inspired by obscure 80s new age cassettes was just released: https://blackswan.bandcamp.com/album/evolution-ep-2020

Digging this.

  On 2/3/2020 at 10:02 PM, ManjuShri said:

Colin Stetson is the name that immediately springs to mind wrt brass ambient/drone due to his circular breathing and neck/throat pickup technique.  Would be grateful for any recs from other people in this idea too.

 

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Colin Stetson pulls more from the "minimalists" like Reich and Glass. It's not really drone or ambient.