Kitaro - Ten Kai (aka Astral Trip/Astral Voyage) (1978)

Debut album by Masanori "Kitarō" Takahashi, who would go on to become a global new age/world music superstar.  The former member of Far East Family Band started his lengthy solo discography with the 1977-78 recording of Ten Kai, blending electronic prog with Japanese instruments, sitar and percussion.  Other than the sitar, biwa and shakuhachi performed by guest musicians, everything is played by Kitaro: acoustic guitar, bass, percussion, Moog and other synths, koto and mandolin.

The tracks on Ten Kai/Astral Trip (later reissued by Geffen as Astral Voyage) are mostly segued, making for an immersive suite evocative of seas and stars.  I think I was expecting more full-on electronica, possibly having read a lazy description of Kitaro at this stage as a "Japanese Vangelis", but the synths are mostly used sparingly, and to great effect.  Micro Cosmos marks the first track substantially based on electronics, which segues into the remarkable Beat (that bass squelch is almost like proto-acid, in 1978!).  The acoustic guitars on Fire made me think of Tangerine Dream circa Stratosfear.

The album's second half is more synth-centric, with highlights include the melodic Dawn Of The Astral (okay, maybe there is a slight Vangelis influence in this one), gently twinkling space-ambience of Endless Dreamy World, and the lengthy closer Astral Trip.  Not sure what its opening sound effects are meant to represent - someone stepping into a spaceship?  Anyway, this album is highly enjoyable trip into the cosmos.

Original LP cover, 1978 (image at top: 1985 Geffen reissue)

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Tom Newman - Bayou Moon (1985)

Okay, in that cover image we may have a literal example of 80s New Age looming large over the artistic stylings of a musician/producer who'd been around since the 70s, but I do like this one for its guitar sounds and atmospherics.  Tom Newman is perhaps best known for helping a certain latterday space-botherer build the Manor Studio and launch the careers of Virgin Records and Mike Oldfield, and he released three prog-ish solo albums between '75 and '77.

Come the mid 80s, Newman signed with Coda (a new age imprint of Beggars Banquet) for a couple of releases, Bayou Moon being the first.  Intending to evoke "the swamplands and the everglades of the Mississippi Delta", the album has a fair bit of Paris Texas-esque guitar twanging that sounds very nice, particularly when the backing isn't too busy, such as on Fur Traders Descending The Missouri and Voodoo De Bayou.  Moonrise is a particularly interesting track in its arrangement, with a large synth swell midway through giving way to a jaunty harmonica/percussion/synth section.  In fact, the only real stinkers here are Gumbo Fling and its three reprises - seriously, it will get on your nerves so much by the end it's perhaps advisable to just skip each iteration.

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Michael Jones / David Lanz - Solstice (1985)

Merry Christmas, everyone!  Hope you're having a good one, and getting some time to relax and reflect.

Here's a nice mellow half-hour in the company of two pianists associated with the Narada new age label, in a side-each split LP from 1985.  First up is Michael Jones, turning in a lengthy improvisation around Good King Wenceslas, then turning Carol Of The Bells into an extended snowfall of gentle arpeggios.  David Lanz's side takes in the Greensleeves-variant What Child Is This, then closes the record with his Improvisation On A Theme of Pachelbel's Canon.

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Previously posted featuring Michael Jones: Amber

Popol Vuh - Sei Still, Wisse Ich Bin (1981)

Popol Vuh entered the 80s with one of their darkest, most ritualistic albums.  The base of their sound was still the layers of Daniel Fichelscher's chiming guitars, and Florian Fricke's piano somewhere in the mix, but the songs were becoming ever more minimal in their trance-inducing, mantric repetition.  Renate Knaup, who was now the main vocalist, has said of her time in Popol Vuh that "Florian's music makes you feel stoned when you sing it; the repetition makes you high".

After an initial blast of the Bavarian State Opera Choir, opener Wehe Khorazin settles into the first "yehung" chant of many by 80s Vuh.  This is often assumed to mean "hand in hand", as it appears alongside this phrase on the back of the Spirit Of Peace LP.  "Yehung" and "hand in hand" are however the alternating lyrics of Take The Tension High on that album, and I reckon they're just meant to be printed as lyrics, rather than a translation. "Yehung" may have some religious root, or it could just be a chant made up by Fricke that sounds good, like the "Haram dei"'s on Letzte Tage.  Anyway, enough about that.

The next track intensifies the ritual atmosphere with just percussion and chanting, before Garten Der Gemeinschaft closes the album's first half on a more calming note, led by Fricke's piano.  The second half is in a similarly less intense vein, more akin to previous Popol Vuh albums, or indeed what was to come for the rest of the 80s.  The highlight here is the lengthy Lass Los, which starts from a choral introduction and then bursts into a familiar Fichelscher chime as the vocals combine the album's Biblical title "Be still, know that I am" with the song title and more "yehung".  The little melodic motif that stretched across Popol Vuh's career (I think Fricke called it "Little Warrior") makes an appearance at the end of the final track, capping off another wonderful, if a bit darker than usual, Vuh album.  Another one next week, which I always felt was too obvious to post - but let's face it, it's too good not to.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Seligpreisung
Einsjäger & Siebenjäger
Aguirre
Das Hohelied Salomos
Letzte Tage - Letzte Nächte
Coeur De Verre
Brüder des Schattens - Söhne des Lichts
Florian Fricke - Die Erde Und Ich Sind Eins

Michael Harrison - In Flight (1987)

Ignore the slightly corny album cover - this album is sublime.  From the mid 80s, American pianist Michael Harrison pioneered the "harmonic piano", using just intonation.  The second and third tracks here are played in this arrangement, adding a whole new angle on the solo piano genre that had become seriously overcrowded by 1987.  The Swan Has Flown To The Mountain Lake in particular is a gorgeous piece, and the longest on the album.

Reverting to standard intonation elsewhere, Harrison proves himself a great melodic and harmonic player with a nimble, meditative touch.  The opening title track had appeared on a Windham Hill piano sampler in 1985 (which I'm sure I have on cassette somewhere), but rather than commit to the label Harrison stepped sideways to another New Age powerhouse, Fortuna, for this album.  It's well produced, with just enough reverb to work in favour of this beautiful, sometimes trancelike music.

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Tim Story - Glass Green (1987)

A few years down the line from their beginnings in solo instrumental music (see links below), Windham Hill began to diversify into more New Agey world music, jazz fusion, and ambient loveliness like today's post.  So to complete my collection from the label for now, here's the Windham Hill debut (he'd stay for one more release) by Philly-born ambient composer Tim Story.

Glass Green is a fitting album title for this kind of music: bright but diffuse, and beautifully melodic whilst staying on the right side of sacchrine.  It sounds quite digital; Story's hardware used on the record isn't specified, but well employed across ten atmospheric sketches that sometimes bring to mind the Eno & Budd collaborations.  It's also occasionally reminscent of Roedelius from a similar era, someone Story would go on to collaborate with (that's coming up in a week or two), as well as working with Moebius just before the latter's death.

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Windham Hill at SGTG:
Piano Solos | Autumn | December (George Winston)
Solid Colors | Unaccountable Effect (Liz Story)
Southern Exposure (Alex De Grassi)
Breakfast In The Field | Aerial Boundaries (Michael Hedges)
An Evening With Windham Hill Live (Various Artists)

Windham Hill Artists - An Evening With Windham Hill Live (1983)

An Evening With... was a star-studded 'live sampler' album issued by Windham Hill in their first flush of major success.  From the liner notes: "On October 9th, 1982, a group of ten Windham Hill musicians gathered for two shows at the Berklee Performance Center, Boston, Massachusetts. It was during those two shows that these recordings were made."

It's a treat to hear all these great musicians out of the studio and on stage, even if just a fleeting spotlight falls on each of them.  Michael Hedges is up first with a superb Rickover's Dream from Aerial Boundaries, the live solo performance showcasing his extrodinary talent to an even greater extent than the original.  Not to be outdone, Alex De Grassi turns in nine minutes of rolling loveliness in Turning: Turning Back, then is heard in a group format on another of his pieces, Clockwork.  That odd sound you hear is a lyricon, the first ever electronic wind controller; the player here, the late Chuck Greenberg, was one of the co-engineers of the instrument.

Hedges returns to kick off the album's second half, again playing a track from Aerial Boundaries, Spare Change.  Dedicated to Steve Reich, the piece is backed up by Liz Story on piano and bassist Michael Manring, and displays just how much the early Windham Hill stable owed to the classic ECM sound.  Next in the spotlight is Windham Hill founder William Ackerman to play two of his pieces.  Visiting has more lyricon from Greenberg and bass from Manring, then Hawk Circle is a guitar duet with Hedges while George Winston backs them on piano.  And it's Winston who closes the album, in a solo medley of Reflections and John McLaughlin's Lotus Feet.  Absolutely gorgeous music from start to finish.

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Windham Hill at SGTG:
Piano Solos | Autumn | December (Winston)
Solid Colors | Unaccountable Effect (Story)
Southern Exposure (De Grassi)
Aerial Boundaries (Hedges)

David Hykes & The Harmonic Choir - Current Circulation (1984)

Time for something droning and meditative in the wake of Monday's frenetic electronica.  David Hykes was born in New Mexico in 1953, and formed the Harmonic Choir in 1975 to explore overtone singing.  This was their second album, mostly recorded in St Paul's Chapel at Columbia University, with the brief solo opening track coming from a concert at the Chapel of St John The Divine, also in NYC a few months earlier.

Current Circulation itself is an epic 32-minute, six part work that takes influences from Tibetan Buddhist chant and Mongolian hoomi singing by holding root notes, adding harmonics, and attempting both in one voice and more.  The technical mastery of this type of vocal work speaks for itself, and you can either marvel at the accomplishments of working this into an intricate choral setting, or just let your mind drift in the gradually shifting clouds of pure sound.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Harmonic Meetings

Star Inc. - Inner Spirits (1985)

Neat little charity shop find with some great synth textures to be found amidst an hour's worth of New Agey mid-80s electronica, courtesy of Dutch session musician Ed Starink.  Inspired by Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Jan Hammer, Starink kitted out his own studio in the 80s with the latest synths and cranked out dozens of 'Space Themes'-type cover albums under various aliases, as well as albums of his own music like this one.

The back cover of Inner Spirits lists an impressive rig for '85, including a Fairlight, Emulator, Roland microcomposer, LinnDrum and all the Korgs, Yamahas and Minimoogs of the day, and Starink gets to work with a bare bones beat that develops nicely on the opening track with a definite Jan Hammer influence.  Second track Crystalline might have some seriously odd production choices in its middle section (thought my headphones had died the first time that hard panning came up), but thereafter the album settles down.  It's a nice tour around the hardware of its day, with quite a few memorable melodies and an obvious talent for arrangement.  If you fancy a mostly mellow hour of 80s electronics, you could do a lot worse than this.

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Alex De Grassi - Southern Exposure (1983)

Solo fingerpicked steel guitar with folk and jazz influences, from Japan-born American guitarist Alex De Grassi.  This was De Grassi's fourth album for his cousin William Ackerman's Windham Hill label - must have been handy to have a relative running a growing enterprise with a cornerstone of Fahey/Kottke-style guitar.

Ackerman and De Grassi were of course destined to sit in the very long shadow cast by WH's most legendary guitarist Michael Hedges, but on this evidence De Grassi had much to offer on his own merits.  Southern Exposure starts with the all too brief Overland, a bubbling spring of sparkling melody, before settling in for the more reflective Blue And White.  After that, great tunes keep coming, worming their way into your subconscious with every listen: 36, Street Waltz, Subway, the short and sweet title track - to name just a few.  And it all sounds fantastic - in the sleevenote detail typical of early Windham Hill, this was all "recorded live to two-track digital using a Sony PCM 1600". 

original LP cover

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Michael Jones/David Darling - Amber (1987)

Pure mellow relaxation from Canadian pianist Michael Jones, with enough of an interesting edge from legendary ECM cellist David Darling to keep things from ever ending up dull.  Darling's overdubbed cello lines sometimes create rhythmic propulsion, as on the album opener Rainfall (where he's also the pianist), create Indian-sounding drones on Wu Wei (ditto), and generally flesh out the picture in engaging ways over Jones' spare, crystalline pianism. 

Darling plays ordinary cello and 4 and 8 string electric cello, as well as piano on the above two tracks and the lengthy Dreamlight (the haunting high point of the album for me), and occasional Fender Rhodes, hammered dulcimer and kalimba.  At this point you might wonder why Darling wasn't credited as the principal album artist with guest piano from Jones!  Perhaps Jones was the bigger draw to those who'd be interested in the record, having been with the new age label Narada Lotus for a few years already.

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David Darling previously posted at SGTG: The Sea, with Bjørnstad/Rypdal/Christensen

George Winston - December (1982)

Moving to something more appropriately festive for this post and the next couple, here's Montana-born pianist George Winston's third album, which was the followup to his breakthrough record Autumn.  The title of 'December' is a deft move that announces that this won't just be some schlocky record for the holiday season, with a dozen or so Christmas carols rendered on piano - Winston arranged a much more understated and satisfying suite of music than that.

When he does interpret carols, Winston goes for only two obvious ones - Carol Of The Bells, and The Holly And The Ivy.  Elsewhere his choices range from Jesus Rest Your Head, from 19th century Appalachia, to Alfred S. Burt's Some Children See Him, from 1951.  Winston's winterscape is then fleshed out by the rest of the programme, stretching from his own compositions Thanksgiving and Peace that bookend the album, to rearranged bits of classical music including Pachelbel's Canon.  Together it all works beautifully, adding up to the perfect 40-minute oasis of calm amongst the bustle of Christmas preparation.

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Peeter Vähi - The Path To The Heart Of Asia (1992)

Superior New Age/world music/electronics suite from Estonian composer & musician Peeter Vähi, born 1955 in Tartu.  These ten 'Legends', plus a finale called Legend Zero, do pretty much what the album title suggests, in a continental tour taking in Cambodia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Turkey.

Vähi performs with several of the participants from the Orient 92 music festival that took place in Tallinn: a Cambodian flautist playing in circular breathing on the opener and vocalist on the Khmer folk tune of Legend Three, a Taiwanese group on Four, Tuvinian overtone singers on Five and Eight, and so on until the appearance of a South-Siberian shaman on Ten.  This might not have worked in lesser hands, and could've been a bit of a pretentious gloop, but it's all extremely well produced, in a spare, austere sound with additional keyboards and percussion from Vähi only when necessary.  Highly listenable and recommended.

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Van Morrison - Poetic Champions Compose (1987)

Completing my posts of 80s Van Morrison (there's three from the decade missing that I'm not as big a fan of) is this 1987 effort.  First conceived of as a wholly instrumental record, Van got as far as three instrumental tracks before retreating from the idea.  Those three, which appear as bookends and a midpoint to the album are all great contemplative pieces, with Van's sax playing suitably mellow and atmospheric.

Poetic Champions Compose came out to mixed reviews; by this point, you were either on board with Van Morrison's introspective, new-age period or not.  In hindsight, it comes across either as a warmer version of Inarticulate Speech or an advance on No Guru with the edges slightly smoother again (all links below).  For me, Poetic Champions is just a beautifully meditative rumination on Morrison's usual spiritual concerns (the declaration of 'No Guru, No Method, No Teacher' seemingly reneged on, with among other things a catchy tribute to Zen writer Alan Watts), and makes particularly good Sunday afternoon listening.  Or indeed any other day of the week, for the Watts tribute and other highlights like Queen Of The Slipstream, the live favourite Did Ye Get Healed and a decent, heartfelt workout for the traditional Motherless Child.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Saint Dominic's Preview
Common One
Beautiful Vision
Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher

Peter de Havilland - Bois De Boulogne (1987)

Sole release by a bit of a mystery musician/composer, who produced this album for Virgin's modern classical/ambient/new age imprint Venture in 1987.  Wikipedia's no help, turning up only an early 19th century Bailiff of Guernsey with the same name.  The mystery appears to have been solved with a bit of sleuthing a few years back by review blog La Voz De Los Vientos, who related their findings on de Havilland (the musician) in this post.  So, if you're wondering what sort of album a British-Canadian-Scottish-Irish teenage musical prodigy and erstwhile Vivienne Westwood model would make, well, here it is.

On Bois De Boulogne, seemingly made with a Fairlight computer, de Havilland's two main interests appear to be baroque-influenced keyboard minimalism, and ethnic-sounding new age pieces with a particular focus on Japanese shakuhachi flute.  The album begins with 10 minutes of the former mode, with the 'Escher' of the title presumably meant to be M. C. Escher.  After this comes the first of four 'Shaku' pieces, with the instrument in question presumably from samples, and then Myoho, a really nice piano and synth piece.  The latter's not a million miles away from the sound of Roedelius' Momenti Felici album for the same label - if I'm remembering it right, only had that one on cassette and must track down a CD someday.

Another two Shaku pieces follow, with the longer one a bit of a trip around the Fairlight and sounding like something Security-era Peter Gabriel might've come up with as a first draft, and the shorter, subtitled 'Chant', offering some interesting vocal manipulation.  It's time for the album's 19-minute centrepiece, Bois De Boulogne: Theme And Improvisations.  The improvisations drift around quite nicely, showing (as on the album opener) de Havilland's considerable keyboard skills, coming back now and again to the melody from the first minute and a half, which will repeat over and over in the finale.  A short reprise of Shaku (Chant) closes the album.  On initial listens, I wasn't sure what to make of this record at all, but it's really growing on me, perhaps because it's just so odd.

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Lee Spencer - The Rune Of Light (1991)

Picked up this 99p charity shop CD expecting only comedy value - no artist was credited anywhere on the front, back or spine, and it was on Tring, the British budget-budget-budget label that I had fond memories of from the 90s.  It's actually pretty solid New Age-electronic, especially on the longer tracks, and the inner page of the cover does credit one Lee Spencer as the composer & recording artist - please take a moment to enjoy his discogs picture below.

My favourite thing here is the gentle pulse of the 13-minute Ages (wonder if it was titled in homage to Edgar Froese?).  Float 1 meanders along nicely too, with some eerie high tones.  Jera One Year is interesting for being the most rhythmic track, but it doesn't break the overall meditative mood.  Really nice and relaxing stuff throughout.

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Lee Spencer

Michel Saugy - Oceanique (1991)

Sub-aquatic electronic mellowness from Swiss-born Saugy, on the French New-Age label Ellebore. First up is the 16-minute gentle drift of Asteria, and it's a very good piece for its era.  This was a couple of years after Jean-Michel Jarre came out with the extended ambience of En Attendent Cousteau''s title track - possibly an inspiration here?

The following three tracks, each 4-5 minutes in length and livened up by drum tracks, don't really feel like they belong here.  I've listened to them once or twice, and they were pleasant enough, but are essentially forgettable 90s library music rather than New Age or ambient.

Not to worry though - the half-hour long Navicula is still to come.  Even more of a becalmed oceanic drift than Asteria, this track more than makes up for the shortcomings of the middle section of the album.  In fact, if you just take the opening and closing tracks together, you've still got a pretty decent 46 minutes of early 90s electronic chillout to enjoy as an album.

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Andreas Vollenweider - White Winds (1984)

Another trip into the mid-80s New Age zone, when it was really coming into its own as a commercial force.  White Winds, subtitled Seeker's Journey, was the third major-label release by Swiss harpist Andreas Vollenweider, and his fourth album overall.  There's a Spin magazine review online from the time of White Winds' release that likens it to "bathing in club soda", and finds the album's production "as exciting as a shopping mall full of rice pudding" [Was it just on the shelves, or all over the floors/walls?  Can't get that image out of my head], but I happen to find it's aged fairly well.

Vollenweider's electroacoustic setup of the harp allowed for a fascinating range of sounds, as well as a great dynamic range; he proudly notes in the liners here that the bass sounds were played by him simultaneously with the rhythm, harmony and melody.  On these mostly mid-tempo tracks, the sound is filled out by billowy synth beds and bits of ethnic instrumentation and percussion, with occasional wordless vocals.  The folky and jazzy melodies are nice and uplifting, and there's the occasional switching of the overall tempo with the fun groove of Flight Feet & Root Hands, or the swirling ambience of The Stone (Close-Up).  The percussive interlude of Brothership is an ear-bender too.  Nice little record all round.

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Ray Lynch - Deep Breakfast (1984)

Spied this the other week lurking in a 99p bin, and the album title and all that delightful salmon pink background made me grin and grab it.  On first glance looked either a bit jazzy or a bit synthy.  Turns out it's only one of the most successful electronic New Age albums ever produced, having initially been a private release, then reissued a couple of times including by Windham Hill, who kept it in print resulting in a platinum certification by 1994.

Ray Lynch was born in Utah in 1943, and after classical training and playing in a baroque group as a lutist, wound up in California in 1980 to switch to electronic music.  Deep Breakfast was his third album, and contrary to my thoughts of a bottomless bowl of Shreddies, the title and in fact many of Lynch's track titles came from a book by his spiritual teacher (and alleged dirty old letch) Adi Da Samraj, aka Da Love Ananda, Bubba Free John etc etc.  Anyway, the music here is all instrumental, and the titles could really be anything.  Let's listen.

Deep Breakfast is a really nice mix of analogue synth and early DX7, and the composition and arrangements definitely reflect the skill of one classically trained with a baroque affinity.  There's a good balance of sunny, poppy and upbeat tracks with more mellow, reflective material.  The first half of the album is purely electronic, and the second adds guitar, piano, flute and viola in places.  Lynch apparently disliked the New Age tag, considering his music a cut above much of the dross being produced, and he's not wrong - this is top-drawer stuff in its era.  My favourites are the gorgeous, Roedelius-like miniature Falling In The Garden and its neighbour Your Feeling Shoulders, which shows a definite Vangelis influence.  Some nice TD-esque sequencing here too, in the second and the last tracks.  Superior sounds for getting the muesli crumbs out of your futon.

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Jordan De La Sierra - Gymnosphere: Song Of The Rose (1977)

Meditative minimal piano from Jordan De La Sierra, born Jordan Stenberg in California in 1947.  Having spent the early 70s soaking up ideas from meetings with La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Pandit Pran Nath, De La Sierra recorded Gymnosphere: Song of the Rose in 1976 in a small Berkeley studio.  Five hours of retuned (following the intonation preferred by Riley and Young) piano recordings provided the raw material for the four circa-25 minute pieces for this album; post-production involved playing back the tapes in the environs of the Bay Area's Grace Cathedral and re-recording them with its reverberating acoustics.

The resulting Gymnosphere 2LP release came resplendent with De La Sierra's lengthy liner notes, very much in tune with the nascent New Age movement - which makes for comedy gold when reproduced in full on this 2014 reissue.  The music has aged much better, with De La Sierra's gentle pianistic meanderings shimmering in a bath of modest tape delay and all that gorgeous natural reverb.

The first and fourth tracks (likely one long piece split in two) have the most forward momentum, with the melancholy arpeggios bouncing around in a way that made me think of mid-70s Manuel Göttsching more than once.  The middle two are more subdued for the most part, and will appeal to anyone who's ever wondered how Harold Budd might've sounded if he'd plumped for much more long-form piano pieces.  Lovely stuff.

original double-LP cover

Disc 1
Disc 2