Rudy Adrian has been at the forefront of New Age music since the early 2000s, and shamefully, I lost contact with his releases. It’s quite nice to catch up with him on his latest release, a collection of relaxing ambient music to soothe your mind a bit, but also to enjoy as proper electronic music. Rudy remains a craftsman.
From the legendary duo’s Bandcamp site: “We present this soulful 30 year reunion between two stalwarts of Ambient-Electronic music in its entirety, exactly as it occurred. Steve and Robert answered the urge for unification after a very long orbit and 40 year friendship, reuniting and engaging their collective creative process, fueled with decades of individual innovations, genre defining releases and worldwide concerts. Recorded live to a sold-out audience on December 5, 2023 at the Club Congress, Tucson Arizona. The set flowed through solo and duo passages, culminating in pieces from the classics Strata and Soma. The energy was electric throughout…
Norman Records does a far more in-depth job introducing the world to the music of North Macedonian composer Dimitar Dodovski a wee bit better than I could. From their promo sheet: “”Dimitar Dodovski approaches his craft of granular synthesis from a melodic perspective at most definitely the warmer end of the drone spectrum. Opening track ‘I’ introduces, of all things, mallet-struck chimes amongst the digital layers. The mallets recur on the following track (‘II’), but only when you least expect them. Staccato synth rises from a mist-draped lake of sound, each milky chord change rung by a bell. Pixelated textures…
There’s little I can add to my dear friend, the Last American Poet, Shane Beck, and heir to the Berlin-School throne, Michael Brückner, so I will let the gentlemen speak for themselves. You can read further at this release’s Bandcamp site: In what turned out to be a spontaneous burst of inspiration, poet / lyricist / spoken word artist Shane Beck and electronica composer Michael Brückner created this circle of five pieces together that are based as much around the mystical splendor of nature as on the vast inner landscape of human longing for eternal love, spiritual transcendence and integration of…
Jokamies (‘Everyman’ in Finnish) is a collection of tracks for a television series of the same name composed by the Finnish bassist Pekka Pohjola. After his work with the hard-rock/progressive outfit Wigwam, he ventured into jazz fusion (perhaps New Age as well) and made some of the most impressive albums in the genre during the 1970s and 1980s, culminating, in my estimation, in this album.
Twelve Improvisations For Piano Solo is a solo piano album by Spanish pianist Javi Cánovas from 2016. It’s an elegant listening experience comfortably sitting on a corner where contemporary classical, jazz and new age congregate.
What a tribute from Irmán, a composer from Portugal. From his Bandcamp website: “Für Eline is a love song, a testimony to my relationship with my wife. We’ve been together for over 20 years, we have a beautiful daughter and we’ve been through many things, both good and bad. Since mid-2020 my wife has been a champion, guiding me and our house while I’m physically unable due to depression. This song is my gift to her.”
Russian violinist Valentina Goncharova is having something of a renaissance these days. She had an album come out earlier in the year which were unpublished (you can find Volume 1 here and Volume 2 here). Now, we have a full album of recordings last heard on Leo Records many years ago as part of a box set called Document – New Music From Russia – The 80’s, a pinnacle of Russian avant-garde music. The recordings have been lovingly remastered, and the drony sound is magnificent.
Vangelis has passed away in Paris at the age of 79. His reputation needs no introduction to connoisseurs of music, especially those into soundtracks. For my money, Blade Runner was the jewel in his crown. May he Rest In Peace.
Originally released in 1999, this album by American composers and ambient music legends Steve Roach and John Strate-Hootman (operating here as Vir Unis) combine tribal electronic music with what was then erroneously called New Age music. From the release’s Bandcamp site: “Steve Roach and Vir Unis combine different rhythmic sensibilities and undeniable soundscapes in an alchemical reaction, creating an aural sensation that is surreal, hallucinogenic, but still organically human. Body Electric is a welcomed edition to the borderless world of new electronic music; this album is a zenith in bio-electronic body music, an evolutionary spark, a focused, high-energy trip of…