Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Dodgy New Age Music

Seth

09:47 / 17.09.01

I bought some the other day (in the Maldives, so I can't take it back).

Either it's not the album I thought it was, or it just sounds better when two beautiful Malaysian women are rubbing scented oil into your back.

Perhaps anything would sound good in that context.

Anyone else want to own up to buying dogdy "spiritual" music (especially if it's the kind of shite done on ten year old synths like the crap that I can't believe I bought).

[ 17-09-2001: Message edited by: expressionless ]

Lothar Tuppan

09:47 / 17.09.01

I have a bunch of Tangerine Dream albums but I prefer to think of them as the first wave of 'electronic music'. I really can't see 'Phaedra' as 'new agey'. I think it would make great music to go wandering through a sewer to.

Seth

11:02 / 17.09.01

Sewer music? That actually sounds amazing.

tag

14:43 / 17.09.01

i like a lot of borderline new age synth/ambient/drone/tone/textural wank music. those 10 year old synths have quite nice sounds in them! like fine wine, their apreciation grows with age . . .

The Return Of Rothkoid

18:02 / 17.09.01

I have some Wendy Carlos and Klaus Schulze discs. They're either brilliant or complete, steaming cheese. I can't quite decide. They make Vangelis look avant-garde, at some points.

rizla mission

11:26 / 18.09.01

I've got this 80+ minute album of ambient dub stuff that these two Eygptian mythology phreaks were flogging outside a record shop.

It has a picture of them on the back wearing tinfoil skirts and sandles and holding kitchy looking synth-guitars, with a (probably hired) young lady standing between them holding an ankh.

They were impressed when I told them I knew the author of 'the Great Pyramid Decoded', and they gave me a copy for £2.50.

It sounds kinda like The Orb but without any of the imagination or skill. Any deep spiritual messages must be pretty deeply hidden.

I told them they should read The Invisbles, dunno if they took my advise.. they seemed pleasant sort of fellows..

Seth

17:07 / 23.09.01

quote:Originally posted by tag:
those 10 year old synths have quite nice sounds in them!

You're right - some synths age well. These hadn't.

I much prefer the Godspeed...! approach. Found sounds merging with washes of guitar feedback: wholly imperfect drones that resonate with a great many conflicting frequencies. Sounds far more natural to me. And it has a heart, unlike the CD I bought.

Analogues On

18:16 / 23.09.01

Gotta agree with you there expressionless, that the problem with a lot of the “new age” stuff is not the sounds themselves but the way they are deployed. Where unimaginative, listless muzak is sold as new age/ chill out/ meditation/ spirit/ world.... Gah!

The thing that I like about the more expressive stuff, from early Tangerine Dream/ Kraftwerk/ Popol Vuh through Eno/ Fripp/ Budd and on to Godspeed/ Fridge/ Mogwai is that they retain some of the emotional connection of rock n roll: basic without being mundane, complex without the intellectualism – a sense of drama, resonance and humanity. Dodgy music, of any variety, fails to do that.

And yes, for my sins I own plenty of very dodgy new age/ synth/ world/ drone rubbish. But hey, that’s the chance you take in the 50p bin.

rizla mission

07:27 / 24.09.01

quote:Originally posted by RedRunningLord:

The thing that I like about the more expressive stuff, from early Tangerine Dream/ Kraftwerk/ Popol Vuh through Eno/ Fripp/ Budd and on to Godspeed/ Fridge/ Mogwai is that they retain some of the emotional connection of rock n roll: basic without being mundane, complex without the intellectualism – a sense of drama, resonance and humanity. Dodgy music, of any variety, fails to do that.

Right on.

Add Your Reply