there is so much airy fairy new age music out there that has as much grounding as the west wind. I really like ambient music. and ambient music sometimes leads me into the whole scary new age music genre. Like the new age movement or religions that consider themselves new age - they are a genre, a gimmick, a brand, a market that satisfies a group of people. That's one reason I have such a problem with "new age" - that and all the crazies who identify themselves to the general society as new agers, thus giving a scewed image. (Kind of like the image our government has created of Americans.)
Anyway, I digress. I dislike the words new age. I dislike boundaries, definitions and cages. I do really like music that takes you places. "Sound can act as a weapon" Old Bill said/wrote once in The Western Lands.
Most folks think that Brian Eno is the father of ambient music... I would go back further... Pink Floyd's early stuff (including Interstellar Overdrive) and Mike Oldenfield's Tubular Bells certainly are ambient masterpieces. Soundscapes. You could say some of the classical composers were ambient forefathers as well... stravinsky's the rite of spring. And there are many works from India, that are soundscapes....
Enter Shelia Chandra. I was introduced to SC about 10 years ago when I ran my own world music radio show at the college radio station. Ryko had just re-released a bunch of her stuff from vinyl on CDs, so I got a slew of her stuff.... one album stood out among the rest: QUIET.
It's a layered soundscape of your mind - including the internal dialog - which you can align with your own to cancel that chatter in your mind. It's one of the most amazing CDs I own and have heard. In QUIET, Shelia is successful in connecting heaven to earth. Of flying to heights and perfectly alighting on a perch.
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