Tag Archives for Crystal Vibrations

Tuesday New Age Jams: A different sort of "mothership connection"

Swing down sweet chariot ...

To those not yet in the know, all the true heads check in at the Crystal Vibrations audioblog for the cream of the crop in Nuevo Age jammage. CV is Greg Davis‘ thing mostly, if we’re going on number of posts, and his thoroughness with regard to the history and cultural relevance of New Age music suggests that the man has curated a staggering collection of some of the most mundane sounds ever conceived. (Davis, if you don’t know, has been creating very pleasant albums of sorta tribal ambient electronic stuff since the early ’00s.)

Keeping that in mind, the truly hype shit when it comes to New Age tunes is outta this world, and stands out as even more of a treasure given the genre’s overarching treacly nature. A reclamation and a reappropriation of the blissfully soporific is in effect here, engineered by the aforementioned Davis, along with likeminded pals such as White Rainbow‘s Adam Forkner.

So yeah: We’re STOKED that he’s back with his first post since early April. Namely, to quote Davis, “a real soother” in the form of David Parsons’ 1980 album, Sounds of the Mothership. The awesome picture up top sums it up: The best possible version of “bidi-puffing white dude hanging out by a waterfall, getting mellow on the sitar” you can imagine. Plus the requisite Tangerine Dream-style warbling synth drones and occasional cricket chirp and birdsong. So chill.

Click here to go get mellow with David Parsons at Crystal Vibrations.

White Rainbow checks in

Video of White Rainbow, ARP and Lichens’ improvisational accompaniment to Doug Aitken’s “Migration” Installation.

Adam Forkner, the guy behind maximum bliss-out drone project White Rainbow, has six different outlets by which enthusiasts of his inner space sounds can follow his activities. For those fans — such as your contributing editor — who were mostly oblivious to this WR media empire, Forkner has provided a digest update of his most recent activities on his old fashioned blog, or “Life Log.” Of particular interest:

• Upcoming shows with drone-happy lovebirds Windy & Carl take White Rainbow up and down the West Coast in late May 2009, with stops in Seattle, his home base of Portland, Big Sur and two shows here in Los Angeles. The Arthur Atwater office is raising its STOKED level to Red.

• Tracks for the next White Rainbow full length, New Clouds, have been delivered to the mastering dude, with a tentative September 2009 release date on Kranky.

• A WR collaborative EP with Stag Hare is due out “as soon as humanly possible” on Marriage Records.

• Stag Hare you ask? Stag Hare is a crunchy fellow from Utah, and his self-released album Black Medicine Music was the best ambient trail mix of 2008. Thanks to Forest Gospel for being the first to hip us to these nuts and berries desert ragas. Don’t sleep. Though its rustling drum pattering and Juniper-scented driftscapes may have pleasantly soporific effects.

• And new White Rainbow music is available RIGHT NOW and FOR FREE by way of audioblog Raven Sings The Blues, which posted its first compilation, RSTB Presents Vol. 1, back in mid-March. The comp also has top ranking earth psych and noisenik sounds from Wet Hair, Plastic Crimewave Sound, Sic Alps and more. Go get it here.

• Forkner is considering “qutting pizza” for his health. We feel you bro.

And that’s just the White Rainbow stuff. Click here to check out the full post with info on all of his doings.

We’ve been hungry for new White Rainbow jams for awhile now, so here’s a few other Forkner curated emanations that we discovered deep in the Gooogles …

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