#THE MIDNIGHT WAVE NEW AGE GENERATOR#

“All of the noise, punk and experimental musicians from the ‘90s and ‘00s were attracted to new age because they were feeling burnt out” Matthewdavid It’s a testament to how eclectic and occasionally bizarre new age music could be, before it took a commercial turn. The tracks themselves are as varied as the backgrounds of their makers, ranging from softly strummed acoustic guitar pieces to spacey prog instrumental suites, with psychedelic organs, twinkling chimes, harp glissandos and folkish flute melodies thrown in. Newcomers would do well to start with the Light In The Attic compilation, which features privately issued releases made by hobbyists, occultists, music therapists, session musicians and avant-garde composers between the 1950s and the 1990s. Early exponents like Ariel Kalma, Gigi Masin, Joanna Brouk and Laraaji have finally been given their due through retrospectives on labels like Music From Memory and RVNG Intl., and compilations of new age rarities, particularly Light In The Attic’s 2013 release I Am The Center, have done much to rekindle interest.

There are further signs of new age’s continuing legacy across various genres and geographies, from Max Richter’s neo-classical sleep tapes and Yamaneko’s grime explorations to labels like Vancouver’s laid-back house specialists Mood Hut and eclectic cassette hub 1080p.Īt the same time, a glut of reissues has kickstarted a reappraisal of this maligned genre. More recently, its influence has worked its way into dance music and found itself recycled, like so much cultural detritus from the ‘80s and ‘90s, as vaporwave.

Not long after the genre faded from public consciousness, it had an afterlife in the electronic underground, attracting converts from the post-noise scene: analogue synth noodlers Emeralds, stargazing composer Stellar Om Source and electronic conceptualist Oneohtrix Point Never. Yet despite the enduring stigma, new age is having a revival. Generic compilations with cheesy titles like Pure Moods flooded the market, and new age gradually disappeared from record store racks, banished to holistic shops and garden centres. But by the end of the century, listeners’ appetite for the music had waned. That did little to dampen sales: in the space of a decade, new age had risen from a mail-order cottage industry into a major label cash cow. In the mid ‘80s, as new age crossed over to the mainstream, it became an easy target for critics who scoffed at “music for hot tubbers” which was “numbing to both mind and palette”. Listen to FACT’s New Wave of New Age playlist on Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube.įew genres have been the subject of as much derision as new age. Adam Bychawski speaks to producers Matthewdavid, Deadboy and Sam Kidel about how they fell for new age’s soothing tones, and argues that in age of precarity and political turmoil, these records are far more than wallpaper music for hippies. The notable difference here is a change in the lyrics of the first verse - instead of 'We don't want our parent's china or their ticker tape parade', in this demo it is 'We don't want our parent's china or their rosary to pray.For years a derided mainstay of yoga studios and health stores, new age music has enjoyed a resurgence this decade as producers and crate diggers re-evaluate a maligned genre. This particular version of Wave was originally released under the name North Shore Wave as part of an episode from Lyle's From The Secret Lair podcast. Titled Wave Demo, it is a stripped-down, acoustic version of the song that has no instrumentation other than Tyler Lyle's vocals and guitar. Demo version Īn early demo of Wave was released as a prize during the Fall 2020 ARG.

#THE MIDNIGHT WAVE NEW AGE GENERATOR#

Īccording to McEwan, the 'I will keep dreaming' vocal bit heard after the chorus was made from an online voice generator with the notes manipulated. The first is a 1982 report by Dixie Whatley and Ron Hendren from Entertainment This Week (now known as Entertainment Tonight), and the second one is a 1981 report by Christopher Glenn from the former CBS program 30 Minutes. Wave contains spoken word samples from two 1980s news reports about video games. It has a running time of four minutes and thirty-one seconds and is in the key of F-sharp major. The song was written by band members Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle and produced by McEwan.

The midnight wave new age