Sunday, March 8, 2015

CD Review – Sounds From the Circle VI, by Various Artists

The year's best new age music is represented on this sixth edition of the New Age Music Circle collection, curated and produced by former German pop star turned worldwide new age music mogul Suzanne Doucet.

Incidentally, in 1987 Doucet opened the first and, at the time, only new age music retail store in the world, Only New Age Music. The store was located in the trendy Melrose district of Los Angeles, California, until it closed in 1992, eventually becoming an online business (http://www.newagemusic.com/onam.html). I wonder if I ever passed by the shop during my family's trip to Los Angeles in 1989, when new age music was at the height of its popularity and I was just getting into it.

The three-hour-plus CD features 40 tracks representing Grammy Award nominees and winners from around the world, including Anaya Music, AOMusic, Margie Balter, Hennie Bekker, Beloved Heartsong, Jeff Bova & Carole J. Hyder, Heidi Breyer, Bryan Carrigan, Christaal, Louis Colaiannia, Merrill Collins & Michael Fitzpatrick, Cosmo Frequency, Jennifer DeFrayne, Suzanne Doucet, el’Aima, Sherry Finzer & Darin Mahoney, Mala Ganguly & David Vito Gregoli, Steven Halpern & Michael Diamond, Michael Hoppe’ & Harold Moses, Pamela Jamian, Fiona Joy, Craig Karolus, Ricky Kej, Wouter Kellerman, Ann Licater, John Luttrell, Cristian Paduano, RAVEN WOLF, Jerry Rockwell, Lia Scallon, Sensitive Heart, Arun Shenoy, Vibeke Sonora, Peter Sterling, Laura Sullivan, Tron Syversen, Glenn Richard Treibitz, Natascha Wilczek, Jane Winther, and Danny Wright.

If you're new to the world of new age music and don't know where to begin, or you just don't follow every single artist in the genre, the New Age Music Circle's Sounds From the Circle series is a great starting point and overview.

--Raj Manoharan


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