Wine Label: Please tell me you're joking

[elfs]

"What do you get when you play new age music backward? New age music!"

This story starts 21 years ago. At the time, I was listening to a lot of "new age" music, or stuff that was getting onto the New Age bandwangon in the hopes of finding a marketable niche. A lot of what ended up under the "New Age" rubric was actually a bit avante garde: Philip Glass and Tangerine Dream were sold as New Age, and even Laurie Anderson ended up in that bin. Most of it was oversold swill, of course, which is why most everyone today pronounce "newage" the same way one pronounces "sewage".

These days, the genres are all fractured and messy: trance and ambient electronica continue to have similar beats and themes and even similar audiences, even (I imagine) with similar drug habits. But there were a few that stood out among the crap that came with New Age's first wave. In 1986 a collection by Coda/NewAge records came out called "Standing Stones," in which various artists in their stable contributed marketable samples of the work. It was the first appearance of Rick Wakeman's "Waterfalls," an early hands-off synth version of the Brandenburg Concerto, Claire Hamill's "Lark Rise" from her innovative album "Voices," and Tom Newman's "Fur Traders Descending the Mississippi," the last of which has some of the best slide-guitar work I've ever heard.

But the piece that generated the most attention (and sales) was Stephen Caudel's "Symphony with solo guitar" The Wine Dark Sea. It's mostly Caudel's work on the guitar, with a lot of backup, and it is, for its genre, definitely noteworthy music. Lush and lovely in two simple tracks, "The Outward Journey" and "The Homeward Journey," each about 20 minutes long, it is music worth listening to in its own right rather than as the sonic wallpaper that is most New Age. And that's how it was sold: in big letters across the top it read "NEW AGE"

The other day, omaha stumbled upon Caudel's work once more. Twenty years after his last release, Caudel has released another album. Okay, maybe he had other things to do.

But that's not the funny part. No, what's freaking hilarious is that Caudel owns progressive-rock.com and is selling The Wine Dark Sea as prog rock!

No, sorry. Dream Theater is progressive rock. Flowing Tears, Ayreon, IQ, Porcupine Tree, Rocket Scientists, Frost, Office of Special Investigations, and Threshhold are progressive rock. Yes, Electric Light Orchestra, Pink Floyd and the Moody Blues are the foundation of progressive rock.

There is absolutely zero "rock" in The Wine Dark Sea. Yes, there are a few places where he maintains a 4/4 beat. But that doesn't save it from being New Age. I mean, download any excerpt you like from The Wine Dark Sea and tell me that it qualifies as anything other than New Age.

It's funny that he's come back and tried to upsell his material as a "new" genre now that the old one has become so thoroughly mocked. But there was always a Marcel Marseau, who made mime worth watching. And Caudel should have stuck to his original label and proclaimed that he could make even new age worth hearing.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Well, they wouldn't be considered "New Age" anymore, but are amongst the groundbreakers in electronic music:

• Wendy Carlos, who is the Grandmother of all electronic music. That includes all electronica, ambient, and techno. Seriously. A mixture of scientist and musician, Wendy worked with Robert Moog early on in the 60's. She was not only The First (as in: the first to have a "hit" album of electronic music), but is someone of great talent.


• Synergy, another of the early electronic music artists who did some really kewl work during the 70's.


• Vangelis.
  He did more than "Chariots of Fire." Much more.
  He too experimented with electronic instruments during the 70's, though his work covers a far more eclectic set of themes and really defies genres. Nor did he use electronic instruments exclusively.


• Tangerine Dream, as Elf mentioned.


• Jean-Michel Jarre — the French equivalent of Synergy. He has some very listenable electronic music.

But, really, all of these guys were possible because of Wendy. ^_^

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Synergy (Larry Fast, who makes his living as Peter Gabriel's synth programmer) is pretty good. If you want to start on his stuff, Semi-Conductor, his "best of" album is pretty good. Metropolitan Suite was his last album and is also very good. You need a good sound system to listen to it. Larry and Wendy did a live concert together in New York once; their rendition of "Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra" can be heard on Reconstructed Artifacts, in which Larry re-does some of his best known work on modern, digital equipment.

One you didn't mention, and that deserves strong mention, is Patrick Gleeson. He was of the "hands off" school of synthesizer realizations, and his Four Seasons from 1982 is one of the most brilliant renditions of that commonplace piece I've heard. I believe it still holds the record for the most tracks ever mixed on an analog board.

Some early Vangelis is very strange. He wanted to be the Jazz equivalent of Steve Reich at one point, and the high point of that period in his career, The Dragon, is fascinating for what it presages. My favorite Vangelis piece is "Nerve Center" from his album The City; I've always wanted to be flogged to that piece of music.

There are two fascinating Jarre albums out this year: The Orchestral Jarre, in which an all-acoustic orchestra tries (and does an amazing job) of emulating the mechanical sounds of Revolution Industrielle, as well as Jarre Forever, in which modern mix masters are allowed to play with Jarre's music and make their own renditions. The remix of "Les Chants Magnetiques 2" by Jupiter 8 is just brilliant. (My mother loathed Les Chants Magnetiques. She said it "made her feel nervous." And if you do the math, you'll find that means I was listening to Jarre almost 27 years ago. Damn, now I feel old again.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

I have all of Synergy except for "Reconstructed Artifacts" and "Semi-Conductor".

I've never heard of Patrick Gleeson. Might have to give that a try.

You're right about Vangelis' early work being rather experimental. "Beaubourg" falls into that; it weirds most people out, but I like it, if I'm in the mood for it. "Heaven and Hell" can make me cry if I'm not braced for it, though.

I can understand why your mother said that, "Les Chants Magnetiques" (I love the French pun involved in that title, BTW) made her feel nervous. I have most of it in my "Sturm und Drang" playlist. ^-^

But Wendy's still at the top of my list, especially for all that she's done. "Beauty in the Beast" is a revelation. And her most recent, "A Clockwork Black," makes for very good Halloween music. ^_^ (Though I wouldn't listen to it if I were depressed. It's pretty dark.)

[boiwondering.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear me.

An old friend ruined "New Age" for me as a genre when he once notably referred to it as "air salad." After picking myself up off the floor and wiping the tears of laughter from my cheeks, I found I was unable to listen to another New Age disc again.

And, yeah, New Age is emphatically NOT progressive rock, nor does putting drum loops behind New Age make it anything approaching rock.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

"air salad"...bwahahahaha!

I loved, and still love, really good quality New Age music. The kind that you don't find much of, because most of the rest really sucked.

And truly, "air salad" is the best description I've ever heard.

As for Caudel, his Wine Dark Sea is inspired by the Homeric epic The Odyssey, and I've always loved it. However, prog rock it is not. And it does a disservice to both New Age and Progressive Rock to label it as such.