Various Artists - I Am The Center Private Issue New Age In America, 1950-1990 [3LP BOX SET]

Light In The Attic

£71.10

Genre: New Age/Ambient
Format: 3LP BOX SET
Catalogue No.: LITA107LP
B/C: 826853010719
Release Date: 16th October 2020

BLACK VINYL REPRESS (NB NEW DEALER PRICE) AND ALSO A BRAND NEW YELLOW VINYL PRESSING...BOTH ARE NON-RETURNABLE.....
UNCUT # 1 COMPILATION OF THE YEAR 2013!

“STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL” - THE GUARDIAN

3xLP housed in slipcase w/ 3 tip-on jackets, 20-page book, and download card
Notes by Douglas Mcgowan featuring interviews with artists and includes rare archive photos
Artwork by Gilbert Williams and Janaia Donaldson
2 unreleased tracks, 7 others previously only on cassette
Vinyl cut by John Golden. Pressed at RTI
Remastered from original sources at 24 bit/ 96 kHz
Also available on yellow vinyl

“Sound created the universe. It wasn’t a word. Sound created atoms; sound and light are the original manifesting principles for worlds… A musician sources that primeval, eternal sound, and it comes out as music.” – Constance Demby
Forget everything you know, or think you know, about new age, a genre that has become one of the defining musical-archaeological explorations of the past decade.
I Am The Center: Private Issue New Age In America, 1950-1990is the first major anthology to survey the golden age of new age and reveal the unbelievable truth about the genre.
For new age, at its best, is a reverberation of psychedelic music, and great by any standard. This is analog, handmade music communicating soul and spirit, often done on limited means and without commercial potential, self-published and self-distributed. Before it became big business and devolved into the spaced out elevator music we know and loathe today, this was the real thing.
From mathematical musical algorithms to airport murder mysteries to Henry Mancini and Bugs Bunny, the connections to mainstream culture run in curious directions. (Did you know, for instance, that a track from the first modern private press new age album is featured on the Blade Runner soundtrack? It’s called “Pompeii, 76 A.D.”, and we’ve got it here.)
I Am The Centeris a knowing, but never cynical overview that invites listeners at last to the mainspring of a misunderstood genre’s greatest lights. Many of the biggest names are present — Iasos, inter-dimentional channeler of “paradise music”; Laraaji, discovered by Brian Eno playing for spare change in Washington Square Park; and the recently famous JD Emmanuel, icon to a new generation of drone, ambient, noise musicians. Call it what you will — before it was anything else, it was new age.
Lovingly conceived and lavishly presented,I Am The Centerfeatures stunning paintings by the legendary visual artist Gilbert Williams, and liner notes by producer Douglas Mcgowan, who weaves the words and images of the wizards and sorceresses of new age into a prismatic portrait of music that can finally be recognized for what it is: great American folk art.

TRACKLIST:
1. The Struggle of The Magicians part three - Gurdjieff / de Hartmann
2. Pompeii 76 A.D. - Gail Laughton
3. Gongs In The Rain - Nesta Kerin Crain
4. Witch's Will - Wilburn Burchette
5. Iasos - Formentera Sunset Clouds
6. Seventh Chakra Keynote B (violet) - Steven Halpern
7. Seraphic Borealis - Joel Andrews
8. Om Mani Padme Hum - Constance Demby
9. Arabian Fantasy - Daniel Emmanuel
10. Awakening (excerpt) - Don Slepian
11. Unicorns In Paradise (excerpt) - Laraaji
12. Glide V - Peter Davison
13. Lifting Off - Joanna Brouk
14. As The Earth Kissed The Moon (excerpt) - Michael Stearns
15. Tien Fu: Heaven's Gate (excerpt) - Aeoliah
16. Blue Spirals - Daniel Kobialka
17. Two Souls Dance - Larkin
18. Li Sun - Judith Tripp
19. Lunar Eclipse (excerpt) - Mark Banning
20. Waterfall Winds - Alice Damon