New Age?

Anyone here listen to new age music? Ya know, stuff like Kitaro or Emerald Web? I must admit I listen to some of it once in a great while. I only have a very small amount of it in my collection, but was kind of thinking of expanding in that area. Thing is I have no idea who is good and who isn't. The two I've listed above are about the only artists I own in the new age genre. I like about half of the stuff I own, and the rest is just boring. Any suggestions on some good ones are out there?

There is a lot of music that ends up in that category that really isn't new age, like a lot of the early acoustic Windham Hill music. Some of it is just electronic music that gets dumped into it by lazy folks. BTW,Rate Your Music has a lot of bands listed that I wouldn't consider New Age.

I have some suggestions:
Yanni - Optimystique and Keys to Imagination. Maybe Out Of Silence (after that it turns into that other stuff). I know people hate on him, but this is quality stuff before he went down that other road of blandness.

Cinema label artists:
Pete Bardens - Scene One Earth, Speed Of Light
Patrick Moraz - Human Interface
Michael Hoenig - Xcept One


Vangelis is dumped into that category by RYM
The first 3-4 Mannheim Steamroller are really good. They haven't gone all electronic yet.
Alex De Grassi - Turning: Turning Back
Will Ackerman - It Takes A Year
Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundaries (I highly recommend this guy! He reinvented the acoustic guitar)
Joel Vandroogenbroeck - Biomechanoïd ( I just considered this electronic music, but it is listed as NA)
Mike Oldfield ?
Kevin Keller - The Mask of Memory and Intermezzo
Clannad goes from being Celtic Folk music to Celtic New Age music
Shadowfax their very first album Watercourse Way is Progressive Jazz Fusion then they travel the new agey road in the 80s. I like 'em.
Tangerine Dream moves into that territory as well. More than likely their 80s output.

Cool thanks, I'll be sure to check some of those out tonight.

I'd definitely recommend Tangerine Dream, but stick to their late '70s/early '80s material for the best introduction. Earlier than that, and you're getting into more experimental works. After that, it tends to sound like the backing to "Sexual Harassment in the Workplace" training videos.

Also, the sounds can be a bit cheesy, but I like stuff released by Ed Van Fleet under the "Synchestra" tag. This gets a little closer to proper "new age," but it was early days and avoids the clichés. The album I started with on them was called "Silver Ships" and has a recording of a thunderstorm running through it. None of the others are quite so "gimmicky" and they're all pretty solid. You can zone to it or pay attention to what he put down. Works both with attentive listening and as window dressing.

I second the shadowfax recommendation.

You may like the Portal demos the dudes from cynic did. Although there are a lot of vocals which may or may not be your thing for this kind of music.

Oh, and depending on where your tastes run, Brian Eno was basically the guy who invented modern ambient music and has a fair collection of decent releases on that level. The Drop, The Shutov Assembly, and Neroli are all later favorites of mine.

I was also remiss in not mentioning Michael Rother from Neu!. The guy can write really soothing melodies and his albums (at least the ones I've heard) are phenomenal. I can't recommend him more highly.

And early Private Label stuff like the Yanni I mentioned before, Patrick O'Hearn, Jerry Goodman and some other folks. It was run by Peter Baumann formerly of Tangerine Dream.

I dig it... Yanni's first album is brilliant... keyboard synth driven... and it rocks imo... Out Of Silence...
big fan...

George Winston piano stuff which fell into this category is pretty fab as well...

I like some of the other recommendations here as well...

I also second the recommendations of Yanni's Optimystique/Keys to Imagination albums.

I also recommend Matthias Thurow. His first two albums from the 80's can be bought on iTunes now, and our German friends would be glad to know he is a fellow native of their country.

Here's one track from the Cornucopia album, which shows his experimental mix of new age/dark ambient:

Wow lots of recommendations here, looks like I'll be pretty busy trying to get through them all. Thanks guys, I'll give some of these listen Sunday.

That was a pretty cool tune there muckie!