Set up by a tweet from @mapsadaisical, I found Louis Pattison’s writeup about the new age revival. Efforts by a new generation of artists like Marc McGuire and his Emeralds trio, Oneohtrix Point Never, High Wolf, Steve Hauschildt, Ducktails, Sam Goldberg, James Ferraro, Sun Araw sparked a newfound interest in new age / synth music as well as cassette players, bringing back the glory days of kosmiche music and krautrock. Finally new age is making a comeback to dust off the “worst music genre ever” tag it acquired back in the day.

The best of this music was heroic in its commitment to charting new sonic landscapes, but as new age became a genre, the music’s worst qualities became more apparent. Padded out with blandly exotic world-music influences and Gregorian chants, compilations with titles like The Most Relaxing New Age Music In The Universe were stocked alongside the energy crystals and Wiccan paraphernalia in your local health food shop. Indeed, most new age music seems to follow the formula of homeopathic medicine; it’s so diluted to the extent it’s virtually impossible to find the good bits. @louispattison for Guardian

Here’s what Boomkat writes about Emeralds’ self-titled release.

After the recent rush of Krautrock reissues from Harmonia, Kluster and Eno, ‘Emeralds’ seem to be tapping into a classic analogue sound re-imagined for the 21st century, leaving us to marvel at just how well this group have accomplished the alchemical sound of their forefathers, whilst also opening up their own dimension of mind-boggling tones with a scarily prolific. Boomkat

Bonus : Here’s a tour of the cosmos by Emeralds’ John Elliott for Self Titled Mag. Names named : Popol Vuh, Tangerine Dream, Conrad Schnitzler and Klaus Schulze.

Image by JLM Photo