Various Artists - Windham Hill Sampler '81

The beginning of the New Age

While the "new age" genre has changed a lot over the years, this was one of the foundational works.

This purely accoustic (no electronics) album is far greater than any of the individual artists or tracks which it contains: it has a clear flow and vision which grows in depth with each new playing.

This was The Album which really put Windham Hill on the musical map, and the fact that it is almost impossible to find - on any market and at any price - tells you how much it is treasured by those who own a copy.

This is, without question, one of the finest accoustic albums ever produced. November 6, 2004

One of the best tasters of this sort of attractive music

For those who aren't too taken with the New Age idiom and its excesses, this collection offers extremely tasteful and restrained compositions and performances, which nonetheless intimate the stirrings of the soul in the face of nature which are supposed to be the genre's forte. The featured artists, such as Robbie Basho and Alex de Grassi, have well-earned credibility in folk and instrumental music circles, and while the instrumental and textural approaches vary, from smooth piano recital to grainy steel-string guitar brushes, the collection hangs together very well. As an introduction to some of these folk and adult music stars, and as an evocation of autumn strolls you might have taken long ago, this is pretty hard to beat. September 1, 1999

The Roots of the Genre

Long before the industry forced the very marketable term "New Age" on this direction of music, "Windhammil Hill" was creating it in pure form. There are no synthesizers on this sampler CD, no philosophical advocations, no pretty faces on the cover, just uncomproming aural beauty. Most of what is called New Age music today finds its roots here - give it SIX stars if only for that September 28, 1998

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