First off, I have no business reviewing new age instrumental music. My only exposure to this genre was when I got my high school senior pictures taken in a bespectacled dude’s basement in the middle of an Iowa corn field while he blared the stuff.
But I got an e-mail from Devery Harper, an independent musician from Florida (born and raised in Minnesota, however), who wanted to submit his album, Squaring the Circle, for review.
So I listened to the album all the way through and can safely say this isn’t midi-crap or uncomfortable silence elevator-filler.
Harper skillfully plays piano, flute, acoustic guitar and adds new age pads, string and wind instruments to create a layered effect.
Songs are multidimensional with recurrent and independent themes, with sometimes minor um…creepy parts…and then jubilant major resolutions.
Stream the album here.
Track highlights: “Liberation” features flute and acoustic guitar with stadium rock-effected drums — maybe the first ever new age instrumental song to which you would raise a lighter. “Realization” could safely serve as inobtrusive porno music.
Actually, this entire album could be just the soundtrack for that 45 minute nocturnal excursion with your special someone. Surely I’m not the first to equate this genre of music with getting busy.
Let’s just be glad my senior picture photographer wasn’t thinking that way back when.
