The beginning of another new age. The year that’s just passed might go down in history as the one in which New Age music at last made its triumphant return. The media likes nothing more than a counterintuitive tale, and so a rapper long off the scene, André 3000, of the groundbreaking Atlanta duo OutKast, releasing a new age record—New Blue Sun (Epic)—in November, and playing flute of all things, was practically made to order for hype and saturation. And, since there’s no place for mediocrity in the realm of clickbait and quick takes, what is really just an OK record quickly became a bold move, a stroke of genius, and a laudable breaking of racial boundaries. See? Black people can make boring music, too!
But Dré ain’t alone in championing a form that was termed “air pudding” in a 1987 Doonesbury strip. Drummer Clara Warnaar has been staging a New Age revival at least since 2019, when the first of her A New Age for New Age compilations came out. As of last August, the series is up to six volumes. The definitions of “new age” seem to vary from one artist to the next. With more than 60 tracks in the series, it doesn’t all constitute pudding—some are more like flan or yogurt with granola—but there’s certainly something meditative, if not always ruminative, about the albums. Along with many other not-necessarily-new-age artists (pianist Pascal La Beouf, bassist Tristan-Kasten Krause and Travis Just of Brooklyn’s Object Collection, to name a few), the series has included two of Warnaar’s own tracks and one with her band Infinity Shred.
Infinity Shred’s synth pulses lean a little toward the movie themes of Harold Faltermeyer (Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun). The band—Warnaar with Damon Hardjowirogo on synth and Nathan Ritholz, guitar and synth—marked its 10th anniversary last summer by rerecording their debut album. Sanctuary 2023 is out on January 26 (self-released download and double LP). It’s not just the pulse but the energy that makes this a new kind of new age—they’ve absorbed and developed the tunes for the last decade—but it still has the sort of gloss that makes it easy to let float by. That’s not a detriment, it’s more like the point, but by no means does that mean it’s simplistic. Those intrigued but unconvinced are encouraged to check out Shred Offline from 2022. The album documents a short set of five Shred tunes arranged for a chamber orchestra of strings, wind and brass pushed by vibraphone and Warnaar on marimba, nicely underscoring the intricacy in their tunes.
Few might seem less new age than Lou Reed, but his public persona was at least a little removed from the yoga and tai chi practice of his later years. In 2007, he released a soundtrack for such occasions. Hudson River Wind Meditations came out as a limited run CD from the Colorado publishing company Sounds True, which claims to be “the world’s largest living library of transformational teachings that support and accelerate spiritual awakening and personal transformation.” It came and went with little notice, a diversion by a rebel deemed no longer relevant. The album is being reincarnated by Light in the Attic (CD, 2 LP, download, January 12) and is worth hearing. The cultural context might be a far cry from Reed’s 1975 double album, Metal Machine Music, but the end result isn’t so different. Both are built from waves of drones and pulses and difference tones, guitar feedback on the first and what sounds to be synthesizers on the second. And while neither was designed specifically to piss off the rock’n’roll animals of the world, both have the capacity to achieve as much. Likely enough, some will only listen once, but it’s a great bit of insight into an often misunderstood rock icon who rarely seemed concerned with being understood anyway.
Death to false metal, long live the holograms, robots and funnymen. After years of goodbyes, KISS played their final concert in December at Madison Square Garden—as such. Anyone paying any attention already knows that at the end of the concert, they introduced their hologram replacements, which will carry the digital torch for them in artificial reality concerts beginning in 2027. The show is being produced in association with Pophouse Entertainment, the Stockholm company not only responsible for the ABBA Voyage virtual reality concerts but founded by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus.
The teaser for the KISS hologram show, however, just suggests a missed opportunity. They could finally be anything they want. They don’t have to be a foursome. They don’t even have to be human. They could really be a demon and a spaceman and a catman and a foxman and, um, the Ankh warrior and, well, a guy who likes to have sex, I guess. They could be larger than life. They could become the heroes of their 1977 Marvel Comics Super Special or the 1978 TV movie KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. They could even, finally, make the abandoned feature film of 1981’s Music from “The Elder,” their ill-fated project with producer Bob Ezrin and Lou Reed as song cowriter. (OK, maybe not that one, pretty much a low point for everyone involved.) But it looks like, as always, they’ll fall short of their cartoon epic promises.
“Death to false metal,” was, not incidentally, a rallying cry for the long-lived upstate metal’n’muscles band Manowar long before it was taken as the name for an album of outtakes and rarities by the cheeky-geeky indie band Weezer. And speaking of cheek, director Rob Reiner announced in November that he’s beginning shooting for a sequel to the classic heavy metal parody movie This Is Spinal Tap in February. All of which might raise the question: is the future of metal all jokes and mirrors?
Fortunately, we have Frostbite Orckings to carry the torch. The band released its first full-length, The Orcish Eclipse, (download, LP in frost blue or eclipse pink, CD or CD with oversized digipack and bonus tracks) in December, after a couple of digital singles and a digital EP earlier in the year. The band is the creation of the Bingen, Germany, company Musical Bits and their music, videos and imagery are all AI-generated. Rather than training an algorithm with all the metal that exists on the Internet, however, the company brought in musicians to play riffs and blastbeats, creating its own tutorials for the robot to work from.
The result is pretty rote to my ears, but it’s not like most human-generated heavy metal is all that unique. Figuring I might not be the target audience for the album, I asked AI to write a review for me. It delivered a 400-word critique, complete with an invented rating system (“4.5 out of 5 axes”), finding that “Frostbite Orckings have crafted a monstrous debut with The Orcish Eclipse. It’s not just good melodic death metal—it’s an immersive experience, transporting you to a world of frost and fury. The crushing riffs, potent vocals, and surprisingly nuanced storytelling make this a worthy addition to any metalhead’s playlist. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran of the pit or a curious adventurer, The Orcish Eclipse offers a satisfyingly savage adventure.” The AI review didn’t mention that the album is AI generated. Is that some sort of professional courtesy? Maybe there are some things you don’t mention in polite robot company. Or maybe Kraftwerk had it right all along.
