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Cassette
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IMPREC 516CS
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Fans of deep, dark, minimal, and meditative new age music on cassette will be chuffed to learn that Important Records is reissuing three of JD Emmanuel's earliest releases on tape. Rain Forest Music (1981), Wizards (1982), and Trance Formations 1: Ancient Minimal Meditations (1986) are all available for the first time in many years.On Rain Forest Music (1981), JD Emmanuel builds gentle, short cycles of notes into floating clouds of sound, mostly improvising around single chords. The "minimalism" in his music lies not in repetitive patterns that barely change but more in the spare arrangements that focus the listener while also taking them on a sonic journey. A tape loop technique used by Brian Eno, Terry Riley, Robert Fripp (and likely many more) called "Continuous Looping" was used in the creation of this album and a loop diagram is included in the packaging.
"I originally designed this music to enhance relaxation and meditation, as a background for massage or for counseling to help a person relax and open up faster. Dr. Robert Pennington, PhD., a clinical psychologist and friend, was very interested in the idea of using music in this way. So, he used the Rain Forest Music in his counseling sessions as background and noticed a marked difference in the quality of the patient's sessions. He continues to use this and similar music as a background for his counseling." --JD Emmanuel.
"If you have been wondering what all the fuss about 'private press new age' is, go here to find out. Your mind shall be subtly blown..." --Fader
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Cassette
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IMPREC 517CS
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Fans of deep, dark, minimal, and meditative new age music on cassette will be chuffed to learn that Important Records is reissuing three of JD Emmanuel's earliest releases on tape. Rain Forest Music (1981), Wizards (1982), and Trance Formations 1: Ancient Minimal Meditations (1986) are all available for the first time in many years.
Trance-Formations 1: Ancient Minimal Meditations (1986) was originally composed between 1981-1985 and released in 1986. These long, extended cyclic pieces were composed and recorded using delayed analog synthesizers and Emmanuel credits the inspiration of Terry Riley and Steve Reich for sending him in this musical direction. The release of this album followed his acclaimed Wizards (1982). Recorded using three Sequential Circuits Pro-One synthesizers and a Yamaha SK-20 Poly-Synthesizer. 100% analog sound. Mastered by JD Emmanuel.
"If you have been wondering what all the fuss about 'private press new age' is, go here to find out. Your mind shall be subtly blown..." --Fader
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Cassette
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IMPREC 305CS
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Fans of deep, dark, minimal, and meditative new age music on cassette will be chuffed to learn that Important Records is reissuing three of JD Emmanuel's earliest releases on tape. Rain Forest Music (1981), Wizards (1982), and Trance Formations 1: Ancient Minimal Meditations (1986) are all available for the first time in many years.
"Wizards was my first deep trance electronic music album. This album was inspired by Terry Riley, one of the earliest people ever to compose and perform long, extended, cyclic pieces in the electronic format. This music was composed and performed in '81 and '82. I consider this album my best work. The instrumentation is three Sequential Circuits PRO-1s, Crumar Traveler One and a Yamaha SK-20, all real time recording to a Teac 4-track reel-to-reel. I mixed the four tracks to a Teac A-7300 Master 2-Track tape recorder using a DeltaLab DL-2 to create the delay track. In 2006, I used a Tascam 34B 4-track to remaster all my master tapes to digital master of 196 KHz/24 bit .WAV files using Soundforge 8 software. The original Wizards LP was published in the summer of 1982 with the black-and-white cover. The initial tracks had not names and were call 'Movements I-V'. Several years later sales had slowed down, in an effort to improve sales we tried the color cover and I created names for each track, as shown on the samples." --JD Emmanuel
"If you have been wondering what all the fuss about 'private press new age' is, go here to find out. Your mind shall be subtly blown..." --Fader
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LP
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ZORN 047LP
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Aguirre Records present a reissue of the 1981 debut album by new age pioneer JD Emmanuel, Rain Forest Music. Texan musician JD Emmanuel's career story is, in a way, a story about how the passion of fans can make a difference and about a gifted musician whose music may have been lost to the ages. The tale begins in 2005 when Douglas Mcgowan stumbled on several dusty boxes of two JD Emmanuel vinyl albums -- several hundred of them, all still sealed -- at a discount book and record store in North Dallas, Texas. Mcgowan purchased 50 copies and took them back to the west coast. This discovery set in motion a chain of events that led to a series of reissues and Emmanuel's return to recording and performing in 2010. The majority of JD Emmanuel's studio recordings date from the 1980s, when new age music in America was still an indie scene. Whether you call his albums new age or not, the meditative vibe, spiritual underpinnings and self-releasing are all hallmarks of the genre. Yet his cyclic, organ-based music is different from most of his contemporaries of that era. Back in 1970, he was deeply impressed by his first taste of classical minimalism when he heard American minimalist composers Terry Riley and Steve Reich. He was also attracted to the improvisations of modern jazz and long-form rock jams. Minimalism and improvisation, then, became the foundations of his art, and the evocation of trance-like states his goal. In 1980, with his newly acquired Crumar Traveler-1 organ, analog synths, guitar, and various effects, he began building a body of warm, melodic, usually stripped-back ambient trance with a unique mystical vibe. On Rain Forest Music he builds gentle, short cycles of notes into floating clouds of sound, mostly improvising around single chords. The "minimalism" in his music lies not in repetitive patterns that barely change -- the extreme end of classical minimalism -- but more in the spare arrangements. There's also an open, loving optimism to the melodies that has obvious appeal to new age listeners. The album cover is from an original water color created for the LP in 1981 by Houston artist, Molly Khan. 180 gram vinyl; Printed inner sleeve; Remastered by Rashad Becker; Lacquer cut by Rashad Becker; Cover reconstruction by Jeroen Wille; Edition of 1000.
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3LP
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BS 018LP
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2022 repress. The rediscovery of J D Emmanuel by critics and audience in the early 2010s and Emmanuel's comeback to underground scene were crucial in reweaving the development of electronic music in the early '80s. This deluxe three-LP set casts new light on Emmanuel's first activity of composing and performing electronic music in 1979-'83, collecting experiments never before released on vinyl, some of which are previously unreleased in any form. Certainly seminal minimal works such as Four Organs (1970) and Violin Phase (1967) by Steve Reich and A Rainbow in Curved Air by Terry Riley (1969) -- as well as Cluster, Harmonia, and Peter Michael Hamel's early-'70s work -- had a decisive impact on Emmanuel's debut. However, since his beginnings he has reshaped and reformulated his sources of inspiration with unparalleled maturity and accuracy of vision. His poetry is closely tied to the will to expand consciousness and explore altered states, but more than a cosmic traveler, he appears as a courier of soul and heart -- a self-described "student of the metaphysical nature of the Universe." Magician of an incredible variety of analog keyboards, Emmanuel conceives sound as dynamic translation of forces and organic, expanding flows of energy. The cyclicity of patterns and phrases refers to minimalist traditions, but his music has little in common with something purely mathematical; using an approach to improvisation colored by his interests in jazz and the temporal expansion of rock jams, he charges harmonic sections with an intimate spontaneity and freedom without boundaries. These 14 "vaporous drawings," presented with photos and writings, evoke a primordial state of grace in the listener, in parallel to Emmanuel's contemporary ancestral work Wizards from 1982 (IMPREC 305CD). (This set contains two tracks that were initially included on the original Wizards release, but replaced by other tracks just before the final master.)
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CD
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IMPREC 305CD
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This CD reissue of JD Emmanuel's Wizards contains two tracks excluded from the original 1982 LP due to master tape problems. "Wizards was my first deep trance electronic music album. This album was inspired by Terry Riley, one of the earliest people ever to compose and perform long, extended, cyclic pieces in the electronic format. This music was composed and performed in '81 and '82. I consider this album my best work. The instrumentation is three Sequential Circuits PRO-1s, Crumar Traveler One, and a Yamaha SK-20, all real time recording to a Teac four-track reel-to-reel. I mixed the four tracks to a Teac A-7300 Master 2-Track tape recorder using a DeltaLab DL-2 to create the delay track. In 2006, I used a Tascam 34B 4-track to remaster all my master tapes to digital master of 196 KHz/24 bit .WAV files using Soundforge 8 software. The original Wizards LP was published in the Summer of 1982 with the black and white cover. The initial tracks had no names and were called Movements I-V. Several years later sales had slowed down, in an effort to improve sales we tried the color cover and I created names for each track." --JD Emmanuel
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LP
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ZORN 014LP
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2015 repress of the 2011 reissue of the original 1986 cassette. Pressing of 400 copies on 180-gram vinyl in full-color thick cardboard sleeve. Created between 1981 and 1985 by JD Emmanuel, a new age composer who has received a lot of praise from people like Lieven Martens and John Olsen. These recordings signify Emmanuel's praise to the course of the day. Starting off slowly with morning synth meanderings, walking through midday, running in the evening, and closing the day with midnight meditation. "Somewhere hidden in the deepest part of the Self is that special place, where One can go within to the most ancient part of one's Self and connect with the origin of Self. Ancient Minimal Meditations reaches into that special place of creation of the Self and its Oneness with the Creator of All." Recorded using three Sequential Circuits Pro-One synthesizers and a Yamaha SK-20 Poly-Synthesizer. 100% analog sound. Mastered by JD Emmanuel.
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LP
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BS 013LP
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Probably one of the most underestimate artists of electronic music from the early '80s, has been lately rediscovered. An expert modulator of electronic and natural sounds, with this work JD Emmanuel seems to recall and reflect extensively on the poetics of the cyclic and mantric sound investigated by other pioneers such as Terry Riley and La Monte Young. The microtonal patterns of the compositions are animated by dense and minimum pulses that amplify the hypnotic and meditative dimension and can be colored by Tibetan suggestions or guitar glissandi. Flows and reflections of sounds define abstract landscapes but remain always deeply reverent with nature and its micro-cosmic variations. In this way, Echoes from Ancient Caves is ideally connected to the previous experimentations of Rain Forest Music (1981) and Wizards (1982). 500 copies on black vinyl + a download link for the digital edition.
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LP
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IMPREC 305LP
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"With so much being made of current practitioners of the kosmische/New Age vibe, here's your opportunity to hear an original. Copies from the original pressing rarely surface and even the 2007 repress (which sounded quite thin) commands quite a fee on internet auction sites. This straight analog pressing sounds as close to the original master tapes as you can get. 500 made. Pressed at RTI."
"Wizards was my first deep trance electronic music album. This album was inspired by Terry Riley , one of the earliest people ever to compose and perform long, extended, cyclic pieces in the electronic format. This music was composed and performed in '81 and '82. I consider this album my best work. The instrumentation is three Sequencial Circuits PRO-1s, Crumar Traveler One and a Yamaha SK-20, all real time recording to a Teac 4-track reel-to-reel. I mixed the four tracks to a Teac A-7300 Master 2-Track tape recorder using a DeltaLab DL-2 to create the delay track. In 2006, I used a Tascam 34B 4-track to remaster all my master tapes to digital master of 196 KHz/24 bit .WAV files using Soundforge 8 software. The original Wizards LP was published in the Summer of 1982 with the black and white cover. The initial tracks had no names and were called 'Movements I-V.' Several years later sales had slowed down. In an effort to improve sales we tried the color cover and I created names for each track..." -- J.D. Emmanuel
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