My second acquisition from the Musik Zur Ruhe series was Volume 10, Leben – Humming Voices. The experience mirrored my jump from Deep Breakfast to The Sky Of Mind. Leben was still a good collection of new age music but did appeal to me like Licht – Flying Clouds did. Where Jean Michel Jarre used synthesizers and bizarre electronic gadgets for Oxygene and Equinoxe, Leben’s artists added more traditional acoustic instruments and voices on many of the tracks. It isn’t bad but the result is a slower more meditative experience instead of the electronic invigorating aura I was trying to recapture.
As I sit here and listen, I can feel my heart rate settling into a calm and peaceful rhythm. Images of a still lake smooth as glass carry my mind away. It would be another eight or nine years before I’d share this music with Aric and Scott and funny enough, it would be on a still lake smooth as glass in north central Michigan in the full color of autumn.
Another big difference from Licht is that Leben is a compilation of several different artists. I like that they have different approaches and different choices in instruments but yet maintain that peaceful meditative style. Now the big question is what will be available to share with you…
Michael Rother – Pulsar
Penguin Café Orchestra – Air
Penguin Café Orchestra – Isle Of View
Michael Rother – Blauer Regen
Penguin Café Orchestra – Now Nothing
So I was able to find some but there are more that you missed. It would be nearly 20 years before I would expand my collection of the Musik Zur Ruhe series. Not be because I didn’t want to but because they are so damned hard to find.