Ther's always New Age and artists like Andreas Vollenweider, Susan Cianni, Shadowfax, John Tesch (yeah the TV host guy), Vangellis, etc. Classical artists like Leona Boyd occasionally cross over here and produce some interesting and relaxing stuff. Cindy made a good call on Yanni but I'm not sure Geno is in total agreement....
(Maybe a little Zamfir and his beer flutes...excuse me I mean pipes should be thrown in as well)Kitaro takes Taoist/Zen koto music to New Age and his music has been used to score a few movies. Steve Kujala plays a soothing flute and his music is sometimes classified in with jazz.
On the jazz side, there are too many relaxing artists to count. Most everyone is familar with Kenny G. Sidao Watanabi echoes his skill with a sax and then there's Candy Dulfer - sensuous looks and sensual sex....er sax playing - her
Lilly Was Here made it on quite a few pop stations a few years back. Guitarists Marc Antoine, Kazumi Watanabe, and Jonathan Butler are smooth jazz favorites of mine. Bob James, Billy Cobham, David Sandborn, The Rippingtons, The Yellowjackets, Wayman Tisdale (Yep...that's the former NBA forward), Herb Alpert, and Paul Hardcastle are a few jazz artists I like to relax to. There are also a hoop and a group of Japanese Fusion artists like Cassieopia I used to listen to when I was over yonder. Hiroshima is an LA based jazz vocal group that is catchy and soothing to listen to.
Now off to the weird but soothing - maybe. Tomita is a Japanese Classical artist gone mad. Synthesized Debussy, Holst, or Mussorgsky - it's all a bit strange and a hypnotically attracting twist on classics. His rendition of Debussy's
Golliwog's Cakewalk and
Close Encounters also fascinates the kids. Jan-Michael Jarre is another synthesizer run amok. Zoolook was a bit too much for me but Oxygen bears a listen.
If you really like good haunting, relaxing, entrancing synthesizer music though Tangerine Dream is the group.
Stratosfear, Phaedra, Force Majeure, Exit, and
Rubicon remain my personal favorites but their old collection
Dream Sequnce will povide a good listen to judge them by. They scored the music for the movies
Thief and I believe
Sorceror and the song
Love on a Real Train was the background music in
Risky Business when Tom and Rebeca DeMornay heated up the subway car. The
Exit album includes
kiew mission - one the few vocals I've heard them do - but the soft-spoken almost whispered demure East-European accented woman's voice only adds a sensual overtone to the haunting music. TD is still on the scene and they have produced albums that border on Jazz or New Age. There are good collections of their more recent work and they are a prolific group with more than 25 albums produced between 1970 and 1987. CDnow.com lists close to 250 entries for them when you search Music alone. One the band leadrs, Edgar Froese, has also released more than 20 albums of his own or with other synth groups. No one even approaches Tangerine Dream for entrancing hypnotic and haunting music (or quality output). Their early CDs can be purchased cheaply ($10.99) on amazon.com and recommend
Exit and
Stratosfear as their best early works and the used CD stores usually have a sampling of TD in their racks. Not that I'm trying to sell you on TD or anything....
HOLY CRAP!!!!........I forgot about mentioning Enigma!!
Grab a copy of
Enigma 2 the CROSS of changes. This was the music heard in the B-movie
Sliver with Sharon Stone and Steve? Baldwin. They have another 3 or so albums out. Good stuff with Taiwanese chanting and haunting melodies and music ...."I love you, I'll kill you....but I'll love you forever".
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