Altar of Harmony (Cassette)

The history of new age music from south of the Mason-Dixon line is largely a secret one. But the south is where we find one of the genre’s most important distributors — New Leaf, in Kentucky, some of its most accomplished synthesists — Don Robertson, Geoffrey Newhall, William Linton, amongst others, and acoustic musicians like PC Davidoff and George Tortorelli. It is the home of countless spiritual retreats, intentional communities, and other signifiers of alternative spiritual life. But until now, there have never been any particular regional characteristics that can be assigned to southern new age music. Until now, there has never been any crossover between country and new age. And so — all of the sounds heard on this album were made with a 1967 Emmons Push/Pull pedal steel guitar in Nashville, Tennessee. This recording, which can justifiably be described as “new age” in the most essential sense, represents a radical new approach to the versatile and cosmic instrument of the steel gu