Zeus & Apollo

"Welcome to the new age of new age." So says Hatchback's Sam Grawe on 'Zeus and Apollo', his second outing for Lo Recordings.

Like its predecessor, 'Colors of the Sun', it is full of California sunshine and open space, but this time Hatchback ventures further afield, crafting a widescreen epic that travels deep into a territory once considered off limits... the new age. Could it really be that a new age of new age is here? One can find it in the melodic arpeggios and beatless vistas of acts like Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds, and entrenched in the vibes of further-out acts like James Ferraro and Ducktails. Although resuscitating out-of-bounds areas of the record shop has become something of a hipster calling card (witness the revivals of folk and disco), Sam has had a lifelong appreciation for the genre, stemming from summer nights listening to public radio's music from the Hearts of Space and years scouring without irony the $1 new age bins for synthesizer-based artists. While he suffered through the dark time when Windham Hill's antiseptic piano wash soured everyone on the concept of new age music, Sam never lost interest in the genre's foundations - the experiments of Vangelis, Cluster, Michael Rother, Brian Eno, Harold Budd, Iasos, Popol Vuh, Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. 'Zeus & Apollo' pays tribute to those "gods" of new age, while stepping boldly into the 21st century. Beautifully constructed and produced, the intricate layers and melodious tones will send one spinning effortlessly out into the galaxy.

Find a piece of sky, put headphones on and let Hatchback take the controls - once again space travel is affordable to all.