Reddit reviews Windham Hill Sampler '88, Vol. 5

George Winston is a difficult case, because while "rural folk piano" is a far better name for his music, he was a flagship artist of Windham Hill, itself the most memorable New Age label.

Autumn got me through finals. Got me through windy walks through forests in late fall. Got me across Texas, both through the middle and the panhandle. Got me to the tip of Cape Cod, and to Hancock Point, Maine, too. Endless walks in the gray mist of Keansburg and Asbury Park and Sandy Hook in late winter too.

I've bought the album 4 times now because I wore out the CDs, as I carried them around from dorm to apartment to home to work, and then in the car...

If you had me list my favorite albums of all time, albums like Bad Religion's Suffer would be on there, as would Marvin Gaye's Whats Goin' On and Jethro Tull's Aqualung and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon and Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain.

But then again so would Autumn; acoustic watercolor for the end of the year, and perhaps the finest recording of its kind.

See also W.A. Mathieu's Unseen Rain, from Windham Hill Sampler '88, which I still have on vinyl (which I bought in 1988!)

My memory of this last song, is me at 16 years old, standing on the sidewalk in front of my house in New Jersey. The first snow of the year had just begun to fall -- one of my favorite things. From the sidewalk in front of my house as the flurries came down, I could see my computer screen light up as my first BBS, running on a Commodore 64, took its first call. Unseen Rain was playing on my Walkman...

It's a good memory.

Those with Usenet access who know how to use NZBs might try this query which includes a lot of things which are out of print.