Environments (Disc 2)

New age is a largely instrumental, mood-driven genre that emphasizes calm, spacious textures and a sense of spiritual or contemplative uplift. It blends gentle electronic timbres, acoustic instruments, and global/folk influences to create immersive soundscapes intended for relaxation, meditation, and introspection. Hallmarks include slow tempos or free time, long sustaining pads, modal and consonant harmonies, nature field recordings, and unobtrusive rhythms. The music often avoids dramatic tension in favor of openness and continuity, conveying themes of inner peace, nature, and the transcendent.

Animal sounds is a non-music, documentary-focused genre centered on the unaccompanied vocalizations and behaviors of animals—such as birdsong, whale song, insect choruses, amphibian calls, and mammal vocalizations—captured in the field. Rather than emphasizing melody, harmony, or beat, works in this genre present the acoustic ecology of a place and time. Producers often favor minimal processing to preserve scientific, educational, and experiential value, though some releases organize recordings into thematic "soundscapes" (e.g., dawn chorus, coastal rookeries). The genre is commonly used for education, research, relaxation, and as raw material for ambient, electroacoustic, and sound art contexts.

Non-music is an umbrella category for recorded audio whose primary purpose is not musical performance. It encompasses spoken word, speeches, interviews, poetry readings, comedy, audio documentaries, instructional recordings, field recordings, sound effects, and other forms of organized sound meant to inform, narrate, document, or entertain without relying on melody or conventional song structure. Rather than emphasizing harmony, rhythm, and instrumentation, non-music foregrounds voice, text, ambient sound, narrative flow, informational content, and sonic texture. Its aesthetics range from raw, unedited actuality to highly produced studio works, and its scope spans archival preservation, education, performance art, and mass entertainment.

Bird sounds is a non-music audio genre centered on the recording and presentation of avian vocalizations—songs, calls, alarm notes, wing sounds, and choruses—captured in natural habitats. Releases typically feature unprocessed or minimally edited field recordings that highlight species identification, behavior, and ecological context. While often issued as documentary or educational material for ornithologists and birders, bird-sound albums have also been widely used for relaxation, meditation, film and game sound design, and as source material in electroacoustic and ambient composition. Projects range from single-species studies to immersive “dawn chorus” soundscapes and region-focused guides.

Field recording is the practice and genre of capturing sounds in situ—outside the studio—using portable recording equipment. It centers on documenting environments, human activities, wildlife, weather, machinery, rituals, and music as they actually occur, often with minimal intervention. As a listening genre, field recording foregrounds place and presence. Releases may present unprocessed, extended takes (e.g., a shoreline at dawn), or carefully edited sequences that map a soundwalk, a village festival, or a factory floor. The results range from documentary-style fidelity to abstract, immersive soundscapes that emphasize texture, spatiality, and the ecology of sound.