Gandalf - Beautiful Sounds from Nature by this New Age Artist (music and more inside)

A couple of years after the Compact Disc (CD) was first commercially marketed (1982), a new service was launched by a shop just around the corner where I lived at that time. It was 1988 and the shop started the first ever CD rental service in the Netherlands. It was through this service, I discovered a lot of music generally difficult to discover through existing record and music shops. No Internet at those times!

The album "More Than Just A Seagull" by New Age artist Gandalf was one of the first CDs offered by this rental shop and also one of the first CDs I rented and possibly also the first contact I had with New Age artists. It was through this album I started to evolve my appreciation of the genre.

"More Than Just A Seagull" is an album that today fits the word "Meditation" and "Yoga", something not that well known by the general public back then. I particular liked the effects this album had on my brain. When stressed out for exams, or other things I had to deal with when I was a child, listening to "More Than Just A Seagull" helped me to deal with that stress in a very positive way. For a long time I didn't listen to this album anymore, and when I listened to several of the tracks on YouTube last week, I immediately understood why I played this album so often back in the late 80s and early 90s. Not only the music is great to wind down, the melodies are also beautiful!

Gandalf started producing early 80s and is active still with more than 50 album releases. From discogs:

He's a multi-instrumentalist and plays a great variety of self-owned instruments: acoustic and electric guitars, sitar, saz, charango, bouzuki, balaphon, piano, several synthesizers & sample-keyboards and various percussion instruments. He blends acoustic with electronic and spheric sounds, weaves folk-elements into symphonic structures, creating his unique style that made him become one of todays most successful Austrian musicians internationally.

• Artist: Gandalf (real name: Heinz Strobl)
• Album: More Than Just A Seagull
• Style: New Age
• Year: 1983/1988

Two from the Three tracks of the original Vinyl (1983) and Three from the Five tracks of the original CD (1988) I was able to discover on the Internet. I share them with you, here below.

I hope you appreciate the music. Leave me a comment when you do so.