Bozo Mark's Top Five Meditation/Relaxation/Bedtime Albums

1. Ambient 1/Music For Airport

Brian Eno

Editions EG

This is the granddaddy of 'em all. Recorded over 20 years ago, the first in Eno's (and Harold Budd's and Jon Hassell's et cetera et alia) Ambient series, this is absolutely sublime music. I play an excerpt of it each year for my music history students as an example of harmony without melody or rhythm, and that well describes what it is: a subtle, shifting ocean of sound, with tones emerging and submerging. I can hear brass some times, organ others, and still other times I'm not exactly sure what is producting these haunting sounds. If the unconscious could sing, this is what it would sound like. Next to Turn Off Your Mind, Relax And Float Downstream, this goes on at bedtime more than anything else on this list.

2. Solo Piano	Philip Glass	CBS
Passages	Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass	Private

These are paired because I always put them on together and sequence between the two. Glass's piano album gives one the opportunity to hear his approach to minimalism stripped down to its essentials. It is a stark, bare, yet compellingly beautiful album. The collaboration with Shankar unites Glass with one of his primary influences, the music of East Asia. The concept is intriguing: Shankar and Glass each wrote three themes, kept one apiece and traded the other two. Then, using the one original and two borrowed themes, they wrote three pieces for small orchestra. The most interesting thing for me is that you can't really tell which pieces have the other's theme (and the liner notes are not clear). All of the music sounds like it comes from one source - which, I suppose, it does. These two albums together make for a fascinating aural journey.

3. Symphony No. 3

Henryk Górecki

Electra Nonesuch

Exquisite. When I first got this, I told people that listening to it was the closest thing I was having those days to a transcendental religious experience. That's still true. If this isn't in your collection, your collection is not yet complete.

4. Ravi In Celebration	Ravi Shankar	Angel
Chants Of India	Ravi Shankar	Angel

The first is a four-CD box set commemorating the sitar master's 75th birthday, the second a new recording of ancient Sanskrit prayers. The box set is divided into four sections, one per disc: 1) classical sitar, 2) orchestral and ensembles, 3) East-West collaborations, and 4) vocal and experimental. All are terrific. Shankar has immaculate taste, and it doesn't matter whether he's working with Indian compatriots or participating in odd combinations with everyone from straight classical violinists to Californian cool jazzers to freaky Frank Zappa alumnae, he never fails to make interesting music. This is never more relevant than with the chants album. He wrote melodies for ancient texts, new orchestrations and some original pieces - and it's all lovely. Maybe it's terminally 60's of me, but I love the sitar. (And a pertinent flash from the past - George Harrison produced both the box set and the chant disc.) Soothing bee music that never fails to relax me.

5. The David Lynch Projects

Angelo Badalamenti

Warner Bros

Badalamenti scores all of David Lynch's film and recording projects, and his music - haunting, spooky, jazzy, soothing, mysterious - is terrific for bedtime or meditation. Two favorites are singer Julee Cruise's albums, which feature indecipherable lyrics by Lynch. Even when you read the lyrics they don't make much sense, you can't understand a word she sings, but somehow all that indecipherablility adds to the charm. Very moody stuff, quite intoxicating. The Twin Peaks soundtracks - both from the teevee show and the feature film Firewalk With Me - are similarly appropriate. Even The Straight Story soundtrack - although a bit more traditional musically than the other selections here - is nonetheless lovely, reflective music. All highly recommended.