Windham Hill A Winter's Solstice

When PolyGram refused to release his 1983 record Shook in either the U.S. or England, Iain Matthews became disillusioned and decided to put his career on hold indefinitely. Following a stint as an A&R man for both Island and Windham Hill Records, he returned in 1988 with an album dedicated solely to the songs of Jules Shear. Issued by Windham Hill, Walking a Changing Line was the label's first vocal release, though it still retained touches of the label's trademark new age sound throughout.

Folksongs for a Nuclear Village was Shadowfax's sixth album and its first not to be released on the label Windham Hill. The only remaining original members Chuck Greenberg (saxophones and flutes) and G.E. Stinson (guitars) were surrounded for this album by Phil Maggini (bass, keyboards), Stuart Nevitt (drums, percussion), Charles Bisharat (violin), and David Lewis (keyboards), with additional support in the percussion department provided by longtime collaborators Emil Richards and Michael Spiro. All band members contributed at least one piece, something new for Shadowfax, usually dominated by the writing team of Stinson and Greenberg. The music on this album was first created for Louise Durkee's dance performance…

Mike Oldfield, watch out. This all-instrumental album, consisting of two long pieces ("Slow Dance Parts 1 and 2") that mix new age sounds with rock, crosses into territory staked out most successfully by the tubular bell-ringer, and comes off as sort of Windham Hill with a beat. This material features clarinet, oboe, flute, trumpet, harp, and percussion as well as guitar, and it does sort of resemble the spacy synthesizer interludes and bridges found as parts of the longer pieces on Genesis's progressive-era albums…