(16 April 2000) The latest new age compilation by Real Music (USA), entitled Infinity (Cat. No. RM2350, 2000) is the follow up tothe highly successful 1999 album Touching Beauty and the ongoingbestseller Eternity, A Romantic Collection. The album is comprised by twelve tracks from various artists, incorporating heavenly female vocals on and off throughout the album. The album's executiveproducer is Terence Yallop. Just like Real Music's Ceredwen (review) and 2002 (review)albums, the packaging and technical production quality is first rate.

The album opens with a lovely new age instrumental entitled "Love's Story" by Paul Machlis. The lullaby sounding "Silence" from Through These Eyes by Bliss is filled with stunning heavenly vocals combiningscat with lyrics, and is one of the album's treasures. Hilary Stagg's "Sweet Return" from the album of the same name is played primarily onharp and other strings, yet Enya-like vocalise adds to the texture of the soothing track. The piano number "I Watched Her from Afar" byBrian BecVar has a lovely melody. Congratulations to Real Music forincluding the very Enya-like track "Elysian Fields" and another moreindependent sounding song entitled "Starwalkers"—both from 2002's latest album (review).

Kevin Kern's "To Sleep on Angels' Wings" is a Celtic-derived string-based instrumental with a lovely and soft melody. Vocaliseand keyboards join the strings to add depth to the track. Kern'snew age instrumental cover of Elton John's "We All Fall in Love Sometimes," also included on this album, is especially memorable. Jim Chappell's soft piano melody in "Precious Memories" is verysoothing bridging 2002's "Starwalkers" to the crisp harp and string-intensive melody of "For My Love" by Hilary Stagg.

Gary Remal Malkin's short and quietly symphonic soundtrack-like instrumental "The First Night" from his album Thousand Pieces Of Gold is a worldly track from 1992. We especially enjoyed the brief whistle part. Infinity concludes with Egil Fylling's nine-minute epic "Anahata" fromthe forthcoming album of the same name. Here worldly instrumentals using a variety of strings, bell-like effects, whistle and other keyboard sounds join choral vocalise to produce a stunning new age track.

You can hear further soundbites, read reviews and order the album atamazon.com. The latest compilation from Real Music Inifinitycontains almost an hour of modern new age instrumental music, muchlaced with female vocals. Certainly worthy of further exploration itis a very nice listen.