QuietMelodies is now open!

As many of you might already know, the new portal is finally open!!!!!  I am so sorry that it has taken so long to happen, but I do hope you find it worth the wait.  Some of the new features you will be able to enjoy are being able to message any member & being able to post your own favorites.  There will also be a forum added so that requests and such can be made there.  Eventually hope to in essence mirror this blog there and of course have new content available.  The new music available should be substantially more than here as there will be multiple people posting =-).  Please stop by and join your NEW home for QuietMusic – www.quietmelodies.com!

Nicholas Gunn & Johannes Linstead – Encanto

Nicholas Gunn & Johannes Linstead – Encanto
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 42:10 min | 2007 | 106 MB | 10% Recovery Record

Award-winning Latin Guitarist Johannes Linstead and multi-platinum selling Flautist Nicholas Gunn collaborate on this highly inspired album of original songs. Johannes masterful guitar work combined with Nicholas passionate flute create an atmosphere that is at once engaging, powerful, and sublime, and yet at times, hauntingly beautiful. Together they have accomplished a new found level of brilliance, an album that is sure to make its mark as a masterful accomplishment…

Nicholas Gunn – The Sacred Fire

Nicholas Gunn – The Sacred Fire
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 1:02:41 min | 1994 | 145 MB | 10% Recovery Record

On keyboardist/flutist Nicholas Gunn’s debut album, you spend an Afternoon in Sedona exploring the spirit of the magnificent Southwestern desert landscape. The Sacred Fire captures his reverence for Mother Earth and the sounds that echo from ancient peoples who once tread upon it. On tracks like “Odessa,” lush orchestration punctuated by percussive tribal beats and stirring vocals burn with the intensity of primitive dance, while the romantic tender ballad “Midnight Hour” embraces the listener under the moonlit sky. This album in particular helped launch Gunn into the upper echelons of new age performers who blended their musical spirits with that of the land they love so much.

Nicholas Gunn – The Music of the Grand Canyon

Nicholas Gunn – The Music of the Grand Canyon
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 53:07 min | 1995 | 121 MB | 10% Recovery Record

An all-inspiring, electronic, yet natural and well refined expression of the grandeur of a natural monument through beautifully arranged and blended music and sounds. Listen, close your eyes, and this CD really does gives you the feelings of the Grand Canyon. Each song projects a powerful theme about the different parts of and the history of the Grand Canyon. The third song “Flight Over The North Rim” is an exciting musical portrayal of a scenic and up-lifting helicopter trip over the north Rim. The eighth song “Four Worlds” blends the music of different cultures as they met in history to discover and explore the awesome Grand Canyon. So much feeling, with strength and awe, woven together as never before – a true trip to the Grandness of the Grand Canyon.

Nicholas Gunn – The Great Southwest

Nicholas Gunn – The Great Southwest
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 57:34 min | 2001 | 135 MB | 10% Recovery Record

From listening to the amazing native vibes, joyful flute musings, and sweeping soundscapes of this popular new age artist over the last decade, there’s no way you’d suspect he was born in England and makes his home in Southern California; he sounds totally steeped in the canyons and red rocks of the Southwest. And he’s enjoyed taking his listeners for winding joyrides through the rugged landscape since Afternoon in Sedona was released in 1993. This is a wondrous retrospective of his six recordings, featuring familiar songs, reworkings of a few classics, and two brand new tracks. Those two fit in seamlessly into the unwinding journey. “The Grand Circle” opens with Gunn’s gentle flute floating atop hypnotic tribal rhythms, a sea of nature sounds (the birdcalls are most prominent), and what sounds like a gentle choir of angels. The tune becomes more percussive, almost sounding like a naturally created “house” record due to the intensity of the rhythmic pattern. “Riverside Walk” is a bit lighter and more whimsical, with his flute winding over a loping flamenco guitar swirl and swaying rhythmic pattern. Other songs include “Entering Twin Falls” (which features the sonic effects of thunder and falling water), “Earth Story” (a feisty flamenco gem), “New World,” “Traveler,” “Horseshoe Mesa,” and “Flight of the Condor.” “Condor” features the dramatic and passionate violin soloing of Karen Briggs, which creates an exciting contrast to Gunn’s gentle flute amidst a booming percussive landscape. Because his albums have been on different labels (and this collection is on his own label, distributed by Paras Group International), there’s no track-by-track listing pointing the listener to the original recordings where each piece can be found. Still, Gunn has created an impressive career by musically chronicling his favorite territory, and this collection is sort of the ultimate Greatest Hits of the Southwest.

Nicholas Gunn – Return To Grand Canyon

Nicholas Gunn – Return To Grand Canyon
MP3 @ 256 Kbps VBR | 50:04 min | 2000 | 94 MB | 10% Recovery Record

Return to Grand Canyon is a beautiful sacred album. It’ll transport to spiritual and sacred zone. The tracks “Return to Grand Canyon” and “Flight of the Condor” are awesome. But, wait until you hear “Kaibab Forest”: it is perfect, it couldn’t have been done any better. It’ll force you to close you eyes and make a connection with your higher consciousness and mother nature. I recently made a trip to the Canyon country in Utah and listened to this album while driving through the narrow and steep canyons. The effect was magical and I had to pull over frequently, close my eyes and submerge in the sacred zone.

Nicholas Gunn – Passion in My Heart

Nicholas Gunn – Passion in My Heart
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 46:44 min | 1998 | 108 MB | 10% Recovery Record

With flute melodies floating like clouds on a whispering wind, tribal rhythms intense as lightning showers on a hot summer night, Passion in My Heart embraces with a sound enticingly seductive. A piece of Nicholas’ heart lives in this grand and mystical land where his flute captures an ancient breath and his spirit dances on ageless melody…

Nicholas Gunn – Journey To Yellowstone

Nicholas Gunn – Journey To Yellowstone
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 42:42 min | 2003 | 107 MB | 10% Recovery Record

After his eastward expansion for 2002’s Through the Great Smokey Mountains, Nicholas Gunn returned to the West and the sheltered grandeur and geothermal wonders of Yellowstone. The latest installment in his multi-album celebration of America’s national parks, the album features Gunn’s usual mix of surging synthesizers and tasteful flute. His Native American influence creeps into “Rebirth,” but the song’s upbeat drum processing seems awkwardly robotic next to the organic flute and thunderous background effects. Gunn is more successful with “Seeking Serenity,” where plaintive piano is joined by a Celtic-tinged flute that carries the melody on foggy morning air. As the song continues, the echo on the flute increases; it’s a nice effect, suggesting the call of a bird somewhere up in the tree canopy. Gunn has always had a flair for atmospherics, for finding new ways to evoke emotion with instruments and styles that have grown somewhat common in the contemporary instrumental genre. Journey to Yellowstone’s midsection proves this yet again, as the multi-instrumentalist delves into the thermal mists and exotic landscapes of the park’s interior with a mixture of synth, ambient nature effects, and snatches of vocal melody. Best might be “Verbena Haven,” where the echoes of falling water in a cavern form a rhythm for a frail flute duet. Journey to Yellowstone’s lush instrumentation is augmented by an extensive photo tour of the park.

Nicholas Gunn – Crossroads

Nicholas Gunn – Crossroads
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 49:30 min | 1996 | 123 MB | 10% Recovery Record

Many try, but few artists create music so rife with imagery that you are transported to an entirely fresh geographical plane. No one tours the Southwest like Nicholas Gunn, the flute/synth whiz whose The Music of the Grand Canyon was the most compelling tribute to the park in recent years. With this release, he finds himself at a new Crossroads, which for all intents and purposes is best described as the rocky but clear-skied region around the Four Corners. His latest spiritual excursion again draws on Native American history to build percussive red rock themes around crisp Southwestern architecture that can withstand both intense sunlight and heavy thunderstorms. Gunn’s flute is always at the forefront, played either like a percussion instrument or a launching point for soaring orchestral ideas. Loping along the mountain roads and helping pay tribute to his always enthralling landscapes are the subtle energies of violinist Karen Briggs, cellist Sachi McHenry, and acoustic guitarists Zavier and Bill Shafton.

Nicholas Gunn – Breathe

Nicholas Gunn – Breathe
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 40:58 min | 2004 | 95.4 MB | 10% Recovery Record

Flutist Nicholas Gunn is a longtime presence on the new age music scene, and this, his 11th album, won’t disappoint fans — and might even bring him some new admirers. There are touches of flamenco on a couple of the tracks, both the opening title cut and “La Morada en el Templo Antiguo.” But like the rest of the disc, they’re borne along on mellifluous, easy melodies that seem to glide. Some of the tunes, such as “En el Templo Antiguo” have a lovely delicacy, while “Embrace” is built on a marvelous sprung rhythm, with harmonized flutes elegant on top, leading into a yearning violin solo. Apart from some guitar and violin, everything is by Gunn himself, and he’s an undoubted talent.

Nicholas Gunn – Beyond Grand Canyon

Nicholas Gunn – Beyond Grand Canyon
MP3 @ 256 Kbps | 49:20 min | 2006 | 101 MB | 10% Recovery Record

Favoring romantic harmonies and arrangements that border on Yanni ‘s terrain, Beyond Grand Canyon is on the lighter side of Gunn’s oeuvre: often tending toward the sentimental, when a darker, more evocative touch might serve him better. Gunn plays flutes, stacks his voice in earthy, vaguely Native American-meets-Gothic choirs, and plays keyboards and percussion throughout the disc, accompanied sparingly by violinists (including Karen Briggs) and guitarists (including Johannes Linstead). Nicholas Gunn and Michael Fatali have collaborated their creative passions to share with you this unique Audio-Visual experience, which inspires and informs. The soothing power of the musical compositions resonate a spiritual movement and vibration, through an ancient symphony of creation and a twenty-five year odyssey of stunning imagery. It enlightens and lifts the human spirit up to the eternal connection we all share with the natural world.

Nicholas Gunn – Afternoon in Sedona

Nicholas Gunn – Afternoon in Sedona
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 50:14 min | 1993 | 118 MB | 10% Recovery Record

Here is a strong new entry with a flute ensemble sound and neo-primitive leanings. Afternoon in Sedona has been an initial hit on the radio, with its intriguing combination of flutes, percussion and synthesizers. Nicholas Gunn plays all the instruments, except for additional guitar heard on “Michelle’s Theme,” one of the many standout cuts heard. From the lively, tribal beat of the opening track to the relaxed melodies of the closing and title track, Gunn has presented an unusually delightful debut. Each listen reveals pleasing nuances and subtle inspiration, recalling Ciani, Lynch and other seasoned composers. Nicholas Gunn is an artist to be reckoned with, and Afternoon in Sedona is the perfect introduction.

Nicholas Gunn – Through The Great Smoky Mountains: A Musical Journey

Nicholas Gunn – Through The Great Smoky Mountains: A Musical Journey
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 48:17 min | 2002 | 121 MB | 10% Recovery Record

This inventive, beautifully melodic composer, flutist, keyboardist, and producer has made nature appreciation a true art form. He launched his career a decade ago with Afternoon in Sedona and has recorded incredibly lush sonic interpretations of the Southwest and Grand Canyon since then. His national park itinerary moves east to Tennessee this time, where he’s inspired once again to create an impressionistic travelogue of tribal rhythms, dreamy atmospheres, and hypnotic melodies, spiced with evocative nature sounds, all in the service of telling tales of the Great Smokies’ ancestral past with an eye toward their future preservation. Gunn’s journeys are the new age listener’s joyful gain.