Martin Beck’s ‘Environments’ Art Summons New Age Sights and Sounds

Martin Beck’s ‘Environments’ Art Summons New Age Sights and Sounds

If you like the idea of zoning out and luxuriating in the sounds of a “Psychologically Ultimate Seashore” or an “Optimum Aviary,” you are not alone—and in fact are part of a lineage that traces back to a series of mind-altering recordings debuted in 1969. The 11 volumes of Environments, a series of LPs featuring long-duration selections of nature sounds and aural abstractions like computer-generated bell tones, figure prominently in the history …