Iasos, New Age music pioneer, dies aged 77

"He set the bar so high from the very beginning no one even tried to match what he did" Iasos, a pioneer of New Age music, has died aged 77. The news was shared by his friend and producer Carlos Niño and Douglas McGowan of Yoga Records on Instagram. No cause of death was revealed. “What a sad surreal feeling it is to report that Iasos departed on Saturday… When I last saw him in April, he was just as spritely as ever.

I know I’m not alone when I say that of all the original masters, I assumed he’d be the last to go,” McGowan wrote. “Along with Steven Halpern, Iasos basically invented new age music. This bears repeating — he created a genre of music. He created the part where there are no rules. He invented a style of music and then mastered it over and over.

He set the bar so high from the very beginning no one even tried to match what he did with Inter Dimensional Music (1975). “So many things he created were simply without comparison,” he continued. “He invented new tools to create new forms. He built incredible, immortal things from scratch. Rest in peace — genius — madman — man apart — true original — legend.” You can view the post here .

McGowan also shared a message from Niño, who wrote: “Our Dearest Brother, Friend, Guide, Mentor, Inspiration, and Great Visionary of Celestial Paradise Music has transitioned from his Earth Body today, Saturday, January 6, 2024. “We invite you to please explore the vastness of Iasos. He poured his heart and soul into his Music and fully intended for it to raise vibrations on Earth, that we all would live in higher harmonic realization of our unique potential, co existing and co creating together.” Iasos was born on Jaunary 9, 1947, in Greece, where he moved to New York with his family aged four.

After graduating from Cornell University in 1968 with a degree in cultural anthropology, he eventually settled in Marin County, California. There, he would compose his debut album ‘Inter Dimensional Music Through Iasos’ (1975), which McGowan praised as “one of the most psychedelic, original works of music ever made.” He would also play flute on his friend Steven Halpern’s record ‘Spectrum Suite’ that same year.

Both albums would go on to establish New Age music as a genre. Iasos would continue to make nineteen more albums until his death, including recently released album ‘The Garden of Salathooslia’ (2023). He is also known for a study undertaken in 1989 at Plymouth State University, whereupon participants were asked to rate the music that sounded the closest to what they heard during their near death experience.

Iasos’ piece ‘The Angels of Comfort’ was givent he highest rating “by a large margin”. He reportedly moved to Maui in 2020, where he lived until his death..