i guess you are talking about naxos recordings of part's music. otherwise naxos is pretty decent, especially for the price. there are good performances on the label as well as some mediocre ones. the shostakovich symphonies are rather decent, for instance. recordings of penderecki's symphonies and violin concerto no.1 are also pretty good, though for some shorter orchestral pieces and violin concerto no.2 it's better to go elsewhere. it's best to avoid naxos for baroque and early classical periods, though.
ecm always has quality recordings by some of the best performers of early music and contemporary music. harmonia mundi is a good label for baroque especially and the cd prices are usually low - definitely recommended label.
some of erik satie's works may be considered as precursors of minimalism. phillip glass, steve reich, terry riley, arvo part etc. all have compositions fitting the desciption in the original post. but i'm going to recommend something rather different that you guys may like if you enjoy some of this stuff.
one of the composers on this album, gurdjieff, is actually a religious figure of armenian-greek descent in the first half of the 20th century. he devised a religion of sorts with influences from both the east and the west. he also hummed some tunes to one of his followers, dehartmann, who transcribed them for the piano. some of these were used in movement exercises and dances that were part of the spiritual teaching. the resulting compositions reflect both eastern and western tendencies and are beautifully simple melodically and harmonically. there are a few recorings of these pieces and the one i have among these is on a german label, wergo, and may not be so easily found in stores in the us. however, the cd above is on ecm and can be obtained easily. the music is performed on piano and cello and i think some compositions turn out even more effective this way. the other composer on the album is the pianist, tsabropoulos, himself.
