Interview Podcast – Echoes: Recent Episodes
Interview Podcast – Echoes
Spotted Peccary Music celebrates its 40th Anniversary
In the Echoes Podcast, it’s all about Spotted Peccary Music as the pioneering ambient and electronic label celebrates its 40th anniversary. They have outlasted Windham Hill, Narada, Hearts of Space Records and many more. Artists like David Helpling, Deborah Martin, Chronotope Project, Craig Padilla and Rudy Adrian have been part of a catalog of more than 200 releases, all shaped by the creative vision of Howard Givens and Deborah Martin, the brain trust of the label
Howard Givens: “The goal was to design a sound that left you immersed in the music, not distracted by the fact that it came from a synthesizer.”
They’re celebrating 40 years since they came together in Tucson Arizona. They actually released their first album in 1989, In the Land of Power by Brain Laughter. The Spotted Peccary is an imaginary creature born in the desert southwest. But it’s the name of a consequential label, Spotted Peccary Music. We’ll be talking with them about their genesis and evolution across 40 Years.
SPOTTED PECCARY CDS OF THE MONTH SINCE 2005April 2026: Craig Padilla & Marvin Allen – Unfolding Skies
January 2026: Deborah Martin & Jill Haley – Rendering Time
May 2025 CD of the Month: David Helpling and Eric “the” Taylor – Precious Dark
March 2023: Hollan Holmes – Emerald Waters
June 2022: David Helpling – IN
September 2021: Chronotope Project – Gnosis
September 2020: Michael Stearns and Erik Wollo – Convergence
June 2020: John Gregorius – Full of Life
May 2019: Massergy – Fire Opal
December 2013: David Helpling & Jon Jenkins – Found
September 2013: Darshan Ambient – Little Things
December 2011: Darshan Ambient – Dream in Blue
September 2010: David Helpling & Jon Jenkins – The Crossing
December 2008: John Gregorius – Heaven and Earth
July 2007: David Helpling & Jon Jenkins – Treasure
January 2005: Green Isac –Etnotronica
A Meeting in Ambience: Michael Stearns & Robert Rich: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, two electronic musicians who were part of the original 1980s California new age and space music scenes. Michael Stearns and Robert Rich are icons of electronic music and have recorded their first album ever together, Reunion of Breath and Waves. And they did it in person face to face, synth to synth.
Robert Rich: I’ve been using a term for twenty-five plus years now that I refer to as embodiment, which, having lived my life in Silicon Valley until recently, getting extremely tired of the push towards virtualization going on in technology and feeling that to push back, one needs to find a language of physicality, of non-virtual non-virtuality. I think many of the problems that we’re entering into in our civilization has to do with a denunciation of physicality, a denunciation of our animal nature.
We hear some deep musical explorations when John Diliberto talks with Michael Stearns and Robert Rich. Michaels Stearns recordings like Planetary Unfolding, Chronos, Encounter and Samsara are albums that influenced a generation. Robert Rich has a charted a singular course through electronic music traverses abstract realms, world fusion and electronic dreams from his breakthrough release, Rainforest through his seven-hour album inspired by his sleep concerts, Somnium to his recent CD of the Month, Travelers’ Cloth. Even though they travel in the same music circles and have known each other for 40 years, they’ve never recorded together until now and the results are a spectacular album, Reunion of Breath and Waves.
Thoughts Through Sound - David Helpling & Scott Reich: The Echoes Podcast
On the Echoes Podcast, David Helpling and Scott Reich go Through the Thought Horizon. They are musicians exploring a philosophical ambience. David Helpling you might know from his many solo works, collaborations with Jon Jenkins and Dark Sky Alliance. Scott Reich is less well-known. He’s a pianist and electronic composer, but he also takes his music to the mystical side on their collaboration, Through the Thought Horizon.
Scott Reich: The word “through,” meaning if you get to tied to your thoughts, you can have a limited experience in life. But if you can go through the thought horizon, then you’re opening up all kinds of new experiences. You can exist beyond thought.
Get ready for a ride into philosophy, the Kabbalah and the Primordial Tower. Join John Diliberto with David Helping and Scott Reich on the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Mutantrumpet Creator Ben Neill Proposes an Age of Music Democratization: Echoes Podcast
Mutantrumpeter Ben Neill argues for musical democracy now! in the Echoes Podcast.. If you’ve listened to Echoes over the last 30 years, you’ve heard the music of Ben Neill a lot. He plays an instrument called the mutantrumpet which has 3 trumpet bells, a trombone slide, two sets of valves and a lot of electronics. He’s been making music on the edges of electronica since his 1995 album, Green Machine. In the main part of the Echoes Podcast, I’m not going to talk to Ben about the trumpet, but about his new book, Diffusing Music – Trajectories of Sonic Democratization, Ben Neill talks about a history of opening up music to everyone, from the Futurists to Fluxus to AI. You don’t need traditional skill to make music anymore.
Ben Neill: Yeah, de-skilling and re-skilling, so that technology takes over and makes it so that a lot of the skills that were required are just not valid anymore or they’re not needed anymore.
I’ll be talking to Ben Neill about his book which has just been released in a much more affordable paperback edition. As a bonus, after the regular interview, we’ll have Ben demonstrating his mutantrumpet.
Hear the Ben Neill and his mutantrumpet in a live Echoes performance here.
Hammock's Psychedelic Revelations: The Echoes Podcast
The ambient guitar duo Hammock have become darlings of both the post-rock and ambient scenes. Yet, although they may attract a hipster audience, their music is imbued with Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson’s evangelical upbringing and their subsequent rejection of much of that doctrine. It informs alot of their new album, The Second Coming was a Moonrise.
Hammock’s Marc Byrd: In one Christian school that I grew up in, Wednesdays, we wore a pin-on tie with an eagle, an American flag, and a Bible printed on it. So I got a good dose of Christian nationalism too. I got suspended from that school several times.
That’s Marc Byrd of Hammock. I talk to them today about an album inspired by an acid trip, religion, politics and a love of sonic landscapes on Echoes.
The Second Coming was a Moonrise is Echoes June CD of the Month. Read John Diliberto’s review.
An Electronic Revolution-Tonto's Expanding Head Band 55th: The Echoes Podcast
It has been 55 years since Tonto’s Expanding Head Band first took flight on the 1971 album, Zero Time. Recorded on their electronic array called TONTO, it predated by years the sequencer-driven recordings of Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra, Klaus Schulze’s Picture Music and Kraftwerk’s Autobahn. It was an album of thudding bass grooves, melodic electronic flights and deep ambient expanses, long before any of that became part of the contemporary electronic music vernacular.
You may have never heard Zero Time, but its influence reverberated throughout space music and popular music. Look at the credits on ‘70s albums by Quincy Jones, The Isley Brothers, Minnie Ripperton and many others and you’ll see the names of Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff, the creators of TONTO. But their best known contribution remains Stevie Wonder’s brilliant mid-70s quartet of recordings that began with Music of My Mind. They were all midwifed by Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff along with the TONTO synthesizer.
But it’s the album, Zero Time, that remains their most impressive and groundbreaking release, creating a new form of music that would be expanded upon by the aforementioned German artists, In the Echoes Podcast we hear an interview with Cecil and Margouleff recorded in 1996.
Read John Diliberto’s deep dive into Tonto’s Expanding Head Band.
The Physics of Love-KÁRYYN: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, an extraordinary artist for you, KÁRYYN. She is an electronic singer-songwriter of Armenian descent who came up through the experimental world studying with electronic and Deep Listening composer Pauline Oliveros. She has released her second album, Physics Universal Love Language (PULL). Her music is centered around her voice.
KÁRYYN: My voice is my first instrument and I’m not trained as a singer so it’s not about singing licks, it’s not about that, you know, it’s not traditionally what would sound beautiful. I use my voice to shape whatever I’m trying to sing, so whatever I’m trying to express and that is what the voice is for.
The fact is, she does sing beautifully. Her voice goes many places when John Diliberto talks to KÁRYYN on Echoes from PRX.
Will Ackerman on Windham Hill and Philip Aaberg, R.I.P. in Echoes Podcast
Today we were just going to bring you our interview with Will Ackerman, the founder of Windham Hill Records as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of that label. But then we got the news that pianist Philip Aaberg, a stalwart Windham Hill artist, had left the planet on May 23. So first we will hear our Will Ackerman interview but after that, I’ve got our last interview with Philip Aaberg.
Will Ackerman is not only a distinctive guitarist with several signature works, but a producer and collaborator who brought us George Winston, Liz Story, Michael Hedges and many more on the Windham Hill label. He released the dbut album, just to give copies to friends. That album, The Search for the Turtle’s Navel (now titled In Search of the Turtle’s Navel) He’s going to tell us the story of all that.
Then we go to one of the artists Will discovered, pianist Philip Aaberg. His albums, High Plains and Out of the Frame were Windham Hill Classics. Phil appeared on Echoes twice, performing live. We’ll hear Phil from an early 2003 interview where he took us through his career and influences.
Read John Diliberto’s Tribute to Philip Aaberg
The Complete Derek Shulman Interview-The Tale of a Gentle Giant in Echoes Podcast
Almost everyone is familiar with the big progressive rock groups of the 70s like Yes, Genesis, King Crimson and Emerson Lake and Palmer. But one of the bands bubbling just under the surface was Gentle Giant. To true aficionados of the progressive rock genre they were icons. Early this year, the lead singer of the band, Derek Shulman, released a memoir, Giant Steps. At the time I interviewed Derek and produced a nice feature from that on Echoes and in the Echoes Podcast. But there was a lot of good stuff in there that got left out so today in the podcast, I’ve got the complete interview. It includes the influence of Elton John on the band, who they actually turned down as a possible member, their interaction with English gangsters along with Black Sabbath, and bouncing on John & Yoko’s bed at Abbey Road Studios. We also talk about his transition to the corporate side of music. And then there is the outhouse.
Derek Shulman: Certainly in Portsmouth, for a long time, we had an outhouse, no bathroom. So, you know, getting up in the middle of the night to go outside for a pee or whatever you have to do, That was not a lot of fun, especially in the middle of winter. But yeah, that’s how I grew up.
Gentle Giant was a family affair, centered by Derek Shulman on vocals and saxophone, Ray Shulman on violin and Phil Shulman playing wind instruments and trumpet. They all actually played a lot more. They were joined by guitarist Gary Green and the classic edition of the band included drummer John Weathers. They started out as Simon Dupree and the Big Sound and had hits in England under that name. But their transformation to Gentle Giant was revolutionary.
Behind Derek Shulman’s clarion call vocals, Gentle Giant layered intricate melodies, complex rhythms and multi-sectioned songs. We all thought this was high-art, not that derivative, corporate produced pop. But while we were being snobby elitists, Shulman took a turn into the corporate rock world and signed Bon Jovi, Nickelback, AC-DC, and more. This is an extended version of our feature which was broadcast this past Monday. We’ll hear about Derek Shulman’s journey from the outhouse to the executive suite.
Hear the produced version of this interview with music.
Hear our interview with Gentle Giant’s Derek Shulman & Gary Green from 2013
From Apes to Humanity - Felsmann & Tiley: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, techno DJs Felsmann & Tiley take the ambient classical pill and dial up a cinematic electronic sound on their second album, Protomensch. They come in from the cold of hard techno for a warmer, more hypnotic sound that is a long way from the dance floor.
Patrick Tiley: “We were a bit more youthful and energetic then for DJing club music and now we’re sort of making more music for the reclining chair.”
Their new conceptual release, Protomensch, manages to be hard hitting and political as well as poignant and thoughtful as they explore the idiocy and ingenuity of mankind. We talk to Felsmann & Tiley in the Echoes Podcast
Craig Padilla & Marvin Allen's Post-Rock Space Music for the 21st Century: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast electronic artist Craig Padilla and guitarist Marvin Allen. They have released a quartet of albums that traverse the world of ambient, progressive rock and psychedelic music. Their latest is Unfolding Skies. It is Echoes April CD of the Month. Its cosmic sounds were all recorded in Craig Padilla’s living room.
Craig Padilla: We did the first song, and when it was done, Marvin goes, “Padilla, make another sequence.” And so he and my wife would go into the kitchen and just talk and I’d be out here just working on some other song ideas and then he’d go, “Ooh, that sounds good.”
Craig Padilla and Marvin Allen. You can hear so many influences in their music: Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, Steve Hackett, Robin Trower, and more. But they distill these influences into their own post-cosmic brew, a meeting of psychedelic moods with inventive synthesizer arrangements and tastefully pyrotechnic guitar. It’s post-rock space music for the 21st century.
They talk about their journey and reveal the story behind “Jammin’ with Buddha” in the Echoes podcast.
Read John Diliberto’s review of Unfolding Skies and explore the Echoes CD of the Month Club.
Flore Laurentienne's Prog Rock Inspired Ambient Chamber Music: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, an interview with Canadian composer Mathieu David Gagnon who records ambient chamber music as Flore Laurentienne. He mixes acoustic instruments with vintage analog synthesizers including the Mini-Moog. He recently released the inauspiciously titled album, Volume III. He’s making a more lush brand of ambient chamber music emerging from progressive rock and Bach.
Mathieu David Gagnon : I’m not coming from classical music. I studied piano, but all my teenage years were very focused on progressive rock. A lot of Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, the first album of Yes, I really loved keyboard sounds like the the Hammonds and electric piano and back in the day there was no internet so I always wanted to know what were those sounds. So I saw Hammond and I saw like Wurlitzer and Mellotron and I don’t and I wasn’t able to put a name on each sound so it was very poetic period in my life to love something that I don’t understand and trying to know a bit more about those sounds. So this is where I think the passion for old keyboards began and after that I discovered the music of Johann Sebastian Bach when I was like 20, 21 and that changed my life and the way I wanted to do music.
John Diliberto crosses the St. Lawrence River to talk with Flore Laurentienne in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Joan La Barbara's Vocal Circus: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast we have avant-garde icon Joan La Barbara. I have avant-garde vocal icon Joan La Barbara, who, along with Meredith Monk, change the way a voice could sound in music, opening up a world of deeper expressions. We play a lot of singers on this show who create imaginary languages. Vocalists like Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins, Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance and Azam Ali of Vas and Niyaz. But two singers in the avant-garde world preceded them. One is Meredith Monk. The other is Joan LaBarbara. Her debut album was a declaration of independence called Voice is the Original Instrument.
Joan La Barbara: Voice Is the Original Instrument is really a kind of statement or manifesto. When I started exploring the voice, it was to say, yes, it is the original instrument.
Today, we profile Joan La Barbara’s career which includes collaborations on signature works with John Cage, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Morton Subotnick. She was also the voice of Ripley’s baby Alien in the movie, Alien Resurrection. We interviewed her in 2024 at the Big Ears Festival and are finally bringing it to air. Get ready to have your minds blown, one way or the other with Joan La Barbara tonight on Echoes
Antique, Vintage and Transcendent: The Sound of Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore in the Echoes Podcast
The harp is often thought of as a heavenly instrument plucked by angels. And gothic voices have certainly called to the heavens. Those are attributes that harpist Mary Lattimore and singer and electronic musician Julianna Barwick attain on their album, Tragic Magic. Mary Lattimore isn’t your typical classical harpist. She channels her instrument though a looping device and can be heard in numerous, often avant-garde situations where hell is right next to heaven. Julianna Barwick has been creating looping choirs and ambient synth sounds for years now. The two have been playing together for a while now and it all comes together on their debut album as a duo. Tragic Magic was recorded at the Musée de la musique of the Philharmonie de Paris using antique harps dating to the 18th century and synthesizers dating back to the 1970s along with the voice of Barwick, dating to transcendent. We talk to them in the Echoes Podcast.
Flipping the Script-Gentle Giant's Derek Shulman's Journey from Prog Singer to Pop Executive
There are many progressive rock bands that still stalk the earth. Yes, King Crimson, Van Der Graaf Generator. But not Gentle Giant. They made all their records during Prog Rock’s glory years in the 1970s and then called it quits. While their legacy continues on as one of the most innovative and expansive bands in the genre, their co-founding member and lead singer, Derek Shulman, went from the stage to the record executive suites working for Polygram, Atco and Roadrunner records and signing acts like Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Dream Theater and Pantera. His journey is chronicled in his new autobiography, Giant Steps: My Improbable Journey from Stage Lights to Executive Heights. John Diliberto takes that journey with Derek Shulman in an extended version of the broadcast feature which includes his encounter with London’s mob. Hear it in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
A Blitz of Sounds from the Edge - Big Ears Festival 2026: the Echoes Interview with Ashley Capps
In the Echoes Podcast it’s our annual interview with Ashley Capps, the founder of Big Ears Festival. He also created Bonaroo and resurrected Moogfest. We cover Big Ears because they often have a lot of Echoes artists and they are just the best, most civilized and most surprising festival in America.
Ashley: what we’re trying to avoid is the bland and the innocuous, know, are just things that, know, you know, just nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, you know. That doesn’t really interest me.
Big Ears is anything but bland. It will take place in Knoxville, TN March 26-29, 2026. There will be over 200 acts including Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, SUSS, Pat Metheny, multiples of John Zorn, Hania Rani, Nik Bartsch’s Ronin and Nels Cline. The first hour of Echoes will be all music from the forthcoming Big Ears Festival 2026 and our interview with Ashley Capps who talks about putting the festival together. Ears are wide open on Echoes.
Head into Deepspace with Deepspace: The Echoes Podcast
When you name yourself deepspace you better live up to it. Mirko Ruckels, who is deepspace, has been doing that since 2007. His album, Neon Blue Utopia was a CD of the Month this past January and he has a new one called Water Planets. You might tell from those titles that Ruckels is influenced by science fiction.
Mirko Ruckels: “I’ve always loved science fiction and I’ve always loved, I’ve always been searching for that perfect kind of ambient science fiction scenario, you know, you know, exploring, exploring a planet by yourself, it speaks to that inner world.”
We talk to deepspace’s Mirko Ruckels about autism, Water Planets and of course, deepspace, on Echoes.
Read our review of Neon Blue Utopia, deepspace’s January 2025 Echoes CD of the Month
Sign up for the CD of the Month Club
Hania Rani Storms the World: The Echoes Podcast
Polish composer and pianist Hania Rani has been quickly rising to the surface in a see of ambient chamber music and neo-classical composers going mellow. But her new album breaks from that movement even though she initially saw as rebellious to her own classical background.
Hania Rani This music was so simple and but also different and also intriguing from different reasons that I wanted to try it out myself. very soon after I understood it’s a little bit not boring, but a little bit, again, limited. And I really like to feel free in music.
The album is a tribute to Polish composer Josima Feldshuh, who died at 13 during the holocaust. It’s also evoking the current political and global climate. Hania Rani sets herself free when we talk to her about Non-Fiction, Piano Concerto in Four Movements on Echoes.
Mike Oldfield's Ommadawn at 50: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast,Tubular Bells’ composer Mike Oldfield talks about Ommadawn, his two-sided epic from 1975. Mike Oldfield changed the world of progressive rock and instrumental music with his 1973 opus, Tubular Bells. But two years later he released this third album that many consider to be his masterpiece. It was released 50 years ago on September 25 or November 7. There’s a little dispute there. Today we revisit this epic work and our interview with Mike talking about an album that was inspired by his mother, who died during the recording, but left him her Irish heritage.
Mike Oldfield: I listened to music, Irish music, and there’s something in your blood. It really is, if I hear something Celtic, something, my ears perk up and just, I identify with it. So it’s always been part of me.
We talked to Oldfield in 2017 about his album, Return to Ommadawn and of course, we talked a lot about the original Ommadawn recording. We’ll return to that interview and we’ll also hear both parts of Ommadawn on its 50th Anniversary in the Echoes Podcast.
Azam Ali's Synesthesia Therapy: The Echoes Podcast
Singer Azam Ali from Vas, and Niyaz graces the Echoes Podcast. The voice of Azam has been part of the Echoes soundscape for 3 decades. Her Persian fusion groups, Vas and Niyaz, were seminal acts and her solo albums have included chants of Abbess Hildegard von Bingen, and hymns of Sephardic Jews sung in Ladino, to the electronic-driven sounds of her 2019 album, Phantoms. But after that release and the pandemic, she fell into depression and was thinking of leaving music.
Azam Ali: The music industry has just become a place that I didn’t relate to anymore and couldn’t find my place in this new world of becoming what I describe as an Instagram artist. I’m not an Instagram artist.
Definitely not. She has a brilliant new album, working out these themes called Synesthesia and we talk to her in an extended version of our broadcast feature in the Echoes Podcast.
The Echoes Podcast: Bluetech Takes Us to the Spacehop
Bluetech’s album, Spacehop Chronicles 2 is the Echoes CD of the Month for October and in the Echoes Podcast, we have Bluetech himself, Evan Bartholomew, talking about this electronic journey into orbit that sits between space music and trip-hop, all meditating on the journey of Laika, the canine cosmonaut that died in space.
Bluetech: For me, creating hope and the possibility of beauty and talking about fantastic sci-fi worlds and giving people a moment to escape and to feel larger than their lives is my approach and the only thing that I know how to do in response to chaos and what’s kind of going on around us.
In our review, we called Spacehop Chronicles 2“definitive head-trip music for the 21st century.” Bluetech takes us on a trip when we talk to him tonight on Echoes from PRX.
Read our review of Spacehop Chronicles 2
Echoes Podcast: Marissa Nadler Attains Escape Velocity
September’s CD of the Month was New Radiations by Marissa Nadler and in the Echoes Podcast we’ve got her talking about this album which is one of her most personal releases.
Marissa Nadler: The whole record is really a heartbreak record. It kind of examines both sides through distance and time. And so New Radiations is really moving on in my head completely into a new world.
Marissa Nadler is not your typical singer-songwriter. Yes, she sings and plays guitar, and that has been the central voice of her music since she began recording in 2004. But she’s darker. Her voice is bathed in reverb, as is her guitar, which she plays fingerstyle, sending symmetries of delay into even more reverb. There’s a reason I’ve dubbed her The Diva of the Downer. That’s not an insult. She exults in reveries from the darker corners of the mind and seems to sing them from the pillow right next to you. We hear her talk about it on Echoes.
Read our review of New Radiations
Echoes Podcast: 40 Years of Ancient Dreams with Patrick O'Hearn - The Echoes Interview
We celebrate the 40th anniversary of Patrick O’Hearn’s debut album, Ancient Dreams. Patrick O’Hearn has been one of the defining voices of modern electronic music. Until the rise of Yanni, he was one of the signature artists of the Private Music label. Since his debut album, Ancient Dreams in 1985, he’s continued releasing finely crafted, deeply textured music on CDs like El Dorado and So Flows the Current. There’s a depth to Patrick O’Hearn’s music that comes from a wide range of experience, from straight ahead jazz with Charles Lloyd to MTV pop with Missing Persons; from sarcastic rock and roll with Frank Zappa to ethereal ambient music on his own. The fact that he’s a fine bassist as well as keyboardist has always given O’Hearn’s music a darker, soulful edge. Patrick is one of the 35 Icons of Echoes, and 50 years later, his first album still sounds as seductive and timeless as his latest, which sadly is from 2011. O’Hearn has been keeping a low profile for most of this century. Of his 13 proper solo albums, there is not a dud in the batch. Not even close. This signature release, Ancient Dramswas a road map of mood and mystery and set the tone for the Private Music label. We’ll hear music from this classic album and an interview with Patrick. Join John Diliberto for an ancient dream made 40 years ago.
See our list of Five Essential Patrick O’Hearn Albums.
Mixing It Up with Master Dub Mixer - Adrian Sherwood: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, a legend of dub on the next Echoes when we talk to producer Adrian Sherwood. Sherwood is a Dub Master. The English musician has been manipulating sound for over 5 decades, working with masters of the Jamaican dub style like Lee “Scratch” Perry, and creating his own music in projects that include African Head Charge, Tackhead, Dub Syndicate, Creation Rebel and many more. Although he’s recorded hundreds of records, he’s only released four albums under his own name. His latest is The Collapse of Everything. Never has the apocalypse sounded so trippy. John Diliberto mixes it up with Adrian Sherwood in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Nicholas Gunn Goes Trance: The Echoes Interview
Our August CD of the Month was the album, 30 by Nicholas Gunn. In the Echoes Podcast, I’ve got him talking about it. Nick has been a part of Echoes since his self-released debut album, Afternoon in Sedona in 1993, but around 2012, he changed, giving his flute a rest and plugged into software synths and computer generated music for the dance floor.
Nicholas Gunn: In the early 2000s, I was going to the clubs and I was standing in the floor and I was listening to this new thing called Trance. Paul Oakenfold’s “Southern Sun,” Armin Van Buren’s “Rain,” and I was thinking to myself at that time, I should be doing this kind of music.
I’ll be talking to him about 30 , an album on which after nearly a decade, his flute returns. Hear it in the Echoes Podcast from PRX
Read John Diliberto’s review of 30
Klaus Schulze-An Icon of Electronic Music in Echoes Podcast
The 50th Anniversary of Timewind, the 1975 album by Klaus Schulze is coming up on August 25. In the Echoes Podcast hear a documentary on this legendary artist who helped launch a new genre not just in electronic music, but music period.
Klaus is one of the Icons of Echoes. He sadly left the planet in 2022. Before Techno, Electronica, Synth-pop and Ambient music; before synthesizers were as commonplace as electric guitars, Klaus Schulze was creating a music unlike any that had been heard before. Over the course of six decades, he made over 50 proper albums, solo recordings with evocative Titles like Moondawn, Mirage, Timewind and Cyborg. There’s also been several collaborations and a trove of multi-CD box sets. These albums have influenced multiple generations beginning with artists like Steve Roach, Ian Boddy, and Mark Shreeve in the early 80s, then Moby in the late-80s and TV composers in the new millennium like Brian Reitzell of Mr. Robot and Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein of Stranger Things. In fact, whenever I play Klaus in the house my kids ask me if it’s the soundtrack to Stranger Things. He even influenced Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance who collaborated with Schulze on a pair of albums. Klaus left the planet in 202. We had two extensive interviews with Klaus in the 1980s and we’ve talked to many people in his orbit and those he influenced. We’ll hear them in a documentary that goes from Tangerine Dream to Trancefer,” Cosmic Couriers to truly cosmic music. It’s an Echoes Podcast that takes you to another time pointing toward the future.
Echoes Podcast: Electric Chamber Music on Edge with AVAWAVES
In the Echoes Podcast, AVAWAVES talk about their new album, Heartbeat. AVAWAVES is the British electric chamber music duo of violinist Anna Phoebe and keyboardist Aisling Brouwer. Their fusion of electronic and music and compositional verve can be heard on their soundtrack to Apple TV series, The Buccaneers and their new album, Heartbeat. All three of their recordings have been linked to tumultuous times: Brexit, Covid Lockdown and now, political, social and global uncertainty. They aren’t ready to make nice.
Anna Phoebe: “And at the moment . . . the wars and what’s going on. You can’t not be affected by that. And I think making nice music with violin and piano is good for the soul sometimes, but then there is a little bit more rawness and it feels like this now is not the time to hide behind the sheen of lots of reverb.”
Join John Diliberto when he talks to AVAWAVES in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Trauma, Medicine, Pain and Beauty with Jessica Robbins of Course: The Echoes Podcast
John Diliberto and Course’s Jessica Robbins
In the Echoes Podcast, Ankylosing Spondylitis, a spinal disease causing immense pain. But Jessica Robbins, who records as Course, creates some beautiful music out of that pain on her album, Hue Mirror. It’s an exploration of her years-long journey to find a diagnosis, a treatment and relief, if not a full cure. Medical travails have rarely sounded so haunting and beautiful.
Jess Robbins: I didn’t want to dwell on the pain, even though it’s in there. I didn’t want to be so on the nose with all the songs, besides MRI.
Join John Diliberto when he brings us the fascinating story of Jessica Robbins and Course, on Echoes from PRX. You can purchase her album exclusively from the Spondylitis Association of America
Anoushka Shankar's Sitar Evolution: The Echoes Podcast
Anoushka Shankar has released an impressive trilogy of EPs in the last year that take her sitar in different directions. Chapter I: Forever For Now; Chapter II: How Dark It Is Before the Dawn; and Chapter III: We Return to Light, find Shankar in 3 different settings: World Fusion, Ambient and Improvisation. She also has three different producers including Pakistani-American singer and producer, Arooj Aftab. Over the last 2 decades or so Anoushka has found her own path in the music world that draws on the traditions her father, sitarist Ravi Shankar taught as well as his sense of experimentation. She’s taking the sitar in such new directions that sometimes you don’t know it’s a sitar at all.
Anouska Shankar: So suddenly I could play one note and have it ring for 50 seconds and then become more orchestral than I usually am as a lead instrument, because I can layer these long, long 50 second reverb notes and think in that way where I’m creating a bed of sound.
Anoushka Shankar. She could’ve just been a classical Indian sitarist, but she was brought up on pop and EDM music as well as Indian classical. She talks about it with John Diliberto in the Echoes Podcast.
Fear, Loss and Sticking the Landing; Marconi Union: The Echoes Interview
In the Echoes podcast, Marconi Union talk about their CD of the Month, The Fear of Never Landing. The British electronic band has been providing ambient atmospheres and deep groove on the show for 20 years and they are still creating with their latest album, The Fear of Never Landing, Echoes June CD of the Month. After losing a founding member, Jamie Crossley and Duncan Meadows have continued on with a new, refreshed sound for this ensemble. It’s not music for Tik Tok.
Jamie Crossley: It’s not youth music is, it’s not for teenagers probably. That’s not to say that teenagers shouldn’t listen to it, but it’s probably more on the kind of demographic of where we are, where we are at ourselves.
John Diliberto is no kid. He talks to Jamie Crossley and Duncan Meadows about Marconi Union Mark 3.0 in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Read John’s review of The Fear of Never Landing
. .
The Hedonistic Hit Factory: Buzz Me In - Inside the Record Plant Studios with David Goggin and Martin Porter in Echoes Podcast.
John Diliberto, David “Mr Bonzai” Goggin, Martin Porter
I’ve got something different for you in this weeks Echoes Podcast. I’m going to talk with Martin Porter and David Goggin about their new book, Buzz Me In: Inside the Record Plant Studios. They look at the history of the Record Plant studios in New York, LA, and Sausalito, where many of the biggest records of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s were made. Think Jimi Hendrix Electric Ladyland, Aerosmith “Walk This Way” and The Eagles Hotel California, as well as records from Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith and oh yeah, John Lennon, who recorded most of his solo albums there including the last one. Martin Porter and David Goggin talked to dozens of people who worked there, from secretaries to engineers to producers, and they have all the drug-fueled, sex and crazed producer stories, as well as the tales behind classic tracks and albums.
David Goggin: We just got in touch with Ed Freeman because he helped us out on the book a lot. He produced American Pie and all. He describes when he was working at Sausalito, there was a guy who would come in every morning with a briefcase with your choice of whatever you wanted. Ed asked this mysterious guy, “what do you have?” And he says, “Well, what do you want?” And opened up the briefcase and there was every variety of pot, of uppers and downers, whatever you were looking at. It was like a little inventory case.
David Goggin and Martin Porter talk to me about The Record Plant studios which were founded by businessman Chris Stone and engineer, Gary Kellgren, who turned it into the most hedonistic hit machine of the era. The stories they could tell. And they will.
Tape Loops and Life Loops-Terry Riley turns 90
Terry Riley, along with Philip Glass and Steve Reich, is among the holy trinity of minimalism. His compositions In C and A Rainbow in Curved Air are seminal works of that genre. He was creating tape loops works in the early 1960s, laying the foundation for over 50 years of looping artists. Without Terry Riley, there are no Fripp & Eno albums, ambient music or the legions of looping musicians around today. He was a seminal influence on Eno, Mike Oldfield, Tangerine Dream, Robert Rich and many others. It was a sound that emerged from the 60s counter culture and mind expansion.
Terry Riley: I think that echo and all these devices which change the ambience of music are drug-like in the sense that they pull the listener in deeper than he would get otherwise. I mean it goes back to if you’ve ever sung in a cave or gotten in the Taj Mahal and whooped and hollered. I mean those experiences are very deep and moving.
He has continued composing and performing, notably working with Kronos Quartet on several collaborations. We celebrate the incredible, enduring legacy of this new music icon as he turns 90. In the Echoes Podcast we have a mini-documentary featuring interviews with Terry, Steve Reich, Robert Rich, Daevid Allen (Gong), Mike Oldfield, Jon Hassell and La Monte Young. Terry Riley turns 90 and John Diliberto celebrates enduring and continuing legacy of his music in the Echoes Podcast.
Dream Pop Streaming with aeseaes: The Echoes Podcast
aeseaes in their studio for Echoes Interview
In the Echoes Podcast, John Diliberto talks to aeseaes (pronounced A-C-S), the husband and wife duo who you may have caught sometime over the last 10 years streaming live performances on the Twitch Platform. We discovered them on their 2017 EP Six Songs and have been enchanted ever since, even when their songs are inspired by horror like the song, “Switchblade.”.
Allie: I was actually kind of thinking of the story of Frankenstein and sort of like this divided self, the creator and the creature or the monster that’s been created. kind of how those things are, both of those characters are kind of eternally linked.
That’s Allie Eisler, one half of aeseaes. We’ll hear both halves when we talk about their lives from meeting at the University of Texas in Austin through to their new album, Opia, their perfect gem of a dream pop album, which will be the CD of the Month for July..
David Helpling and Eric "The" Taylor Go Into the Dark: The Echoes Podcast
John Diliberto, Eric “The” Taylor and David Helpling
In the Echoes Podcast, David Helpling and Eric “the” Taylor talk about their new album, The Precious Dark which was the CD of the Month for May. David Helpling is a guitarist turned synthesizer architect with several solo albums and duo albums with Jon Jenkins. Collectively, he has 5 previous CD of the Month picks. . Along with Helpling, Eric “The” Taylor is part of the ambient quartet Dark Sky Alliance and he is in an electronic duo with Mick Chillage called The Architects of Existence. The Precious Dark is a dark.
David Helpling: I think a lot of the darkness comes from the textures, the drones, the lack of drums. Like if it was a landscape, it would be kind of desolate, maybe. There isn’t a whole lot of rhythmic stuff going on.
John Diliberto talks to them about dark ambient in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Read our review of The Precious Dark
Hear our interview with Dark Sky Alliance
Ambient Chamber Music Dream Pop: Ólafur Arnalds and Loreen - The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, a meeting of ambient classical and pure pop when I talk with Ólafur Arnalds and Loreen. Ólafur Arnalds you know from his deeply atmospheric ambient chamber music. Loreen is a Swedish singer who is huge in Europe, where she has won the Eurovision Song Contest twice. They get together on an introspective EP called Sages.
Ólafur Arnalds: I connected emotionally with it and her voice and her sensibilities in how she actually writes and performs her stuff. It felt very almost animalistic, spiritualistic.
Ólafur Arnalds has been a staple on Echoes since his second album, For Now I Am Winter. He’s had multiple CD of the Month albums, played live on the show three times, and been interviewed even more, for his own music and for his electronic duo with Jonas Rasmussen, Kiasmos. Ólafur is one of the leading figures in ambient chamber music. Loreen is in another world. She’s a powerhouse singer more attuned to EDM-inflected pop songs, and has a wild stage persona. She won the Eurovision Song Contest not once, but twice. But they found common ground on an EP called Sages. I talk to them about this small, but beautiful work, and loved it even more after.
OLAFUR ARNALDS & LOREEN FEATURE PLAYLIST
Artist – Song – Album
Ólafur Arnalds – Only the Winds – For Now I Am Winter
Ólafur Arnalds & Loreen – The Sound of Breathing – Sages
Ólafur Arnalds – Ypsilon – Re:Member
Loreen – Tattoo – Tattoo (Single)
Kiasmos – Flown – Burst
Ólafur Arnalds – Still, Sound – Some Kind of Peace
Ólafur Arnalds – Hægt, kemur ljósið (Slowly, Comes the Light) – And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness
Loreen – Euphoria – Heal
Ólafur Arnalds & Loreen – The Sound of Breathing – Sages
Ólafur Arnalds & Loreen – Unknowing – Sages
Ólafur Arnalds & Loreen – Opening – Sages
Ólafur Arnalds & Talos- Signs – A Dawning
Ólafur Arnalds & Talos- Bedrock – A Dawning
Ólafur Arnalds & Loreen – Opening – Sages
Michael Rother, Bob Holmes & Mary Lattimore in Big Ears Session
Hear the second of John Diliberto’s two Big Ears Festival 2025 sessions in the Echoes Podcast. This one featured German guitarist Michael Rother from the influential bands Neu! and Harmonia. He created one of the most distinct guitar sounds of the 70s and also deployed the classic motoric rhythm with Can’s Jaki Liebezeit on drums. And he’s still making great music. Joining Michael on stage are electric harpist Mary Lattimore who has several solo releases out and has collaborated with many artists including guitarist William Tyler. Also on stage is guitarist Bob Holmes from the Ambient Country band Suss, who had a big footprint at Big Ears and was the catalyst for this panel, under the banner of his project, Across the Horizon. The title of the panel was The Third Wave of Ambient, but we quickly went off the rails as you’ll hear including a deep discussion of Spotify and AI. We’ll get a lot of history from Rother about Neu, Harmonia and Kraftwerk and a lot of insight into the creation of music.
Thanks to Big Ears Festival and Ashley Capps for use of this panel in the Echoes Podcast.
Back to the Ancient Future: The Echoes Podcast
If I wanted to play you an example of world fusion, the first group I would go to is Ancient Future. Not only are they the definition of the term, they actually coined it back in 1978.
Matthew Montfort: Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t trademark the term or anything ’cause I wanted it to become a movement. It didn’t become as much of a movement as I would like, but it did kind of happen. So I’m happy about that.
Guitarist Matthew Montfort, is a co-founder of Ancient Future. They were active bringing world fusion to the world from 1979 to 2001 and their 7th album, Planet Passion. After a quarter century of relative silence, they’ve returned with a new EP that is keeping the Ancient Future spirit moving forward. Today, I’ll talk to founding members, Mathew Montfort and tabla and esraj player Benjy Wertheimer, who take us into the history of the band and their new EP. Purple Nirvana, which features covers of Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana, but not like you’d expect them to sound. Hear it in the Echoes Podcast.
.
A Journey from Space Music to Ambient & Beyond with Steve Roach in Echoes Podcast
John Diliberto – Steve Roach – Linda Kohanov at Big Ears Festival 2025
This year at the Big Ears Festival 2025, John Diliberto moderated two panels with some of the leading musicians of our time. In today’s podcast, we’ll hear his session with Steve Roach and Linda Kohanov.
Steve Roach is a seminal American ambient and electronic composer whose career spans over four decades and more than 150 releases. Coming out of Progressive Rock and bands like Yes, Roach was profoundly influenced by the deep space moods of German electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. Their extended analog explorations and sequencing laid the groundwork for his own immersive, long-form compositions.
Roach released his debut album, Now, in 1982 and broke through with Structures from Silence (1984), a landmark recording that is the template for serene, contemplative music with its slowly evolving melodies and textures. He expanded the genre further with Dreamtime Return (1988), merging synthesizers with acoustic instruments and field recordings, inspired by his journey into Aboriginal culture and the Australian outback. Since then his music has traversed ambient Americana, drone zone, and sequencer-driven works. His return to analog modular synthesis created landmark albums like Skeleton Keys.
Steve Roach at Big Ears Festival in Church Street United Methodist Church
Based in the desert southwest, Roach’s music often reflects the vastness and solitude of the landscapes around him. He is catholic in his approach, embracing modular and analog synths, digital instruments, computers, and organic instrumentation including the didgeridoo and fujara, to create deeply meditative and trance-inducing sound worlds. His work continues to influence ambient, new age, and electronic artists worldwide, and he remains an active performer and recording artist from his Timehouse studio in Arizona. He performed for three consecutive nights at Big Ears Festival 2025.
Linda Kohanov is an author, speaker, and equine-facilitated learning pioneer whose work bridges the worlds of psychology, animal communication, and leadership development. She emerged in the 1990s with a background in radio and music journalism. She was program director of Echoes affiliate WUWF-FM, Pensacola and she’s written for Jazziz, Pulse, Downbeat and CD Review, among others. An equestrian, her book The Tao of Equus (2001) introduced a new paradigm of human-animal relationships, blending myth, neuroscience, and personal narrative into an exploration of the horse as teacher. The wife of Steve Roach, she has recently returned to her original passion for music. She studied classical violin and played in symphonic orchestras, and now has taken up the 5-string electric violin and begun performing with Roach.
They joined John Diliberto on-stage at Big Ears Festival on a panel called A Journey from Space Music to Ambient & Beyond with Steve Roach. We’ll hear our wide-ranging conversation.
Thanks to Big Ears Festival, founder Ashley Capps and the BE crew for setting up this session and allowing us to put it in the podcast. Watch in the next two weeks for my Big Ears session with Michael Rother, Bob Holmes and Mary Lattimore.
Electronic History - Synergy at 50: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast we go back 50 years to a turning point in electronic music history. That’s when the album, Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra by Synergy was released. It was a project by Larry Fast, and there were no guitars or drums on the album, just synthesizers creating epic, orchestral tracks that still resonate today. Fast worked with Peter Gabriel extensively in the 1970s and 80s and was responsible for much of the innovative sound of the singer’s seminal 3rd and 4th albums. John Diliberto takes a trip in electronic time with Larry Fast of Synergy, as well as Marty Scott, founder of Jem and Passport Records and veteran electronic artist Jonn Serrie, on Echoes from PRX.
Days of Genius Past: Sasha's Da Vinci Genius - The Echoes Interview
In the Echoes Podcast, we take another listen to the spirit of Leonardo Da Vinci, transformed into electronic sound by DJ and producer Sasha. Da Vinci Genius is an immersive exhibit on the life of the Renaissance polymath. Sasha created a score that ranges from orchestrally cinematic to electronically grooving. You won’t find the Renaissance music of Da Vinci’s era here.
Sasha: We did try taking kind of our modern instruments, our modern melodies and putting them onto kind of medieval instruments, but it ended up sounding like a bit of a pastiche, you know? The show itself is very technological and future-facing.
So is the music.
Sasha is a renowned DJ and record producer. He began his career in the late 1980s, playing acid house music, and rose to prominence in the 1990s through his partnership with fellow DJ John Digweed. Together, they produced influential mix albums like Renaissance: The Mix Collection and the Northern Exposure series, significantly shaping the progressive house and trance genres. As a solo artist, Sasha has released notable albums, including Airdrawndagger and Scene Delete. He has also remixed tracks for artists such as Madonna, Moby, and The Chemical Brothers. He was voted World No. 1 DJ in 2000 by DJ Magazine and receiving a Grammy nomination for his remix of Felix da Housecat’s “Watching Cars Go By.” He released a beautiful ambient compilation, The EmFire Collection, that included his score to the surfing movie, New Emissions of Light and Sound.
Sasha talks about sculpting a soundtrack that finds Da Vinci in the future he helped create, in the Echoes Podcast.
A Global Music Journey with Joe Boyd: The Echoes Podcast
Back n September of 2024, we brought you the broadcast version of our interview with Joe Boyd. It was was a deep, wide-ranging interview that was hard to condense into 15 minutes, so we also presented our entire conversation in the Echoes Podcast. Joe’s most recent book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain – A Journey Through Global Music, has just been published in paperback, so we thought it would be a good time to revisit this fascinating interview in is entirety.
Just to remind you you, Joe Boyd is a legendary producer and discoverer of new music, from Pink Floyd (“Arnold Lane”), Nick Drake, Maria Muldaur, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and Muzsikás, to his Hannibal world music label, and beyond. A few years ago, he wrote a great memoir of his life in the rock and roll world, called White Bicycles. Now he’s taken a deep dive into the influence of world music on western culture. And the Roots of Rhythm Remain – A Journey Through Global Music explores music from around the world, from Ravi Shankar, to Flamenco, from South African musicians to Paul Simon, from Desi Arnaz to Dizzy Gillespie, It’s a long, sometimes convoluted trip, all in search of an authentic music presence. We bring you our complete interview with this global traveler in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Peter Gregson's 21st Century Orchestra: The Echoes Podcast
Peter Gregson is a classically-trained cellist. He’s recorded with orchestras as well as composers Max Richter and the late-Jóhann Jóhannsson. He’s also composed music for film and video games including, Ammonite. Back in 2021, We talked to him about the ambient chamber music on his recording Patina, which mixed synthesizers and electronic processing, and his cello run through a vocoder. In 2025, he has a new recording simply titled Peter Gregson, so we return to that first interview in 2021 to hear about this fascinating artist. .
A Meeting of Electronic Generations with Ian Boddy & Harald Grosskopf in the Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, It’s a meeting of electronic generations with Ian Boddy and Harald Grosskopf, drummer for Klaus Schulze and Ashra. Ian grew up traveling the spaceways of Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. Harald Grosskopf was the drummer for Klaus Schulze and Ashra back then before turning to electronic music.
Harald Grosskopf: When I heard the first time a sequencer, I was completely out of my mind. I had goosebumps and the groove was so intense. I remember that was in the basement of the house of Klaus Schulze in the early 70s. he started the sequencer and it blew my mind.
Ian Boddy and Harald Grosskopf talk about their new album, Doppelganger and the golden age of German electronic music today on Echoes.
Mutantrumpet Creator Ben Neill Proposes an Age of Music Democratization: Echoes Podcast
If you’ve listened to Echoes over the last 30 years, you’ve heard the music of Ben Neill a lot. He plays an instrument called the mutantrumpet which has 3 trumpet bells, a trombone slide, two sets of valves and a lot of electronics. He’s been making music on the edges of electronica since his 1995 album, Green Machine. In the main part of the Echoes Podcast, I’m not going to talk to Ben about the trumpet, but about his new book, Diffusing Music – Trajectories of Sonic Democratization, Ben Neill talks about a history of opening up music to everyone, from the Futurists to Fluxus to AI. You don’t need traditional skill to make music anymore.
Ben Neill: Yeah, de-skilling and re-skilling, so that technology takes over and makes it so that a lot of the skills that were required are just not valid anymore or they’re not needed anymore.
I’ll be talking to Ben Neill about his book and as a bonus, after the regular interview, we’ll have Ben demonstrating his mutantrumpet.
Hear the Ben Neill and his mutantrumpet in a live Echoes performance here.
Krautrock Country with Immersion and SUSS: The Echoes Podcast
The Echoes CD of the Month in March is going to be Nanocluster Volume 3. by Immersion and Suss and today in the podcast, I’ve got an interview with them. Immersion is the duo of Colin Newman from the iconic new wave band Wire and Malka Spigel from the Israeli new wave band Minimal Compact. SUSS is the American Ambient Country group with guitarist Bob Holmes, guitarist Pat Irwin of The Raybeats, The B-52s and soundtracks for the last two Dexter Series among many other, and pedal steel guitarist Jonathan Gregg of Jonathan Gregg & the Lonesome Debonaires.
This unlikely pairing has produced an album that’s a true meeting of ambient, country and Krautrock aesthetics and a style I might have to dub Krautrock Country. It’s spaghetti western music in space.
Colin Newman: There is a part of Malka and I that we do love, that motoric beat. And there is definitely a side of immersion that is, you know, we are quite… Into rhythm. Into rhythm. And that is the very opposite of SUSS.
Bob Holmes: . . . my goodness, they’re going to give us a song like State of Motion that has all of this rhythm in it. What happens if we give them a track that has all this air and openness in it.
Colin Newman and Bob Holmes. I talk to all members of Suss and immersion in the Echoes Podcast.
Immersion 2024 Echoes Podcast.
SUSS 2023 Echoes Podcast
Electronic Explorer Steve Roach Turns 70.
In 2019 Steve Roach was voted #2 of 30 Icons of Echoes for our 30 year anniversary. Five years later, he was still #2 for our 35th Anniversary and the 35 Icons of Echoes. For the 30th, we created a profile of Steve, and now that he is turning 70 on February 16, 2025, I thought we’d take a look back at that feature. When we created Echoes, Steve Roach was one of the artists at the forefront of our thoughts. In fact, he was the first artist ever heard on the show, since he composed the theme song we used in our early years. He has continued evolving his sound across that time, chronicled with a prolific outpouring of releases. And while other artists from the early years of Echoes have faded away, Steve Roach has remained vital. Hear his story from Berlin School sequencers to techno-tribal and back again, in the Echoes Podcast.
For More Steve Roach on Echoes
Echoes Podcast: Steve Roach Structures from Silence 40th
Echoes Podcast: Steve Roach and Simon Emmerson
Amon Tobin's psychedelic Dreams: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast I have a lost interview when I talk to the bands Figueroa, Two Fingers and Only Child Tyrant. The only thing is, those aren’t bands, but the various recording personas of Amon Tobin, the electronic composer who is pretty eclectic under his own name. His music has evolved, but at the core, he’s still doing what he did when he started as Cujo in 1996.
Amon Tobin: I’ll take something that’s an established form, and I’ll remove it from its understood context. And I’ll put it in an electronic world and see what happens.
Tobin specializes in a modern version of musique concrete, but he also has a project as Figueroa that is purely psychedelic. So much that you might think you’ve traveled to San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium circa 1968.
We ran this interview on the Echoes broadcast in September of 2020, but for some reason, it did not make it into the Podcast. I was tipped to this when I read a nice retrospective piece in Tom Moon’s Echolocator Substack Blog. I thought, I should send Tom a link to the podcast, he’d probably enjoy it. Only to discover it never made it into the podcast. I do not know why. But today, I’m rectifying that. So get ready for a deep dive into Amon Tobin talking about his music in the Echoes Podcast.
This one is a crappy photo for the gearheads: Amon Tobin’s studio 2020
Explore the Big Ears Festival 2025 with founder Ashley Capps in Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast we preview the Big Ears Festival 2025 taking place in Knoxville at the end of March. This is an enormous event with over a hundred artists all on the leading edge of whatever music genre they are in and at Big Ears, there are a lot of music genres, all in abundance. This year features more artists from the Echoesphere than ever including Steve Roach, Michael Rother, Marissa Nadler and more. Every year I talk to Big Ears founder Ashley Capps to preview the event. Although Big Ears is thought of as a bleeding edge festival sometimes, this year it embraces artists from the new Age including Laraaji, who has been there before, and Steve Roach who is the first true representative here of the ambient new age explosion that began around 1980.
Ashley Capps: And really, new age music isn’t an outlier. We’ve had elements of what many people would consider to be new age for many, many years, I think. So, you know, I feel like it’s an important part of these exploratory music traditions.
Ashley Capps. With artists like Roach, Explosions in the Sky, Rich Ruth, SUSS, Immersion and Anoushka Shankar, it’s almost an Echoes Festival.
We will hear the complete interview with Ashley Capps. The Big Ears Festival takes place March 27-30 in Knoxville, TN bigearsfestival.org
Days of Genius Past: Sasha's Da Vinci Genius - The Echoes Interview
In the Echoes Podcast, the spirit of Leonardo Da Vinci transformed into electronic sound by DJ and producer Sasha. Da Vinci Genius is an immersive exhibit on the life of the Renaissance polymath. Sasha created a score that ranges from orchestrally cinematic to electronically grooving. You won’t find the Renaissance music of Da Vinci’s era here.
Sasha: We did try taking kind of our modern instruments, our modern melodies and putting them onto kind of medieval instruments, but it ended up sounding like a bit of a pastiche, you know? The show itself is very technological and future-facing.
So is the music.
Sasha is a renowned DJ and record producer. He began his career in the late 1980s, playing acid house music, and rose to prominence in the 1990s through his partnership with fellow DJ John Digweed. Together, they produced influential mix albums like Renaissance: The Mix Collection and the Northern Exposure series, significantly shaping the progressive house and trance genres. As a solo artist, Sasha has released notable albums, including Airdrawndagger and Scene Delete. He has also remixed tracks for artists such as Madonna, Moby, and The Chemical Brothers. He was voted World No. 1 DJ in 2000 by DJ Magazine and receiving a Grammy nomination for his remix of Felix da Housecat’s “Watching Cars Go By.” He released a beautiful ambient compilation, The EmFire Collection, that included his score to the surfing movie, New Emissions of Light and Sound.
Sasha talks about sculpting a soundtrack that finds Da Vinci in the future he helped create in the Echoes Podcast.
Remembering Tangerine Dream's Edgar Froese on the 10th Anniversary of his Departure with the Complete 1982 Interview in the Echoes Podcast.
On this 10th anniversary of his passing, we remember Edgar Froese with this 1982 interview for the Totally Wired: Artists in Electronic Sound series. Tangerine Dream changed music. Period. There was nothing like them before their 1974 album, Phaedra and a vast landscape of music from Donna Summer’s I Feel Love” to EDM to ambient to dreampop are based on their sonic designs. Edgar Froese was the guiding light of Tangerine Dream. He founded the group as an experimental band in the 1960s and guided them through a music that was wed to technology, even if Froese once told me that if you can’t make music on a comb, then you are not a musician. I interviewed Edgar several times before his passing in 2015.
I talked to Froese as part of the radio series Totally Wired-Artists in Electronic Sound in 1982. I met him at his studio in West Berlin. This was before the Berlin Wall came down and there was still a claustrophobic and disconnected sense to the city. Escaping that is part of what Tangerine Dream’s music was about. At the time, White Eagle was their latest recording and Stuntman was Froese’s latest solo release.
Froese had already created an entirely new kind of music with Tangerine Dream on albums like Stratosfear, Rubycon and Ricochet. They epitomized the electronic age of music, recording over 150 albums of synthesized compositions. Their film soundtracks include “Sorcerer” “Thief,” “Risky Business,” and “Legend.” But Tangerine Dream are the original source.
Hear Edgar Froese talk about the history of the group, his ideas about electronic music and his sense of cosmic consciousness in the Echoes Podcast II with his complete 1982 interview
Listen to our Tangerine Dream at 50 Documentary.
Hear our interview with the current edition of Tangerine Dream
See our list of 10 Tangerine Dream Albums to Blow Your Mind,
The Roots of Electro-Pop-John Foxx's Metamatic Turns 45: The Echoes Interview
In the 1980s, you couldn’t be sure now long New Wave music would last. But now in 2025, Depeche Mode, Orchestral Manouvres in the Dark and Gary Numan are still recording and touring, and newer bands like Ladytron, Washed Out, Emma Anderson, Maps and World Brain are ascending. It’s a sound that isn’t going away. This year, one of the most influential albums of electro-pop turns 45, Metamatic by John Foxx.
JOHN FOXX: That was the thing that fascinated me most about synthesizers. Whenever you get a new instrument it changes the shape of the music completely. You write your music, and you write to accommodate the qualities of the machines.
Musically adventurous and lyrically trenchant, Metamatic remains a timeless artifact of electronic music and pop. We’ll hear John Foxx, Gary Numan and Gareth Jones talking about this release and its creation 45 Years ago.
Echoes Podcast: Maps Counter Electronic Melodies and The Art of Noise 40th Anniversary.
The Echoes Podcast features two electronic artists, one from the future past and one from the present future, with James Chapman of Maps and The Art of Noise, celebrating the 40th anniversary of their debut album, Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise! released in June, 1984.
The artist known as MAPS has been making exquisitely crafted dreampop music for most of this century. MAPS is James Chapman and we heard from him recently regarding his production of Emma Anderson’s Pearlies album. While many artists went introspective during pandemic lockdown, James Chapman decided to synthesize joy on the all-instrumental electronic album, Counter Melodies.
James Chapman: I actually started working on those tracks during the first lockdown, so kind of 2020 and obviously it was a really depressing time. And I think I wanted to do something really uplifting and upbeat, just as a kind of antidote, really.
We talk to James Chapman about Counter Melodies and more in the Echoes Podcast.
Hear James Chapman in our Emma Anderson feature.
In June of 1984 an album came out that seemed to turn music on its head. It was by a fairly anonymous trio called The Art of Noise. That name came from the 1918 Futurist Manifesto by Luigi Russolo, “The Art of Noises.” They were among the first to employ the Fairlight CMI synthesizer which also included one of the first samplers and that last invention is what created their sound. Programmer J. J. Jeczalik, engineer Gary Langan and keyboard player and arranger Anne Dudley were part of Trevor Horn’s production team. They were responsible for the sound design on albums by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, ABC, Malcom McLaren and most presciently, the song “Owner of a Lonely Heart” by Yes. Joined by Horn and Paul Morley, in June of 1984 they released their debut album, Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise.
They created an audio riot of sound. Licks stolen from records, noises in the environment, technology and car engines were all part of their sound, using these noises as music. It was an update of musique concrete of the 1940s and 50s and composers like Pierre Henry and Piere Schaefer. They just married them to funky dance beats. Ironically, a band that codified the initial concepts of sampling, were themselves sampled many times. Their prettiest song, “Moments in Love” turns up in movies and TV and is still being sampled by the likes of Charlie XCX, J Dilla and Drake. Other tracks like “Beat Box” and “Close (to the Edit)” were sampled by Fatboy Slim, The Prodigy and many more.
I didn’t want to leave 2024 without celebrating this release so we played a suite of their music on Echoes, but for the podcast, I’m digging back to a segment of the radio series Totally Wired and a 1988 segment on the group where I talked with Anne Dudley and JJ. Jeczalik, who, as you’ll hear in this feature, gave me an odd pronunciation of his name.
Emma Anderson - From Lush to Independence: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, Emma Anderson. 4AD was one of the defining record labels of the 1980s and 90s with artists like Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Clan of Xymox and Wolfgang Press. Among those groups was Lush, the band fronted by the duo of Emma Anderson and Mikki Berenyi. They recorded 3 full studio albums between 1987 and 1996 with the inevitable and short-lived reunion in 2015. Since then Berenyi has written a memoir and released two albums with her band Piroshka in 2019 and 2021. But Anderson, other than her band Sing-Sing in the early 2000’s, has been silent, until now. In 2023 she released her solo debut, Pearlies and in 2024, a remix disc called Spiralée- Pearlies Rearranged. John Diliberto talks to Emma Anderson and her producer, James Chapman of Maps, about a reluctant singer, 60s influences and remixes in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
The Continuing Story 0f David Borden-An Electronic Pioneer: The Echoes Podcast
Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co. circa 1975
In the Echoes Podcast, a pioneer of electronic music: David Borden, the founding member of Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Company. In 1969, he created the group Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Company. They were one of the first performing synthesizer bands, managing multiple modular Moogs and Mini-Moog synthesizers. Borden was actually a test pilot for Moog.
David Borden:
Well, in my first few days there I couldn’t get a sound and his head engineer came down and turned on the amplifier. That’s how bad I was. So without the amplifier, of course, none of this stuff, you can’t hear it. So the next week I was patching patch cords and I ruined one of his modules. . . . . And so Bob came down. He was there for about five seconds, looked at it and . . . .And then I thought to myself, well, that’s it for me. I’m out of here. And he came over and put his arm around me and said, can I come at night? . . . So he took me upstairs, had a key made to the whole place and said, just come here at night and after you’re done working, just leave it set up. It’s okay. Everything’s fine and don’t worry about a thing. And so I said, okay. . . So after six months, I was very sophisticated. I knew all the parts of the synthesizer. I was hooking up very tricky things and strange things and having a great time. And he said, I just wanted to tell you, we redesigned all the modules so that no matter how you set it up, you can’t screw it up. So I was surprised. That was a big turning point because I realized I had taken part in the research and development of what became the standard Moog synthesizer.
Mother Mallard released their eponymous debut in 1973, a work that stands alongside the best of both Tangerine Dream and Steve Reich. A new album, Make Way for Mother Mallard, 50 Years of Music has just come out, that contains never-before released archival works of live and studio performances, from the very beginning to his last concert. Hear this epic story on Echoes.
The Ambience Between-Rena Jones & Kilowatts: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, Rena Jones and KiloWatts come on to talk about their new album Caesura. It’s a more complex take on electronica, combining synthesizers with Rena’s violin, viola and cello orchestrations.
Rena Jones is a polymath musician who has been a defining voice in ambient chamber music. KiloWatts has been around just as long releasing electronic psybient dreams. They’ve gotten together, remotely for a new release, Caesura, that seems to capture our time.
Rena Jones: The name speaks for itself in a way, doesn’t it? It’s about the space in between the pause between two different forces, right? Or different aspects. And for me, what drew me to that name, was just that we’re, living in such a divided times, right? And I feel as polarity keeps happening in our world, it’s nice to remind people that you don’t have to be extreme one or the other. You can take the time to pause and have a moment to reflect and be in that space in between either or.
John Diliberto brings us Rena Jones and KiloWatts in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Hear Rena Jones in her 2021 Echoes Interview
We Celebrate Wendy Carlos' 85th Year in Echoes Podcast
We look back at Wendy Carlos on her 85th Birthday.
This is actually a feature we did for Wendy’s 70th birthday that we redid for her 80th birthday.
You know that a lot of time has passed when your references become dated. With its array of cords and cables crisscrossed in a patchbay, we used to compare it to a telephone switchboard gone crazy. Well, synthesizers don’t look like that anymore, the modular renaissance excepted, and most people under thirty wouldn’t know what a telephone switchboard was unless they watch the TCM channel a lot.
It was 1968 when Wendy Carlos took her Moog synthesizer and applied it to the contrapuntal 18th century music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The album was called Switched-On Bach and it changed the shape of modern music forever. It took synthesizers out of the world of sound effects and the avant-garde and into the mass market. It’s 50 years later and Wendy Carlos first masterwork is now an iconic moment in the history of electronic music. She’s done other great works since. She presaged Brian Eno and Ambient Music with her 1972 album, Sonic Seasonings (from whence we stole the title of our annual Christmas show). Her Beauty in the Beast was a manifesto for the synthesizer in the global village as Carlos digitally hand-crafted her own global orchestra coupling hybrid instruments and timbres that are remarkably true to form, from the roaring Tibetan trumpets that open the album to the Balinese xylophones and suling flutes.
She only did a few film scores, but they are legendary. A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Tron were signal works in film scoring.
15 Years ago we did a feature on her 70th birthday. In the Echoes Podcast, we updated it for her 80th Birthday drawing from 30 years of interviews with Wendy Carlos. And now, here we are on her 85th. I’d give you links to her recordings, but none of the are available in any form.
Listen to our earlier Podcast on the 50th Anniversary of Switch-On Bach
Read our Post on Four Switched -On Masterworks by Wendy Carlos.
Kraftwerk's Autobahn at 50: The Echoes Kraftwerk Documentary
It’s the 50th Anniversary of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn. The iconic German electronic band switched on their debut album in November, 1970, but their breakthrough artistically and commercially came in 1974 with an album that broke all the barriers of music, especially in the Top Forty.
Ralf Hutter: We could never understand why there were–everybody wanted to stick to the guitars, or the drums because they’re so boring. And now it’s happening.
To celebrate, we’re repodcasting our documentary. Kraftwerk’s Man-Machine Music . We’ll hear from Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hutter as well as Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark, Jean-Michel Jarre, Orbital, Michael Rother, Depeche Mode, James Merle Thomas (Quindar), Karl Hyde (Underworld), Manuel Gottsching (Ashra) and Conny Plank, looking back on a band that altered the face of music for decades. Kraftwerk is on our list of 35 Icons of Echoes. We go down the Autobahn with Kraftwerk’s Man-Machine Music: The Echoes Documentary in the Echoes Podcast.
On the Echoes Podcast, two masters of strings, from guitar to ngoni, when we talk to Joss Jaffe and Jim “Kimo” West. Jaffe is a musical explorer. West is a guitarist with a reputation for Hawaiian slack key music but he also plays with Weird Al Yankovic. Go figure. Jaffe studied tabla drum in India and has picked up instruments from around the world. Together they’ve made a serene recordings called Santhi and it includes instruments like the West African ngoni, Indian tablas and bansuri flute, and e-bow guitar.
Jim “Kimo” West: We didn’t want to go heavily Indian or heavily African or heavily Hawaiian. We just wanted to have a blend of these different influences, stuff that we like from around the world and just do it naturally, just play what we like.
John Diliberto will when he talks to Jim “Kimo” West and Joss Jaffe on Echoes from PRX.
Hans-Joachim Roedelius at 90: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes podcast we celebrate the 90th Birthday of German Composer, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, born on October 26, 1934. He was a founding member of the bands Cluster and Harmonia, two groups who influenced artists like David Bowie on his Berlin Trilogy and especially Brian Eno, who went on to make music with these musicians as well. But while Roedelius began in the electronic zone, at 90, he says he’s unplugging and just playing acoustic piano. But he was part of the breakthrough to a new sound in Germany in the 1970s.
Hans-Joachim Roedelius: In the late ‘60s, everything in the field of arts, any art, was because we had after Hitler, there was a big hole, a big black hole in the culture of Germany. So we had to, we had to find out to, to go a different way.
While most of us call him Roedelius, his friends call him Achim. The entire hour will be filled with his music and we’ll hear a feature with Roedelius that takes us through his life and career including time in a Stasi prison in East Germany.. He was not only an electronic pioneer, but a pioneer of ambient chamber music. Hear Roedelius as well as Lloyd Cole and Tim Story. If you’re not super familiar with him, wait until you hear the sounds he created in the late 60s. He turns 90 on October 26 and he’s still going.
I Sing the Song AI-Tony Gerber and the Singing Poet Society: The Echoes Podcast
AI is everywhere and so many places you don’t even know it. Last year we even programmed an entire echoes using AI. It was pretty good, but dated. You know AI is in pop and library music, but there is one musician trying to use it for Art. His name is Tony Gerber and you’ve heard him with the electronic trio Spacecraft, Giles Reaves and Phil Keaggy and on many solo releases. He had the idea of taking classic poetry, setting it to AI manipulated music and using AI singers. It’s called the Singing Poet Society.
Tony Gerber: Another, another point is that, you know, without the advent of AI to assist acting kind of as an assistant in this particular case, this idea would never have even come to fruition or even come about.
Tony is one of the least AI musicians you can imagined. We had him playing live pre-pandemic with Giles Reaves and I’m sure he was actually playing. Discover Tony Gerber’s journey and the music he’s creating in the Echoes Podcast.
Love, Loss Alienation with London Grammar: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, the British dreampop trio, London Grammar. We talked to them in 2021 about their career and album, Californian Soil, an Echoes CD of the Month. Now they are back with their fourth album, The Greatest Love, also a CD of the Month. We’ve been told it’s a rare thing to get all three member, Hannah Reid, Dot Major and Dan Rothman together for an interview, but you will hear all three today in the Echoes Podcast. They talk about the usual: love, loss, alienation as well as Hannah Reid’s greatest love, her newborn child. But that’s not what the song is about.
Hannah Reid: You know, it’s funny, I’ve said to Dan a few times that sometimes it feels like my lyrics are a bit prophetic in a way. This song was actually written long before I had my son, but it does take on a new meaning for me now. I do think of him when I think of this album.
London Grammar has been on of the most singular acts of the 21st century. They released their debut album called If You Wait, in 2013, lead by a single they first dropped independently on the internet, “Hey Now.” We were instantly seduced by the voice of Hannah Reid and the orchestrations of Dan Rothman and Dot Major. We talk to them in the Echoes Podcast.
Read John Diliberto’s review of The Greatest Love.
Read John Diliberto’s review of Californian Soil
A Global Music Journey with Joe Boyd: The Echoes Podcast
Last week we brought you the broadcast version of our interview with Joe Boyd. Well, it was a pretty deep, wide-ranging interview that was hard to condense into 15 minutes so today I’m giving you our entire conversation in the Echoes Podcast.. Just to remind you you, Joe Boyd is a legendary producer and discoverer of new music from Pink Floyd (“Arnold Lane”), Nick Drake, Maria Muldaur, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and Muzsikás, to his Hannibal world music label, and more. A few years ago he wrote a great book that was a memoir of his life in the rock and roll world, White Bicycles. Now he’s written a deep dive into the influence of world music on western culture called And the Roots of Rhythm Remain – A Journey Through Global Music. From Ravi Shankar, to Flamenco, from South Africa to Paul Simon, Desi Arnaz to Dizzy Gillespie, it is a long, sometimes convoluted trip, all in search of an authentic music presence. We bring you our complete interview with this global traveler in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
The Exotica Lounge of Kinobe: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, electronic artist Kinobe takes us into his ethereal lounge inspired by Sinatra-era strings and singers, exotica lounge music, 90s’ trip-hop, and the French duo, Air.
Kinobe: I grew up in a household where I would hear Nelson Riddle at least once a day, my parents are big Sinatra fans. They like all of the crooners and then artists like Percy Faith. I love those sounds.
Kinobe’s new album, Out of the Blue, is nothing short of entrancing, a dream journey to exotica. Kinobe is Julius Waters and John Diliberto talks with him in the Echoes Lounge from PRX.
A Global Music Journey with Joe Boyd: The Echoes Podcast
Joe Boyd is a legend in music, from producing Pink Floyd (“Arnold Lane”), Nick Drake, Maria Muldaur, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and Muzsikás, to his Hannibal world music label, and more. A few years ago he wrote a great book that was a memoir of his life in the rock and roll world, White Bicycles. Now he’s written a deep dive into the influence of world music on western culture called And the Roots of Rhythm Remain – A Journey Through Global Music. From Ravi Shankar, to Flamenco, from South Africa to Paul Simon, Desi Arnaz to Dizzy Gillespie, it is a long, sometimes convoluted trip, all in search of an authentic music presence. We talk to this global traveler in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Trentemøller's Shoegaze Dream Pop and Michael Garrison, a Pioneer Remembered: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, two features with Trentemøller and Michael GarrisonTrentemøllerDanish composer Trentemøller, the performance name of Anders Trentemøller, a Danish Dream Pop musician who emerged out of the techno scene at the turn of the century. But since his 2006 debut, his music has evolved considerably and become more song focused and richly textured. That continues on his 7th studio album, Dreamweaver, It taps his influences from dream-pop to shoegaze, Nick Drake to Julee Cruise. Join John Diliberto when he talks with Trentemøller in the Echoes Podcast.
MICHAEL GARRISONIt’s an Ancient Echoes when we look back on Michael Garrison. He is one of the earliest American space musicians preceded only by Larry Fast and Synergy. Based in Oregon, he put out 9 studio albums between 1979 and 1998. His sound was instantly engaging, distilling the influences of his European inspirations.
MICHAEL GARRISON: The intensity of the rhythm of the music is fulfilling as far as the idea of being alive. And the mental aspect of the heavy rhythm is the idea of travel. It just happens now we’ve covered our planet earth and are now looking toward the sky. And the idea of being able to travel through that sky and space and time needs an aura around it. Music is a good way to bring out the idea of traveling through space.
Sadly, Garrison took his last ride into space at the young age of 47 in 2004. We go back to a 1984 interview with him from the Totally Wired series. It’s in the Region of Sun Return in the Echoes Podcast.
David Arkenstone's Quest for the Runestone: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast we go on a quest with David Arkenstone. A five-time Grammy nominee, he’s been a fixture in instrumental music since his 1987 debut, Valley in the Clouds. Many of his 70 or so albums are based in themes of fantasy and mythology and his latest goes that way full bore.
David Arkenstone: Yeah, you know, people like it. I missed it. There were characters and titles and activities and a giant and all these things that were very inspirational for me write music to.
David Arkenstone returns to fantasy themes and epic orchestrations on his latest release, Quest for the Runestone. Join John Diliberto in the land of myth in the Echoes Podcast.
DAVID ARKENSTONE PODCAST PLAYLISTArtist – Title – Album
David Arkenstone – Galadriel’s Mirror – Music Inspired by Middle Earth
David Arkenstone – The Palantir – Music Inspired by Middle Earth
David Arkenstone – Taverns of Azeroth – World of Warcraft
David Arkenstone – Prophecy – Quest for the Runestone
David Arkenstone – Ancient Magic Awakens – Quest for the Runestone
David Arkenstone – Eyes of Skata – Quest for the Runestone
David Arkenstone – The Arbos Stirs – Quest for the Runestone
David Arkenstone – Oceans of Ice – Quest for the Runestone
David Arkenstone – Secrets of the Runestone – Quest for the Runestone
David Arkenstone – Path o the Mountains Bones – Quest for the Runestone
David Arkenstone – Inscriptions – Quest for the Runestone
David Arkenstone – Stars Without Limits – Quest for the Runestone
From Transistors to Trans: Jaymie Rose Hennegan-The Echoes Podcast
Vic Hennegan is an artist who has been on the show many times over the last two decades. The last appearance was broadcast in 2023 from a 2022 Echoes performance. Back then Hennegan was black, bald and masculine. He’s still black, but everything else has changed since the transition to Jaymie Rose Hennegan. Everything except, the music.
Jaymie Rose Hennegan: I have photos of me at like 19, 20 years old putting dresses on. You know, I’ve always been very much in touch with my feminine side. It’s always been a part of me. I think it’s a big part of my music too, is that feminine energy that rides with me.
We hear about Jaymie Rose Hennegan’s transition and her debut album Transition, recorded live at Cosmic Crossings and Star’s End Radio, tonight on Echoes.
JAYMIE ROSE HENNEGAN FEATURE PLAYLISTArtist – Title – Album
Vic Hennegan – A Moment in Time – A Moment in Time
Jaymie Rose Hennegan – Among the Seers – Transition
Jaymie Rose Hennegan – The Wings of Eternity – Transition
Jaymie Rose Hennegan – Inanna’s Dance – Transition
Jaymie Rose Hennegan – Garden of the Sacred Moon – Transition
Jaymie Rose Hennegan – Changing of the Tide – Transition
Jaymie Rose Hennegan – Dusk of Europa – Transition
Jaymie Rose Hennegan – Heart of the Sky Pt.1 – Transition
Rich Ruth's Eclectic Fusion & Steve Roach Structures from Silence at 40 in Echoes Podcast.
Rich Ruth with Mikaela Davis at Johnny Brenda’s Photo: J.Diliberto
In a double-shot Echoes Podcast we’ll hear from Rich Ruth and Steve Roach talking about the anniversary of Structures from SilenceFirst in the Echoes Podcast we talk to Rich Ruth. That’s the performance name of Michael Ruth, a multi-instrumentalist from Nashville. With Rich Ruth, you can hear 4 or five influences in any song. One track alone might conjure up John Coltrane, Brian Eno, Gong, Black Sabbath and King Crimson. Yet it all holds together in Rich Ruth. He has a new album out, Water Still Flows on Jack White’s Third Man records. His basic music philosophy is, wherever it goes he follows.
Rich Ruth: Essentially, it’s all made in like a laboratory with me spending hours and hours and hours, just like manipulating and, adding and subtracting until things feel right and just listening over and over and over again and getting inspired and tracking a bunch of guitars or synths or something and then sending it to people and so it just becomes this hodgepodge of all these different voices that I’ve arranged in these weird ways
His music is a flow from ambient to free jazz to parts unknown. We talk with Rich Ruth in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Rich Ruth Feature PlaylistArtist – Album – TitleRich Ruth – God Won’t Speak – Water Still Flows
Rich Ruth – No Muscle, No Memory – Water Still Flows
Rich Ruth – Aspiring to the Sky – Water Still Flows
Rich Ruth – God Won’t Speak – Water Still Flows
Kansas Bible Company – Summer Seance – Paper Moon
Kansas Bible Company – The Desert She Screams – Hotel Chicamauga
Rich Ruth – Coming Down – Calming Signals
Rich Ruth – Blue Shell – Water Still Flows
John Coltrane – Ascension Pt.1 – Ascension
Rich Ruth – Crying in the Trees – Water Still Flows
Rich Ruth – Desensitization and Reprocessing – It’s Over, I Survived
Rich Ruth – Heavy and Earthbound – It’s Over, I Survived
D.G. Godman – If You Were Someone I Loved – Space and Time
Rich Ruth – Thou Mayest – It’s Over, I Survived
Pharoah Sanders – Astral Traveling – Thembi
David Bowie – Warzawa – Low
Rich Ruth – Somewhere In Time – Water Still Flows
Rich Ruth – Action at a Distance – Water Still Flows
Dying Fetus – Subject to Beating – Reign Supreme
Rich Ruth – God Won’t Speak – Water Still Flows
Steve Roach circa 1984 in Original Timeroom
Steve Roach has made over a hundred recordings in the last 42 years, but two of them stand out. One is Dreamtime Return, his first foray into techno-tribal sounds, and the other dates back 40 years to his third album, Structures from Silence. It was an album that took ambient music to the next level, from Brian Eno’s experimental abstractions, to a music forged in a contemplative crucible and born purely of electronic instruments. Originally self-released, then picked up by the Fortuna label, Projekt Records has just put out a deluxe triple CD anniversary edition. We go back in time with Steve Roach to hear about the foundation of Structures from Silence.
PLAYLIST FOR STEVE ROACH STRCUTURES FROM SILENCE FEATUREArtist – Title – Album
Steve Roach – Reflections in Suspension – Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Steve Roach – Mysteries Continue – Traveler
Steve Roach -Structures from Silence – Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Steve Roach – Beyond – Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Steve Roach – Below – Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Steve Roach – Reflections in Suspension –Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Steve Roach – Quiet Friend – Structures from Silence 40th Anniversary Edition
Tim Blake's Crystal Cognition from Gong to Hawkwind to Crystal Machine: The Echoes Podcast
Electronic artist Tim Blake was there at the beginning, playing synth for space rockers Gong and Hawkwind and launching his own project of synthesizers and lasers, Crystal Machine. Now a triple CD box of his first three albums has been released as Crystal Presence. It includes his albums, Crystal Machine, Blake’s New Jerusalem and Magick. John Diliberto gets in the teapot with Tim Blake on Echoes from PRX.
TIM BLAKE FEATURE PLAYLISTARTIST – Title – Album – (Original Album)
Tim Blake – A Return to Clouds – Crystal Presence (Magick)
Gong – The Pothead Pixies – Flying Teapot (Radio Gnome Invisible Pt.1)
Tim Blake – Last Ride of the Boogie Child – Crystal Presence (Crystal Machine)
Tim Blake – Midnight – Crystal Presence (Crystal Machine)
Pink Floyd – See Emily Play – A Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Deep Purple – Shield – The Book of Taliesyn
Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze – Are You Experienced?
Tim Blake – Crystal Presence – Crystal Presence (Crystal Machine)
Gong – Radio Gnome Invisible – Flying Teapot (Radio Gnome Invisible Pt.1)
Gong – A Sprinkling of Clouds – You (Radio Gnome Invisible Pt.3)
Tangerine Dream – Phaedra – Phaedra
Tim Blake -Synthese Intemporelle – Crystal Presence (Crystal Machine)
Tim Blake – Blake’s New Jerusalem – Crystal Presence (Blake’s New Jerusalem)
Tim Blake – Lighthouse – Crystal Presence (Blake’s New Jerusalem)
Hawkwind – Lighthouse – Live Seventy-Nine
Tim Blake – The Strange Secret of Ohm-Gliding – Crystal Presence (Magick)
Tim Blake – Floating – Caldea
Tim Blake – Song for a New Age –Crystal Presence (Blake’s New Jerusalem)
Tim Blake – A Return to Clouds – Crystal Presence (Magick)
Nanocluster Fun with Immersion's Colin Newman and Malka Spigel: The Echoes Podcast
Colin Newman is part of the iconic post-punk band Wire. Malka Spigel is from the Israeli group Minimal Compact. Together they record as Immersion. With their new series of albums, Nanocluster, they work with collaborators, sort of Immersion Plus, and that music is different depending on who they collaborate with. Their new album, Nanocluster Volume 2, with Thor Harris (Swans,Thor & Friends) and Cubzoa,** takes them into minimalism and dream pop. These are two musicians who were around 10 years old when the Beatles emerged and changed their lives, but now entering their 70th year, they are as exploratory as ever.
Malka: We’re not only active, probably we are more adventurous and experiment than we ever did. So it’s a matter of, uh, state of mind. And Rather than age, I guess.
Colin: Yeah, I mean, retiring is weird. Retiring is what you do from a job you don’t like.
Colin Newman and Malka Spigel now recording as the electronic duo, Immersion. They have a new album out, Nanocluster Vol. 2. We talk to them in the Echoes Podcast.
Immersion Feature PodcastWire – Once Is Enough – 154
Minimal Compact – New Clear Twist – The Figure One Cuts
Immersion – Oscillating Between – Oscillating
Immersion – Not About Me – Nanocluster Vol. 2
Thor and Friends – Dies in Paris – 4
Immersion – Rotations – Nanocluster Vol. 2
Immersion – The Wizard’s House – Nanocluster Vol. 2
Cubzoa – The Tin Man – The Tin Man
Immersion – As Long As – Nanocluster Vol. 2
Immersion – I’m Barely Here – Nanocluster Vol. 2
Immersion – Other Ways – Nanocluster Vol. 2
Immersion – In The Universe – Nanocluster Vol. 2
Zanias! #1 in The Best of Echoes 2024, So Far: The Echoes Podcast Interview
This week we dropped our list of The Best of Echoes 2024, So Far Top 30. It’s our trip through our favorite recordings as we hit the mid-point of the year. Topping that list at number one is an artist who many people probably still don’t know even though I’ve been playing her endlessly and joyful on Echoes. Her name is Zanias and her album is Ecdysis. Zanias usually sings words, but on her latest album, Ecdysis, she takes inspiration from Dead Can Dance and Lisa Gerrard and as well as hallucinogenics.
I’m just so incredibly fascinated by consciousness and the human mind and everything that it’s capable of. So I had to explore everything that I read about when I was a teenager. And I was actually very young when I first experienced psychedelics. It was in Asia and it was magic mushrooms. And they made me just think in such an interesting way and feel things in such an interesting way.
Zanias was a member of the band Linea Aspera and Keluar, but on her albums Chrysalis and Ecdysis, she makes her own deeply grooved, psychedelic sound that tunnels into your psyche. We trip out with Zanias’ Allison Lewis when we talk to her in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
See The Best of Echoes 2024, So Far Top 30
ZANIAS FEATURE PLAYLISTArtist – Title – Album
Zanias – Ecdysis – Ecdysis
Zanias – Departure – Chrysalis
Linea Aspera – Malrone – Linea Aspera
Zanias – To the Core – To the Core
Zanias – Swim- Ecdysis
Zanias – Duneskipper- Ecdysis
Dead Can Dance – Echolalia – The Serpent’s Egg
Dead Can Dance – Nierika – Spiritchaser
Zanias – Earthborn – Ecdysis
Zanias – Bloodwood – Ecdysis
Zanias – Lovelife – Ecdysis
Zanias – Habenula – Ecdysis
Zanias – Closing – Chrysalis
Carl Craig's Revolutionary Art: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, a giant of techno music Carl Craig. His music burst through all the stereotypes of techno to create a more symphonic sound and he’s even had his music played with a symphony. Under many names, he’s been releasing solo music and remixing everyone from Tori Amos to Manuel Göttsching to Depeche Mode. A new documentary, Desire: The Carl Craig Story debuts in June at the Tribeca Film Festival. I had my own conversation with Carl talking about everything from the Sound Gizmo to the sound of Detroit Techno.
Carl Craig: And what we were doing was we were not trying to make something that sounded like electronic versions of music that was made with instruments. We were really trying to create new soundscapes.
The beat is transformed with Carl Craig on Echoes from PRX.
Carl Craig Feature PlaylistArtist – Title – AlbumCarl Craig – Technology – The Album Formerly Known As
A Number of Names – Shari Vari – Shari Vari Remixes Double ep
Sound Gizmo
Funkadelic – You’ll Like It Too – Who’s A Funkadelic
Hot Butter – Popcorn – 28 Big Ones
Kraftwerk – Computer World (Live) – Minimum-Maximum (Live)
Afrika Bambaata and Soul Sonic Force – Planet Rock – Planet Rock (Single)
Psyche – Neurotic Behavior – Neurotic Behavior PE 20 Remix
Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer – Symphonie Pour un Homme Seul – Symphonie Pour un Homme Seul
Public Enemy – 911 Is a Joke – Fear of a Black Planet
Carl Craig – Dominas – More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art
Tori Amos/Carl Craig – God (The Thinking Mix) – God (The Thinking Mix) Single
Vittoria Fleet – Return – Entangled ep
Vittoria Fleet – Return (Carl Craig Remix) – Return (Single)
Carl Craig – Darkness – Versus
Carl Craig – Desire – Versus
Carl Craig – Meditation 1 – Masterpiece
Carl Craig – From Beyond (C2 2023 Mix) – From Beyond
Carl Craig and Moritz von Oswald – Attenuator – Attentuator
Sean Ono Lennon: The Complete Echoes Interview
A couple of weeks ago, I brought you our produced interview with Sean Ono Lennon. But that interview was so good and so wide-ranging, I thought you might like to hear the entire interview. Lennon is, of course, the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono and we talked about that, especially their use of astrology. And we talk a lot about music because Lennon is something of an omnivore when it comes to different genres. And of course, we talk a lot about his own music, which has a decided bend toward psychedelia. That’s something that comes out on his new album, Asterisms, inspired by The Inner Mounting Flame record from The Mahavishnu Orchestra, and other things.
Sean Lennon: I remember taking mushrooms and listening to Inner Mounting Flame actually. So it was actually me and a bunch of friends and .. .It blew our minds so much we jammed for hours afterwards and had a really good time.
We talk a lot more about altered states of mind with to Sean Ono Lennon in the Echoes Podcast.
A Conversation with Jeff Oster, Vin Downes & Tom Eaton About Seven Conversations: The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, one conversation with three artists who have put out an album called Seven Conversations. They are trumpeter Jeff Oster, guitarist Vin Downes and 6 multi-instrumentalist Tom Eaton. These are three musicians you’ve heard a lot on Echoes with their solo albums as well as collaborative works in FLOW, the trio of Jeff Oster, Tom Eaton and Will Ackerman trio and numerous Will Ackerman productions. But as this trio, they’ve created an album of true ambient improvisation; Three musicians in intuitive communion.
Tom Eaton: I think this project is something we could only make with the three of us sitting together in a room. I couldn’t even imagine doing this, like, as overdubs. Like one of us starting something and sending it off to the other guy or whatever. It just, it wouldn’t make any sense. So I think it has to happen with the three of us together.
This is what great music sounds like when musicians actually perform together in one room. We talk to them in three different rooms across three thousand miles or so in the Echoes Podcast.
Read John Diliberto’s review of Seven Conversations, Echoes May CD of the Month
Oster-Downes-Eaton Feature PlaylistOster-Downes-Eaton – Hushed – Seven Conversations
FLOW – Arrival – Flow
Tom Eaton – Weathering – Weathering
Vin Downes – Each Other’s Home – Good Light to Go By
Oster-Downes-Eaton – Summiting – Departure-Live at Echoes 10/8/17/17
Oster-Downes-Eaton – Unexpected Guest – Departure-Live at Echoes 10/8/17
Oster-Downes-Eaton – Words Overheard – Seven Conversations
Oster-Downes-Eaton – Subliminal – Seven Conversations
Oster-Downes-Eaton – Her Wisdom – Seven Conversations
Oster-Downes-Eaton – A Confession – Seven Conversations
Chris Isaak – Wicked Game – Wicked Game
Oster-Downes-Eaton – A Reckoning – Seven Conversations
Oster-Downes-Eaton – Hours Slip By – Seven Conversations
The Transcendence of Trio Mediaeval: The Echoes Podcast
Trio Mediaeval at Bg Ears Festival with John Diliberto Photo: Jeff Towne
In the Echoes Podcast, the celestial sounds of Trio Mediaeval. This extraordinary group of singers channel sounds from the Middle ages up through contemporary composers. We talk to them about their quarter-century journey into the past. They are Linn Andrea Fuglseth, Anna Maria Friman and Jorunn Lovise Husan. Their latest album is An Old Hall Ladymass. Although they sing mostly in Latin, it’s not the words that will seduce you.
Linn Andrea Fuglseth: I just love the sound of the language, I must say. It’s also very poetic, the use of the words, like, the different descriptions of the Virgin Mary for instance. Like the Queen of the Seas and the Star of the Skies.It’s just really beautiful.
This ensemble of Norwegian singers are making a music that can bring you to tears. Just listen to Roger Eno when he reacts to the trio after seeing them live at Big Ears Festival for the first time. You’ll hear that as well as what these three women listened to growing up in Norway. It wasn’t polyphony and plainsong. It’s Trio Mediaeval in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Trio Mediaeval Feature playlistArtist – Title – Album
The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos – Puer Natus Est Nobis: Introit- Chant
Enigma – Principles of Lust/Sadeness – MCMXC a.D.
Richard Souther – For the Trinity – Vision
Trio Mediaeval – Alma Mater – Words of the Angel
Trio Mediaeval – Words of the Angel- Words of the Angel
ABBA – Take a Chance on Me – The Album
Trio Mediaeval – O Maria, Stella Maris – Stella Maris
Trio Mediaeval – Sanctus – An Old Hall Ladymass
Trio Mediaeval – St.Birgitta Hymn: Rosa Rorans Bonitatem – Rimur
Julia Wolfe/Trio Mediaeval – Destiny – Steel Hammer
Trio Mediaeval – Sol Lucet – An Old Hall Ladymass
Trio Mediaeval – Gloria – An Old Hall Ladymass
Trio Mediaeval – Kyrie – An Old Hall Ladymass
Sean Ono Lennon's Inner Mounting Psychedelia: The Echoes Podcast
In this weeks Echoes Podcast we’re I’m thrilled to bring you an interview with Sean Ono Lennon. Yes, he’s the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono but if your knowledge of him ends there you are in for a pleasant surprise. He’s been creating his own music over the years with a decided bend toward psychedelia and it’s something that comes out on his new album, Asterisms, inspired by The Inner Mounting Flame record from The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles’ Davis’s 60s electric period and . . . . some other things.
Sean Ono Lennon: I remember taking mushrooms and listening to Inner Mounting Flame actually. So it was actually me and a bunch of friends and .. .It blew our minds so much we jammed for hours afterwards and had a really good time.
We talk to Sean Lennon about his all-instrumental rave up album Asterisms in the Echoes Podcast.
SEAN ONO LENNON FEATURE PLAYLISTArtist – Title – Album
Sean Ono Lennon – Asterisms – Asterisms
The GOASTT – Animals – Midnight Sun
Sean Ono Lennon – Asterisms – Asterisms
Mahavishnu Orchestra – Mieeting of the Spirits – The Inner Mounting Flame
Sean Ono Lennon – Heliopause – Asterisms
Miles Davis – Bitches Brew – Bitches Brew
Sean Ono Lennon – Thinking of M – Asterisms
Sean Ono Lennon – Starwater – Asterisms
Dark Sky Alliance - Progressive Ambient: The Echoes Interview
It’s a meeting of artists creating an ambient world, when we talk to Dark Sky Alliance featuring Peter Gabriel drummer Jerry Marotta, guitarist David Helpling, keyboardist Rupert Greenall from The Fixx, and electronic artist Eric “The” Taylor. Their sound is what happens when New Age and New Wave double-date with Progressive Rock and Ambient. Their debut album, Interdwell, is a study in ambience and soundscaping released on the ambient Spotted Peccary Music label.. John Diliberto signs us up with Dark Sky Alliance in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Dark Sky Alliance Feature PlaylistArtist – Title – Album
Dark Sky Alliance – Search – Interdwell
Dark Sky Alliance – Linear – Interdwell
The Fragile Fate – Lilliam Ocean – Lilliam Ocean
Dark Sky Alliance – Fortunate One – Interdwell
Dark Sky Alliance – The Slow Train Home – Interdwell
Dark Sky Alliance – The Desert Mind – Interdwell
Dark Sky Alliance – Warm Inlet – Interdwell
The Fixx – Saved by Zero – Reach the Beach
Dark Sky Alliance – Trè Pur- Interdwell
Dark Sky Alliance – Interdwell – Interdwell
Limina's Orchestral Music Between Worlds: The Echoes Podcast
Take Sigur Ros, add in strings and a more classical sensibility, and you wind up with Limina. That’s the project of Tyler Durham. He’s a journeyman film composer who creates additional music to accompany scores by Pinar Toprak and James Newton Howard. But Limina is his own expression. He creates his music electronically, but then takes his string and orchestral parts to a real orchestra to perform. Then he messes with that electronically. The result is a haunting album called Coming Home, that tells a tale of travel and hidden thoughts. John Diliberto talks to Limina on the Echoes Podcast.
LIMINA FEATURE PLAYLISTArtist – Title – Album
Limina – Expand – Hidden Spaces
Limina – Let It Take You – Coming Home
Limina – Beginnings – Coming Home
N’Sync – Tearin’ Up My Heart – N’Sync
August Burns Read – White Wah – Constellations
Ray Chen – Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D, op.35
Sigur Ros – Andvari – Takk
Limina – Where I Am – Coming Home
Limina – Boarding – Coming Home
Limina – Dissolved – Coming Home
Limina -Flows Back – Coming Home
Limina – Sanctum – Coming Home
Limina – We Are Bound – Coming Home
A Long Psychedelic Trip with Zanias: The Echoes Podcast
Zanias usually sings words, but on her latest album, Ecdysis, she takes inspiration from Dead Can Dance and Lisa Gerrard and as well as hallucinogenics.
I’m just so incredibly fascinated by consciousness and the human mind and everything that it’s capable of. So I had to explore everything that I read about when I was a teenager. And I was actually very young when I first experienced psychedelics. It was in Asia and it was magic mushrooms. And they made me just think in such an interesting way and feel things in such an interesting way.
Zanias was a member of the band Linea Aspera and Keluar, but on her albums Chrysalis and Ecdysis, she makes her own deeply grooved, psychedelic sound that tunnels into your psyche. We trip out with Zanias’ Allison Lewis when we talk to her in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
ZANIAS FEATURE PLAYLISTArtist – Title – Album
Zanias – Ecdysis – Ecdysis
Zanias – Departure – Chrysalis
Linea Aspera – Malrone – Linea Aspera
Zanias – To the Core – To the Core
Zanias – Swim- Ecdysis
Zanias – Duneskipper- Ecdysis
Dead Can Dance – Echolalia – The Serpent’s Egg
Dead Can Dance – Nierika – Spiritchaser
Zanias – Earthborn – Ecdysis
Zanias – Bloodwood – Ecdysis
Zanias – Lovelife – Ecdysis
Zanias – Habenula – Ecdysis
Zanias – Closing – Chrysalis
A Journey in Ambient Classical Music with Roger Eno: The Echoes Podcast
John Diliberto and Roger Eno
Brian Eno is a giant figure in modern music and certainly here on Echoes. But in Eno’s shadow resides his brother, Roger Eno, 11 years younger. While Brian used to say he was a non-musician, Roger is very much a classically trained musician, and now he’s on the most legendary classical label, Deutsche Grammophon.
Roger Eno: I’m now on Deutsche Grammophon, which to me is a huge accolade. When I was at music college, that was the label, you know, that had these stern Germans doing serious things on it.
Well, now they’ve got a giggling little half Belgian on their books.
Roger Eno is one of the pioneers of Ambient Chamber music. But over the last few years his music has become more neo-classical with albums on Deutsche Grammophon. At Big Ears Festival, Roger Eno takes us down his pastoral path when John Diliberto sits down with him in the Echoes Podcast.
ROGER ENO FEATURE PLAYLISTRoger Eno – That Which is Hidden – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords
Roger Eno – Aove and Below (Crepuscular – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords
Roger Eno – If Only for a Moment – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords
Roger Eno – Japanese Rain Garden – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords
Brian Eno – Always Returning – Apollo
Roger Eno – Arms Open Wide – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords
Roger Eno – Through the Blue (Crepuscular) – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords
Roger Eno – The Turning Year – The Turning Year
Roger Eno – A Place We Once Were – The Turning Year
Morton Feldman – Rothko Chapel – Rothko Chapel
Roger Eno – Ringing Glow – Between Tides
Roger Eno – Clearly – The Turning Year
An Electronic Life with Le Morte d'Abby: The Echoes Podcat
Le Morte d’Abby means “the death of Abby,” but Abigail Lentz, who assumed that artist name, is very much alive and creating some exhilarating electronic music. She was a military brat, but she was also a goth. Now she marshals sequencers, getting them in line. She’s living at the intersection of electronic space music and EDM, modular synthesis and computer synths. IN fact there is much that is in between with this artist, whose real name is Abigail Lentz. She recently released the album “In Those Days” a melodic sequencer ride. Join John Diliberto when he talks to Le Morte d’Abby on Echoes from PRX.
LE MORTE D’ABBY PLAYLISTLe Morte D’Abby – In Those Days – In Those Days
Le Morte D’Abby – Putting (Up with You) – Putting ep
Le Morte D’Abby – Putting (Things On Top of Other Things mix) – Putting
Le Morte D’Abby – Streetlights Reflected – Impermanence
Bauhaus – Bela Lugosi’s Dead – Bela Lugosi’s Dead
Le Morte D’Abby – Melancholia – Aberrant
Le Morte D’Abby – Eclipse – In Those Days
Le Morte D’Abby – In the Snow (Both Ways) – In Those Days
Le Morte D’Abby – Through the Static – In Those Days
Le Morte D’Abby – Woe to Earth- In Those Days
Le Morte D’Abby – Ataxia – In Those Days
A Kaleidoscopic View of Kaleida: The Echoes Podcast Interview
On the next Echoes, the British-American Duo, Kaleida talk about their album, In Arms. It’s an album fraught with biblical, personal and political references.
Christina Wood: It was meant to have a double meaning. It was meant to be like holding babies in arms but also arming yourself to keep on going.
This British-American-German dream pop duo are creating an entrancing sound, much of it emerging from their trans-oceanic separation and from their new born babies. They are millennials who wrote a song criticizing their generation. Cicely Goulder-Levy was scoring films when she got seduced by electronic music. Christina Wood wasn’t really in music at all. She was an environmental engineer. But they got together, across a couple of continents then, and an ocean now, to create three entrancing albums. Hear their story on Echoes.
KALEIDA INTERVIEW PLAYLISTKaleida – Choices – In Arms
Kaleida – Hansaplast- In Arms
Kaleida – Hollow- In Arms
Cicely Goulder – Adjudication – Quirky Underscores
Kaleida – Stranger- In Arms
Kaleida – Think – Think (EP)
Kaleida – Hey Little Precious – In Arms
Kaleida – Endless Youth – In Arms
Geeshie Wiley – Last Kind Word Blues – Presenting Geeshie Wiley
Kaleida – Seagull Nun – In Arms
Kaleida – Don’t Turn Me Out – In Arms
Kaleida – Kilda – In Arms
Echoes Podcast: The Ministry of Quiet Resonance and Ashley Capps Opens Our Big Ears
It’s Quiet Resonance on the next Echoes when we talk to Tony Pounders. As Quiet Resonance, he composes guitar orchestrations that range from ambient to pastoral to pure space. He also has another side to his life that might surprise you. He’s from Mississippi, a place with a deep musical heritage but not a fountain of ambient, electronic or new age music. If you love Jeff Pearce, Suss and Lanterna you may want to hear Quiet Resonance. He made our year end Best of Echoes Top 30 in 2024. He’s just released a new album, Endless Beginnings. John Diliberto goes to church to talk to Quiet Resonance in the Echoes Podcast.
QUIET RESONANCE PLAYLISTQuiet Resonance – Frostbite – Snow Blind
Quiet Resonance – Hialeah – Flight Patterns
Quiet Resonance – Days to Months Before – Behave
Rush – A Farewell to Kings – A Farewell to Kings
Quiet Resonance – Expanse – Someplace Else
Quiet Resonance – Schooner – Coastal
Def Leppard – Hysteria – Hysteria
Quiet Resonance – Prospects for Wisdom – Prospects for Wisdom
Quiet Resonance – Managua – Flight Patterns
Quiet Resonance – Run – Duck Fat Fries
Quiet Resonance – Duck Fat Fries – Duck Fat Fries
Quiet Resonance – Falling Upward – Prospects for Wisdom
It’s Big Ears on the next Echoes. We’ll talk to founder Ashley Capps about the Big Ears Festival 2024, which includes performances from Laurie Anderson, King Britt, Andre 3000, Laraaji, Roger Eno and about 200 more. This is a mammoth festival in Knoxville that ranges from singer-songwriters to avant-garde string quartets to electronic artists to free jazz and multiple intersections of all those things. And you can’t see all of the 200 or so acts so leave FOMO behind.
Ashley Capps: That to me, John, is the secret of the festival. And it’s kind of an interesting metaphor for our world of distraction that we live in every day, where so many things are pulling you in so many different directions. But ultimately, satisfaction emerges from being in the moment and completely engaged in whatever situation you happen to find yourself in.
If you’ve got big ears, join us in the Echoes Podcast.
Read John Diliberto’s Path Through Big Ears Festival 2024
BIG EARS PLAYLISTKronos Quartet – The Cusp of Magic – Terry Riley: The Cusp of Magic
King Britt – Beyond the Sun – Fhloston Paradigm
Andre 3000 – I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a Rap Album But This is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time – New Blue Sun
Andre 3000 – BuyPoloDisorder’s Daughter Wears a 3000 Shirt Embroidered – New Blue Sun
King Brit – Back2Black – Back2Black
Carl Craig – Return by Victoria Fleet Remix – Single
Laurie Anderson – O Superman – Big Science
Laurie Anderson – From the Air – Big Science
Brad Mehldau – Paranoid Android – Largo
Charles Lloyd – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow -The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow
Herbie Hancock – Maiden Voyage – Maiden Voyage
Herbie Hancock – Chameleon – Headhunters
Herbie Hancock _Court and Spark – River: The Joni Letters
Tord Gustavsen – The Gift – Extended Circle
Henry Threadgill’s Very Very Circus – Hope A Hope – Sprit of Nuff . . .Nuff
Suzi Analogue – Time To – Boom
Secret Chiefs 3 – Vajra – Book M
Adrianne Lenker – Cradle – abysskiss
Charles lloyd – Booker’s Garden – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow
Colleen – The Crossin – The Tunnel and the Clearing
Big Ears Festival Founder Ashley Capps Exploding Music Show!
Today in the Echoes Podcast we explore Big Ears Festival 2024. This is the annual new music extravaganza in Knoxville, Tennessee of bleeding edge sounds, free jazz, deep ambient and very much more since 2009. This years festival features Andre 3000, Herbie Hancock, Laraaji, Laurie Anderson, King Britt and about 200 other performers across four days from March 21-24. I’ve been talking to founder Ashley Capps annually about the festival since 2015. We’ll go a little deeper not just about who is playing the festival, but why.
Ashley Capps may be one of the most innovative concert promoters of the last 20 years. He founded the Bonaroo Festival in 2002 and produced the two best Moogfests as well as the Mountain Oasis Music Festival. But Big Ears is his passion project, so much so that he gave up those other gigs to form a non-profit to produce it. Big ears is one of the most ear challenging, as well as one of the most civilized, taking place in downtown Knoxville in multiple, enclosed venues from large concert halls to small clubs and a few odd locations as well, like a cathedral. Every year, Ashley and I sit across from each other on screen and survey the Big Ears landscape. Hear it now in the Echoes Podcast
The 50th anniversary of Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra and The Tangerine Dream Documentary
In the Echoes Podcast, head into psychedelic space on the 50th anniversary of Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra. This is a seminal album of electronic music that essentially launched the whole sequencer school of electronics. We’ll hear a meditation on Phaedra with Moby, Mark Shreeve, Ian Boddy, Steve Roach, and Ulrich Schnauss as well as most of the Phaedra album.
Then as a bonus, we’re putting up our documentary on Tangerine Dream which includes interviews with all the members the classic line-up, Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann and Christoph Franke. We also hear from later members Thorsten Quaeschning and Ulrich Schnauss as well as Moby, Mark Shreeve, Ian Boddy, Steve Roach and Jah Wobble,
Read John Diliberto’s Meditation on Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra.
Hear our complete 1982 interview with Edgar Froese here.
See our list of Ten Tangerine Dream Albums to Blow Your Mind.
Hear our interview with the current edition of Tangerine Dream here.
21st Century Mediaeval Hymns; Kevin Keller-The Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast, we go to the monastery when Kevin Keller talks about his album, Evensong. It’s partly based on the chants and hymns of 12th century Abbess Hildegard von Bingen.
You might recall the chant craze of the 1990s when The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo singing gothic hymns were topping the charts, and artists like Enigma were adapting chants into their music. But rising above them all were the 12th century compositions of Abbess Hildegard von Bingen. Her music was recreated by artists like Gothic Voices, Sequentia and Anonymous 4 and adapted for 20th century ears by Richard Souther, Vox, and David Lynch with Jocelyn Montgomery. Now composer Kevin Keller has created his own beautiful renderings of her music on the album Evensong, a CD of the Month in November.
Today we might call Hildegard a polymath. She was a writer, philosopher, mystic, and medical practitioner. But she is best known for her music: heavenly plainchant hymns that call to the heavens in the most sensual way. Many of these came to her in visions, and that’s how Kevin Keller’s album, Evensong arrived.
Kevin Keller: At the risk of sounding a little too mystical, this album did sort of come to me in a vision. It arrived fully formed in my brain two years ago in October of 21. And just in like the space of a couple of hours, I had the album title, the concept, and I knew right from the beginning that it was going to involve songs by Hildegard of Bingen and that there would be eight songs.
We talk to Kevin Keller about bringing these gothic sounds into the 21st century.
Hear it tonight or Right Now at Echoes On-Line.
Read John Diliberto’s CD of the Month Review of Evensong
PLAYLIST FOR KEVIN KELLER FEATURESequentia – O Virdissima Virga, Ave – Canticles of Ecstasy
Sequentia – O Vis Aeternitatis – Canticles of EcstasyRichard Souther – Vision – Vision: The Music of Abbess Hildegard von BingenKevin Keller – Evensong 7 – Evensong
Kevin Keller – Evensong 4 – Evensong
Kevin Keller – Evensong 3 – Evensong
Kevin Keller – Evensong 1 – Evensong
Kevin Keller – Evensong 7 – Evensong
Kevin Keller – Evensong 8 – Evensong
Kevin Keller – Evensong 4 – Evensong
Kevin Keller – Evensong 5 – Evensong
Riding the Storm with Russel Walder: The Echoes Podcast
Our CD Of The Month in November was Speak to the Storm by Russel Walder. It was so compelling we had to talk to the oboe player who we first knew as one half of the duo Ira Stein and Russel Walder on Windham Hill Records. The music he makes on his own in his adopted home of New Zealand, is quite a bit darker than anything he recorded with the duo. When he says speak to the storm, he means it.
Russel Walder: I absolutely believe that the internal conscious state of existence is a storm that never ends, ever.
Russel Walder. We’ll be talking to him and weathering the storm in the Echoes Podcast.
Read John Diliberto’s review of Speak to the Storm .
RUSSEL WALDER FEATURE PLAYLIST
Ira Stein & Russel Walder _ The Underground – A Door in the Air
Russel Walder – The Longer Journey – Speak to the Storm
Russel Walder – Walk on Water – Speak to the Storm
Ira Stein & Russel Walder – Engravings – Transit
Russel Walder – Trusting the Invisible – Speak to the Storm
Russel Walder – The Time Finds Us – Speak to the Storm
Russel Walder – Path to Path – Speak to the Storm
Russel Walder – Conception – Speak to the Storm
Russel Walder – Hidden But Seen – Speak to the Storm
Russel Walder – Beyond Doubt- Speak to the Storm
Tim Story, Michael Rother, Roedelius and Neu!: The Echoes Interviews
Tim Story and Hans-Joachim Roedelius
Tim Story used to be the ultimate melodicist with albums like The Perfect Flaw and Beguiled. But now he’s mutating sounds, often with German icon, Roedelius.
Tim Story is something of a legend in electronic and new age circles. He’s been recording since 1981 and was a pioneer in ambient chamber music with albums like Shadowplay. But he also has an edgier side that has come out in his work with the avant-garde German electronic duo Cluster and especially the elder member of that group. Hans-Joachim Roedelius. He’s pretty much abandoned his signature sound.
Tim Story: I have a lot of people that say boy, I love Beguiled or I love Shadow Play, it’s one of my favorite records — and you know, are you gonna make another record like that? And I feel bad in a way, but, but I can’t in some ways because I mean I could and I might actually still.
I talk to Tim Story and Roedelius about Tim’s shift from a melody maven to a dissonant dreamer in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
NEU! from Left Klaus Dinger, Michael Rother
Echoes looks at Neu!, the 1970s German duo that is still influencing bands like Stereolab and more today. The duo celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2022 and their album, Neu! 2 turned 50 last year.
In the early 1970s, a host of LSD-washed malcontents from Germany created a hypnotic brand of electronic music, with roots in Karlheinz Stockhausen as much as The Velvet Underground. Kraftwerk, Faust, Cluster and Can were among the first wave, as was Neu!, Guitarist Michael Rother, electronic twiddler and drummer Klaus Dinger, and phantom third member, producer, Conny Plank, constructed a sound of relentless rhythms and metronomic drums that are still influencing music. We’ll hear guitarist Michael Rother talking about their gestation as part of Kraftwerk and we’ll hear music from Neu! 2. It’s all new with Neu! in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Opposites Meet with Lou Reed, Iasos and Steven Halpern in the Echoes Podcast
Before he died in 2013, Lou Reed created an ambient album called Hudson River Wind Meditations that tapped into his spiritual side. Now that the album is being re-released in a deluxe edition, we go back to our interview with Reed talking about it. Lou Reed was an iconic figure in modern music. The founder of The Velvet Underground, he provided a counterpart to the hippies and flower power of the era, trawling a darker and seedier side of life. As a solo artist, he did the same thing, with a lean, distorted guitar sound and songs that were often grittier than a back alley. But there was another side to Lou Reed as well, one that’s experimental and meditative. One example came out on the 2007 CD, Hudson River Wind Meditations. It was an all-electronic disc of drones and ambiences. We don’t play Lou Reed often on Echoes for obvious reasons, but I thought: when else would I have an opportunity to interview him? Lou Reed talks about a meditative river, in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
We lost a pioneer of New Age music. He wasn’t as well-known as Yanni, Enya or even Steven Halpern. He didn’t record on signature labels like Windham Hill or Narada records. But Iasos was there at the very dawn of new age music in 1975 when he released his debut album, Interdimensional Music. Iasos mixed mysticism and music, crafting often expansive landscapes that we thought of as space music at the time, before New age took over as the marketing term.
Inter-Dimensional Music and Steven Halpern’s Spectrum Suite, released the same year, were the first trips into the modern new age movement. Iasos was born in Greece but grew up in America. He taught himself flute and piano and by the time he moved to the San Francsico Bay area, he was hearing a sound that wasn’t really out there yet. He combined his acoustic instruments, including lap-steel guitar. with tape manipulations and synthesizers to create albums like Elixir, Jeweled Space and Realms of Light. These were subtle works that were often more avant-garde than new new age, but all had a mood. Iasos lived deep in the mystic, claiming his music came from other dimensions and citing works like Francis Bacon’s 16th century book, New Atlantis, as well as The Urantia Book. Iasos died on January 6. He was 77 years old. We remember him tonight on Echoes.
I interviewed both Iasos and Stegen Halpern in 1983 in their respective homes in the San Francisco Bay Area. I put those together in episode 16 of the radio series Totally Wired-Artists in Electronic SoundYou’ll hear the complete 28-minute episode in the Echoes Podcast
.
Read John Diliberto’s Tribute to Iasos
The Sound of Winter: David Arkenstone-The Echoes Podcast
David Arkenstone talks about his album, Winterlude. In the glut of seasonal albums that come out, few rise above the pack. This year, the one star shining in a sea of gilded snow is David Arkenstone’s Winterlude. The 5-time Grammy nominee has created a post-classical chamber work that perfectly evokes the season. And he did it without two elements you’ll hear on every seasonal recording. There are no carols and.no sleighbells. Join John Diliberto when David Arkenstone talks about his CD of the Month, Winterlude on the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Listen for An Echoes Winterlude with David Arkenstone, live performance on the December 18 edition of Echoes.
Read John Diliberto’s review of Winterlude
PLAYLIST FOR DAVID ARKENSTONE INTERVIEW
David Arkenstone – The Icy Brook Finds Its Way – Winterlude
David Arkenstone – Warm Lights Flicker Across the Lake – Winterlude
David Arkenstone – Whispers of the Winter Wind – Winterlude
David Arkenstone – Kisses from the Falling SnowDarkening Skies – Winterlude
David Arkenstone – Darkening Skies – Winterlude
David Arkenstone – The World Sleeps – Winterlude
David Arkenstone – The Return of Jack Frost – Winterlude
David Arkenstone – The White Cathedrals – Winterlude
The Ambient Firm of Lane, Gregorius and Smith: The Echoes Podcast
Brannan Lane, John Gregorius and Sean O’Bryan Smith come from different musical worlds that range from deep country and western to deep ambience. They are something of a new age supergroup with 3 musicians, all of who have long and in the case of one, varied careers. They are electronic artist Brannan Lane, guitarist John Gregorius and bassist Sean O’Bryan Smith. They can claim country, rock, pop, jazz, ambient, electronic and new age music in their backgrounds and when they came together that had no real conception of their sound. But they created a coherent pastoral ambient mood.
Brannan Lane, John Gregorius, Sean O’Bryan Smith Interview Playlist
Brannan Lane, John Gregorius, Sean O’Bryan Smith – Emergence- Emergence
Kenny Rogers – The Gambler – The Gambler – The Gambler
Sean O’Bryan Smith – KM’s Groove – Tapestry
Sean O’Bryan Smith – The Great Mystery – Musings of an Occasional Somebody
Brannan Lane – Escape Velocity – Escape Velocity
John Gregorius – The Expansive Sky – Full of Life
John Gregorius – Open – In Awe
Brannan Lane, John Gregorius, Sean O’Bryan Smith – Ride- Emergence
Brannan Lane, John Gregorius, Sean O’Bryan Smith – The Rising – Emergence
Brannan Lane, John Gregorius, Sean O’Bryan Smith – Dawn – Emergence
Brannan Lane, John Gregorius, Sean O’Bryan Smith – Poetry of Light – Emergence
Cocteau Twins – Ivo – Treasure
Brannan Lane, John Gregorius, Sean O’Bryan Smith – The Gate – Emergence
Brannan Lane, John Gregorius, Sean O’Bryan Smith – Shadows in Motion – Emergence
Brannan Lane, John Gregorius, Sean O’Bryan Smith – The Gate – Emergence
Hans Christian Communes with the Music and Spirit of Cellist David Darling: The Echoes Podcast
David Darling was one of the premier new music cellists. He first came to renown performing with the Paul Winter Consort, including work on their classic album, Icarus. He went on to a solo career that has included several recordings on the ECM label, playing both solo cello and in often edgy collaborations with musicians like guitarists Terje Rypdal and Ralph Towner. On a trio of albums that began with the 1993 CD 8-String Religion, Darling articulated an ambient chamber music that has influenced many. We lost David Darling in January of 2021, but cellist Hans Christian has resurrected him from the ether with the Grammy-nominated album, Ocean Dreaming Ocean. We talk to Hans Christian and longtime Darling friend and producer, Mickey Houlihan, about taking multi-track rough session tapes from Darling and turning them into ambient chamber music expanses, in the Echoes Podcast.
Playlist for Hans Christian Feature
Hans Christian – Heart to Heart – Hidden Treasures
David Darling/Hans Christian – Seven Veils – Ocean Dreaming Ocean
David Darling- Minor Blue – 8-String ReligionDavid Darling – Stones Start Spinning – Prayer for CompassionDavid Darling – Left Hand – Unreleased
David Darling/Hans Christian – Epitaph – Ocean Dreaming Ocean
David Darling/Hans Christian – Below the Horizon – Ocean Dreaming Ocean
David Darling/Hans Christian – Unforeseen Rain – Ocean Dreaming Ocean
David Darling/Hans Christian – Minor Blue Chorale – Ocean Dreaming Ocean
David Darling/Hans Christian – Unforeseen Rain – Ocean Dreaming Ocean
David Darling/Hans Christian – Ocean Dreaming Ocean – Ocean Dreaming Ocean
David Darling/Hans Christian – Miracle – Ocean Dreaming Ocean
This History of Electronic Pop: Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark: The Complete Interview
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark was a band at the leading edge of the electronic pop movement of the 1980s. Just behind acts like The Normal, Gary Numan and Cabaret Voltaire, they brought electronic pop to the top of the English charts. When they began, they thought they were part of a musical revolution. The core of the band is founding members Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphries and after a long hiatus, they’ve come back stronger than ever in recent years, in an era where the revolution has been won. They recently released their 14th studio album, Bauhaus Staircase.
Tangerine Dream Founder Edgar Froese's Complete 1982 Interview in the Echoes Podcast
Tangerine Dream changed music. Period. There was nothing like them before their 1974 album, Phaedra and a vast landscape of music from Donna Summer’s I Feel Love” to EDM to ambient to dreampop are based on their sonic designs. Edgar Froese was the guiding light of Tangerine Dream. He founded the group as an experimental band in the 1960s and guided them through a music that was wed to technology, even if Froese once told me that if you can’t make music on a comb, then you are not a musician. I interviewed Edgar several times before his passing in 2015.
I talked to Froese as part of the radio series Totally Wired-Artists in Electronic Sound in 1982. I met him at his studio in West Berlin. This was before the Berlin Wall came down and there was still a claustrophobic and disconnected sense to the city. Escaping that is part of what Tangerine Dream’s music was about. At the time, White Eagle was their latest recording and Stuntman was Froese’s latest solo release.
Froese had already created an entirely new kind of music with Tangerine Dream on albums like Stratosfear, Rubycon and Ricochet. They epitomized the electronic age of music, recording over 150 albums of synthesized compositions. Their film soundtracks include “Sorcerer” “Thief,” “Risky Business,” and “Legend.” But Tangerine Dream are the original source.
Hear Edgar Froese talk about the history of the group, his ideas about electronic music and his sense of cosmic consciousness in the Echoes Podcast II with his complete 1982 interview
Listen to our Tangerine Dream at 50 Documentary.
Hear our interview with the current edition of Tangerine Dream
See our list of 10 Tangerine Dream Albums to Blow Your Mind,
Darkside's Psychic Debut: The Echoes Interview
Darkside is the name of a trippy duo that mixes electronics with expansive guitar solos, heavy rhythms and swirling textures. They met in Brown University and began performing together when David Harrington played guitar in Nicolas Jaar’s touring band. Free improvisations in their hotel room led to their first real collaboration. Their debut album, Psychic, is getting the 10th Anniversary Reissue treatment. They talk about improvising electronics, covering Daft Punk and the inspiration of Can in the Echoes Podcast..
Hammock Out of the Void: The Complete Echoes Interview
Last January I had a great interview with Hammock, the ambient guitar duo. It was long and wide-ranging but we could only fit so much into a 15-minute piece. Today, however, I bring you the complete interview where Hammock talk about their latest album, Love in the Void. as well as religion, therapy, sobriety, and the return of guitars that sound like guitars to their music. Love in the Void is a post-pandemic release and one of their most energized albums in years, sounding like a band who has emerged from a long dark tunnel. The music they made in that tunnel, including the album Elsewhere was deep and immersive, wrapping you in a cocoon of sound. But Love in the Void carries you on a lighter, also more aggressive plane.
Marc Byrd: Honestly, Love in the Void is a reaction to everyone telling us how much they sleep to our music. And what did you say, Andrew?
Andrew Thompson: It’s time to wake up. It’s time to wake up.
Marc Byrd: It’s time to wake up. It’s good to be awake.
I suspect that it’s an album I’ll be listening to much more, wide awake. Hammock’s Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson talk about the emotions and events that fueled the album from sobriety to love, loss to anger, and joy. in this extended Echoes Podcast.
Read John Diliberto’s review of Love in the Void
Devo Turns 50. Hear Their Previously Unreleased 1987 Interview
They haven’t recorded anything new in over a decade, and nothing for twenty years before that. Their most consequential body of work was at the turn of the 1980s where they presaged New Wave music. But Devo remains a singularly unique entity. There is no one like them and their influence has been broad and deep . Their music is laced with irony and social commentary, married to a mechanized music aesthetic and a dadaesque visual aesthetic. Emerging out of Kent State University in Ohio, they found their identity after the massacre there in May of 1970. By the time of their debut single they had already produced several videos and the film, The Truth About De-Evolution. But it was the single “Mongoloid” b/w “Jocko Homo,” released in 1977, that put them on the music map. I remember picking that up at 3rd Street Jazz & Rock in Philadelphia and playing it on the progressive music show, Diaspar on WXPN Philadelphia. It definitely sounded different. Although they emerged out of the punk scene, they were not remotely punk, recalling The Residents more than any other band out there. I saw them at the Hot Club in Philadelphia on their first tour. No one looked like them on stage, with their hazmat suits, playing guitars, drums and an Electrocomp 500 synthesizer, and jerkily moving to their syncopated grooves. Along with bands like Ultravox and Magazine, they were New Wave before New Wave. Their sound became more electronic over the years, especially for their hit single, “Whip It” in 1980. That track is something of a lodestone as it locked in the band’s identity with audiences as a novelty act, ignoring that Devo was actually a subversive conceptual art project based in social criticism, and they’ve been recognized as such by critics and journalists. But they’re also really funny. Why else would Brian Eno produce their debut album Q:Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo.
Besides their nine studio albums, as individuals they’ve done several music videos, as well as film and television soundtracks, including Mark Mothersbaugh’s scores for Rugrats, The Royal Tannenbaums and most famously, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. The band are currently touring the world and have released a retrospective, 50 Years of De-Evolution 1973-2023.
I interviewed the band in 1987. For some reason, it was never used in the Totally Wired radio show I produced at the time, nor did I use it in print, even though in the interview I said it was going to be in Electronic Musician Magazine, which I wrote for in the 1980s and 90s. I talked to Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale in a warehouse-like space in Los Angeles. Late into the interview Bob Casale, who sadly passed in 2014, entered the conversation. It was pretty noisy and some woman kept making announcements on a PA. It was a long way from Mutato Muzika, their high-end studio in West Hollywood where I talked to Mothersbaugh again in the early 2000s. They were sort of in-between at this moment sitting between . They’d been dropped by Warner Bros and their last album on the label, Shout came out in 1984, and their next one on Enigma, Total Devo, was released in 1988. It’s a rambling interview and pretty funny.
Opium Moon's Sound of Unity and Sensuality: The Echoes Podcast Interview
Today we journey into world fusion with Opium Moon. This is the Grammy winning ensemble who are part of a new wave of artists fusing sounds from the Middle east. Their music taps the overtly sensual sounds of this region. But Opium Moon’s Lili Hadyn says it’s all about the spirit.
Lili Hayden: Honestly, it’s all about flow. We’re letting the spirit move through us and if it’s coming though in a more sensual way, god bless. And if it comes in more of a sacred way than similarly.
We talk to this ensemble which includes acclaimed Canadian-American violinist violinist Lili Haydn, Iranian-American santurist Hamid Saeidi, American percussionist MB Gordy and Israeli-American bass guitarist Itai Disraeli. Their new album is Where We Are Gathered. There has, perhaps never been a better time for their music of unity. Hear it tonight on Echoes from PRX.
OPIUM MOON FEATURE PLAYLISTOpium Moon – Time and Tide – Where We Are GatheredOpium Moon – Wisdom – Night + DayOpium Moon – When Their Wings – Night + Day
Opium Moon – Gravity=Love – Opium Moon
Opium Moon – Feast of Sevens – Night + DayOpium Moon – Metta Prayer – Where We Are GatheredOpium Moon – Through the Ages –Where We Are Gathered
Opium Moon – Woman Life Freedom – Where We Are Gathered
Opium Moon – The Mystery – Where We Are GatheredOpium Moon – Back to the Beginning – Where We Are GatheredOpium Moon – Through the Ages –Where We Are Gathered
Opium Moon – Of Kiss and Wing –Where We Are Gathered
Mimi Page: Dream Pop, Deep Trauma, and Healing: The Complete Interview in Echoes Podcast
Mimi Page is an auteur of electronic dream pop and a composer of video game scores. You’ve heard her music turn up in TV series like Dark. We’ve been intoxicated by her for years whether it’s her serene vocals on Breathe Me In, the celestial choirs of Dark Before the Dawn, her collaborations with Delerium or her own evocative instrumentals. But her new album, Sound Healing Volume 1 takes her in a more meditative direction. We thought our interview with her was so engaging we wanted you to hear it all.
Trumpeter Jeff Oster Goes Lo-Fi & Al Petteway Remembered in the Echoes Podcast: The Echoes Interview
Photo Credit: Irene Young
We go lo-fi and ambient jazz when Jeff Oster talks about his new album, hØwling lØØn. Known for his work with Will Ackerman and FLOW, Oster creates a surreal loungescape that’s quite a bit different. He plays more trumpet than he has in years, uses samples and found sound, and finds himself with an audience that’s demographically inverse from the one he usually has. Take a seat at the ambient lounge with Jeff Oster in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Jeff Oster Feature PlaylistJeff Oster – Old Dog New Tricks – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – El Monteon – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – Nikki’s Dream – Surrender
Jeff Oster – Weight On Me – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – Slow Drift – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – Winterpeg – hØwling lØØn
bsd.u – French Inhale – 444
Jeff Oster – Snowfall – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – Why Waste Time – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – Hello – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – El Monteon – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – Shades of Gray – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – Why Waste Time – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – Weigh On Me –hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – El Monteon – hØwling lØØn
Jeff Oster – Od Dog New Tricks – hØwling lØØn
Also in this weeks podcast, we remember Al Petteway. The fingerstyle guitarist left the planet on September 25th after a short battle with an aggressive cancer. We’ll hear several tracks from his long career and revisit an interview with Al and his wife and musical partner, Amy White. They played on Echoes live in 2005 and we talked to them about their folk-based sound. Among their many albums, Winter Tidings, is a perennial part of our Holiday programming.
;
Steve Roach & Robert Rich's Tangerine Dream Experience: The Echoes Interview
In this Echoes Podcast episode, I’ve got a special interview with two icons of Echoes who recently played with another icon of Echoes. Tangerine Dream recently toured the US and in several cities, they invited specials guest to perform with them in the improvised encore segment that they call Sessions. In Tucson and San Diego, they picked Steve Roach. In San Francisco, Robert Rich. Of course, both musicians cite Tangerine Dream as major influence and in Roach’s case they are heroes. But this is not the band they originally heard, but later artists who picked up the mantel and spirit of the group. Roach and Rich could actually be fathers of the current line-up. So, I had a lot of questions because, even though this isn’t the classic line-up, it is still fucking Tangerine Dream!!!! And they are making great music right now. It’s a great conversation.
The Ambient Jungle: Lis Addison in Echoes Podcast
Lis Addison is a musician, singer, dancer and electronic artist. She was schooled in the avant-garde at Mills College with musicians like Terry Riley as teachers. But she fled that for a different sound that embodies chant, meditation, ambient music and often, actual songs. She has a new album inspired by her visits and environmental work in Kenya. It’s called Songs From The Mara. We go on safari with Lis Addison, in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
LIS ADDISON FEATURE PLAYLIST
Lis Addison – Dream of the Mara – Songs From The Mara
Lis Addison – Sunset on the Mara – Songs From The Mara
Lis Addison – Changning Waters – The Song of the Tree
Lis Addison – Do What You Love – Zadaka
Lis Addison – Nechant – Body Chant
Lis Addison – Mother Waters – Elements
Morton Subotnick – The Wild Bull Part A – The Wild Bull
Lis Addison -Keen Wisdom – The Grace of the Green Leaf
Pandit Pranath – Raga Asavari – Earth Groove
Lis Addison – Snake Root – The Song of the Tree
Lis Addison – Dream of the Mara – Songs From The Mara
Lis Addison – Kitui Rain – Songs From The Mara
Lis Addison – Sunrise on the Mara – Songs From The Mara
Lis Addison – Dream of the Mara – Songs From The Mara
Lis Addison – Lioness and Three Cubs – Songs From The Mara
Ladytron's Plugged in World: The Echoes Podcast Complete Interview
Back in May of this year I interviewed the electronic pop band Ladytron. We ran that feature on Echoes and in the Podcast in the usual, produced form in a 16 minute feature. We only used a small portion of it in the feature, but that interview was such a blast that I thought you might want to hear all of it. If you don’t know Ladytron, they take their name from a Roxy Music song and they’ve been creating electrified pop sounds for all of the 21st Century. They released their latest album, the introspective Time’s Arrow, early in 2023. Their 2005 song, “Seventeen” became a TikTok sensation in 2021. We talk about all that, as well as their scrappy beginnings with used and abandoned synthesizers and their resentment about pop acts like Taylor Swift and Sharon Van Etten, who jump on the electronica band wagon for a album then go back to their usual thing Ladytron’s Helen Marnie and Daniel Hunt talk about all that and their latest album, Time’s Arrow. Whatever you do, don’t call it a post-pandemic album. It’s all in the Echoes Podcast.
Anna's Ambience Through Alpha Waves: The Echoes Interview.
In the Echoes Podcast we hear electronic sounds from Brazil when we talk to Anna. She started out in thumping hard core Techno but then had her Alpha waves adjusted and came out on the other side of the pandemic with a purely ambient album, Intentions. She got people like Jon Hopkins, East Forest and Laraaji to collaborate with her. The result is a calm soundscape that revels in melodic cycles. Anna talks about Alpha waves and ambient in the Echoes Podcast..
Anna Feature PlaylistAnna – Journey to the Underworld – Afterlife
Claudinho & Buchechan – Xereta – So Love
Robert Miles – Children – Soundtracks
Orbital – Belfast (Anna Techno Remix) – 30 Something
Anna – High Contrast – Topic
Anna – Let You In (feat East Forest) – Intentions
Anna – Washing Away – Intentions
Anna – Receiving (feat. Laraaji) – Intentions
Jon Hopkins – Singularity (Anna Remix) – Singularity
Anna – Receiving (Jon Hopkins Piano Mix) – Receiving (Jon Hopkins Piano Mix – Single)
Anna – Invitation – Intentions
Anna – Ayni – Intentions
Secret Sky with Caroline Lavelle and Brian Hughes in Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast we hear from Secret Sky, the world fusion group comprised of Loreena McKennitt band members,’ cellist and singer Caroline Lavelle and guitarist Brian Hughes. They recently released their second album, Opium. They talk about their folk roots, and their move from traditional English folk songs to all original material, with a sound drawn from the same Middle Eastern and Celtic realms as Loreena McKennitt’s. And Caroline also talks about her new solo album, The Raven. They reveal all the secrets to John Diliberto on Echoes from PRX.
SECRET SKY FEATURE PLAYLIST
Secret Sky – Carrowmore – Opium
Loreena McKennitt – Tango to Evora – The Visit
Secret Sky – Black Is the Color – Secret SkyDe Dannann – Teddy O’Neill – Ballroom
Secret Sky – Ride the Wind – Opium
Secret Sky – Ocean of Souls – Opium
Secret Sky – Ariadne’s Thread – Opium
Secret Sky – Ocean of Souls – Opium
Secret Sky – Opium – Opium
Caroline Lavelle – The Raven – The Raven
Secret Sky – Ariadne’s Thread – Opium
The Dream Continues-The Echoes Tangerine Dream 2023 Interview: Echoes Podcast
The future is now when we talk to Tangerine Dream. This iconic, innovative band is still going after more than 50 years even if nobody from the 70s, 80, or 90s era of the wired ensemble are still in it. Founder Edgar Froese died in 2015, but before he did, he anointed Thorsten Quaschning and Hoshiko Yamane as official carriers of the dream torch and they added Paul Frick. This trio are taking the group to new explorations while honoring the early roots of the band. Their latest album is Raum, which translates as “space” or “room”. They explain it all when John Diliberto talks to them about their new directions and their loyalty to the Tangerine Dream spirit, in the Echoes Podcast.
Tangerine Dream 2023 Feature Playlist
Tangerine Dream – Portico – Raum
Tangerine Dream – Stratosfear – Stratosfear
Tangerine Dream – The Call – Supernormal: The Australian Concerts 2014
Tangerine Dream – Wisdom and Tragedy – Supernormal: The Australian Concerts 2014
Tangerine Dream – Electron Bonfire – Quantum GateTangerine Dream – 9:12pm Session – IJ Edit – The Sessions V
Tangerine Dream – It Is Time to Leave When Everyone Is Dancing – Quantum GateTangerine Dream – In 265 Zeichen – Raum
Tangerine Dream – Raum – Raum
Tangerine Dream – Phaedra 2014 – Recurring Dreams
Tangerine Dream – 11:15am Session/Refattastrecke – The Sessions V
Tangerine Dream – You’re Always on Time – Raum
Echoes Podcast John Robb and the History of Goth: The Echoes Interview
The sound of Goth has permeated music since the early 1980s and continues to this day with artists like Bauhaus, The Cure, Dead Can Dance and Siouxsie and the Banshees.. Author and musician John Robb has created a definitive chronicle of this movement in his book, The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth.
They embrace the melancholy and dance the melancholy, you know, so there’s a darkness inherent in the music But also a joy as well. . . .And in a sense, it was reacting to the darker surroundings, but also escaping from them. It’s a dark escapism. And it’s also a dark psychedelia.
We go down the sonic cathedrals of Goth when we talk to John Robb on Echoes.
JOHN ROBB FEATURE PLAYLIST
Artist – Song – Album
Killing Joke – What’s This For. . . . !
Killing Joke – Requiem – Killing Joke
Sisters of Mercy – Black Planet – First Last and Always Collection
The Southern Death Cult – Moya – The Southern Death Cult
The Doors – The End – The Doors
David Bowie – All the Madmen – The Man Who Sold the World
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Jigsaw Feeling – The Scream
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Arabian Knights – Juju
Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart – Substance
Bauhaus – Bela Lugosi’s Dead – The Bela Session
Bauhaus – In the Flat Field – In the Flat Field
The Cure – The Hanging Gardens – Pornography
Killing Joke – Unspeakable – What’s This For. . . !
The Cure – Love Song – Disintegration
Echoes Podcast: Ladytron and Tubular Bells 50th
The electronic pop of Ladytron. We talk to this band from England who have been creating electrified pop sounds for all of the 21st Century. They released their latest album, the introspective Time’s Arrow, early in 2023. Their 2005 song, “Seventeen” became a TikTok sensation in 2021. Ladytron’s Helen Marnie and Daniel Hunt tell us their story and about their latest album, Time’s Arrow. Whatever you do, don’t call it a post-pandemic album.
LADYTRON PLAYLIST FOR ECHOES FEATURE
Ladyton – You Never Went Away – Time’s Arrow
Ladyton – Sargasso Sea – Time’s Arrow
Ladyton – Mu-Tron – 604
Ladyton – Another Breakfast with You – 604
Roxy Music – Ladytron – Roxy Music
Ladyton – Blue Jeans – Light & Magic
The Normal – Warm Leatherette – Warm Leatherette/TVOD SIngle
Ladyton – True Mathematics – Light & Magic
Kraftwerk – Trans-Europe Express – Trans-Europe Express
Ladyton – He Took Her to A Movie – He Took Her to A Movie single
Kraftwerk – The Model – The Man-Machine
Ladyton – Misery Remember Me – Time’s Arrow
Ladyton – Flight from Angkor – Time’s Arrow
Ladyton – City of Angels – Time’s Arrow
Ladyton – California – Time’s Arrow
Ladyton – Seventeen – Light & Magic
Ladyton – Time’s Arrow – Time’s Arrow
Then we celebrate Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells at 50. Released on May 25th, 1973 everyone now recognizes those opening notes. It still feels like the sound of tomorrow. Mike Oldfield is the 11th of 30 Icons of Echoes for the incredible music he has made over the last 50 years and some 25 albums. Tubular Bells remains his signature work. As we celebrate Tubular Bells we go back to a documentary we put together for the 40th anniversary. It’s still the same album, so not much has changed in the intervening years. Hear the story of Mike Oldfield and Tubular Bells in the Echoes Podcast.
Discover 10 Essential Mike Oldfield Albums
Echoes Podcast; Moby Resounds Past Present Future: The Echoes Interview
In the Echoes Podcast, Moby. Moby is one of those artists who is hard to keep up with. It’s been about three years since our last conversation. In that time, he’s released five albums including his latest, Resound NYC, about 10 non-album singles, several videos and a documentary film the Punk Rock Vegan Movie. He also started his own label, Always Centered at Night, to release work with other singers.
Moby: Because singers these days are told that the only way to have success is to constantly compromise. We don’t have to compromise; we don’t have to worry about accommodating baffling algorithms. Like we can be weird, we can be personal, we can be idiosyncratic.
He’s also sold most of his gear and, gasp! His vinyl collection. For over 30 years Moby has been shaping the sound of American pop in electronic music. We hear about his latest and his past in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Moby’s Punk Rock Vegan Movie
Moby’s Resound NYC
Michael Whalen's Virtual Super-Group
Michael Whalen trips into the fantastic with his new album, Our April Tigers. He’s gathered a super-group that includes guitarist Michael Brook, bassist Michael Manring, trumpeter Jeff Oster, and percussionist Karsh Kale. The title is AI-generated and the music was crafted remotely. Hear Whalen, Brook, and Oster talk about their blindfolded creation that sounds like a meeting of Miles Davis, Jon Hassell, and Patrick O’Hearn, in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Keyboardist and composer Michael Whalen is someone who has been around Echoes for a long time. We’ve been hearing him with his nature documentary soundtracks on the Narada label and his first ambient album, Night Scenes, released in 1996. Since then he’s released scores of albums ranging from solo piano to ambient piano, electronic orchestrations and hard fusion. Last year, his album, Imaginary Trains was an Echoes CD of the Month and now he has a new one, Our April Tigers and that will be the CD of the Month for May 2023. It’s a fascinating and seductive album with an all-star cast of musicians including electric bass icon Michael Manring, Indian percussionist Karsh Kale, film composer and guitarist Michael Brook and trumpeter Jeff Oster. It’s a beautiful, intuitive album, that belies the fact that none of the musicians ever played together or even knew what to play. Michael Whalen, Michael Brook and Jeff Oster talk about their blind creation in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Echoes Podcast: Ibeyi Casts a Spell: The Echoes Interview
Ibeyi Live at Big Ears (Pic Diliberto)
Experience the joy of Ibeyi. That’s Yoruba for twins and this duo are twin sisters, Lisa-Kaindé Diaz and Naomi Diaz, from France who have an intoxicating sound that merges pop, hip-hop, African and Cuban grooves and harmonies that only twin sisters have. Their father was a percussionist in the Buena Vista Social Club and their mother was French-Venezuelan singer. Their charming and exuberant sound recently raised the roof at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville. We talk to Ibeyi on in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Words of a Synth God: Vangelis-The Complete 1982 Totally Wired Interview
A true God of electronic music, Vangelis, ascended the heavens at age 70 on May 17th, 2022. Although his glory days were in the 1970s and 80s, he was just coming back into form with albums like Rosetta and Juno to Jupiter.
Vangelis is an artist better known by his work than his name. Mention the Greek synthesist to the general public and you’ll likely get a quizzical stare. Remind them that he scored Chariots of Fire, his Academy Award winning score from 1982 and their eyes light up in recognition.
My first of two interviews with Vangelis was in 1982 at his Nemo Studios in London. It was for the radio series, Totally Wired. It was only days after he’d won the Academy Award and he was just putting the finishing touches on Blade Runner. In the Echoes Podcast you’ll hear the complete and extensive interview that covers Vangelis’s career from his Greek childhood to his progressive rock band Aphrodite’s Child to his early albums like Heaven & Hell, Albedo 0.39 and Beauborg. The interview takes you to just a moment before the release of the Blade Runner movie.
Ten Essential Vangelis CDs.
Echoes Podcast Steve Roach & Linda Kohanov and Afro Celt Sound System Founder Simon Emmerson Remembered.
In 1984 Steve Roach released what remains one of his two best known recordings, Structures from Silence. Now, nearly 40 years later he returns to that sound on the album, Rest of Life. It’s a double CD of mostly quiet and deep ruminations. There’s no digeridoos or modular synthesizers, but there is the electric violin of his wife, Linda Kohanov. From their home in the Arizona desert, they talk about revisiting the spirit of Roach’s Structures from Silence, and horses.
Read our review of Steve Roach’s Rest of Life
See our playlist for the Steve Roach Feature Below.
We also remember Simon Emmerson, the founder of Afro Celt Sound System who left the planet on March 13. He was only 67. Afro Celt Sound System was the high-water mark of world fusion as they brought together Celtic, Indian, African, Middle Eastern and electronic music. Afro Celt Sound System was a core band on Echoes from their debut album Volume 1: Sound Magic in 1996 to what might be their final release, Flight in 2018. Initially helming it all, along with Martin Russell and James McNally, was Simon Emmerson. He was a joyous man, slightly round and bald and always enthusiastic. A truly visionary musician, he always sought the authentic in everything he did, even the CDs he recorded for the Lush Cosmetic company. I interviewed Simon and the Afro Celts a lot on Echoes and they played live on the show twice. We’ll hear two features in the podcast. The second one is from 2014 when Afro Celt was in legal limbo due to a split, so Simon created the Fresh Handmade Collective project for Lush Cosmetics. The first though, is an overview of ACSS and includes Simon, James McNally and Iarla O’Lionaird talking about the creation and direction of the band.
After the Afro Celt feature we’ll hear a second interview from 2014. When the Afro Celts split into two factions and legal wrangling over ownership of the name, Simon went off on some other projects including The Imagined Village and The Fresh Handmade Collective. The Collective made all kinds of albums for the Lush cosmetic company to use in their spas. But it wasn’t your usual, vapid spa music as you’ll hear.
Steve Roach Interview Playlist 2023
Steve Roach – Sit With Me – The Rest of Life
Steve Roach – The Continent – Dreamtime Return
Steve Roach – Structures from Silence – Structures from Silence
Steve Roach – Stream of Forever – The Rest of Life
Steve Roach – Softly Spoken, Deeply Heard – The Rest of Life
Steve Roach – The Knowing Place – The Rest of Life
Steve Roach – Future Informing – The Rest of Life
Steve Roach – Rest of Life – The Rest of Life
Didon's Arabic World Fusion: The Echoes Interview with Carmen Rizzo & Meriem Ben Amor
We explore the Arabic fusion of Didon. We talk to producer Carmen Rizzo (Niyaz, Huun-Huur-Tu, Delerium, Alanis Morissette) and Tunisian singer Meriem Ben Amor about their fusion of traditional vocal sounds and electronic arrangements heard on their debut, Tunisian Tale. It is sensual, mystical and mysterious in the Echoes Podcast.
DIDON INTERVIEW PLAYLIST
Didon – Faraway Land – Tunisian Tale
Al Imam Al Busiri Association – Trantional Sufi Chant – Intimate Sessions: Sufi Chants and Hymns
Faras Karen – El Tannoura – Dabka 2012
Mariah Carey – Anytime You Need a Friend – Music Box
Cesaria Evora – Soldade – Miss Perfumado
Meriem Ben Amor – La Rosa Enflorece – Once Upon A Time
Niyaz – Dunya – Niyaz
Huun-Huur-Tu – Ancestors Call – Eternal
Meriem Ben Amor – Ma Kadouni – Once Upon A Time
Didon – Oh Maiden – Tunisian Tale
Didon – If Only – Tunisian Tale
Didon – On My Way – Tunisian Tale
Didon – Raven Lashes – Tunisian Tale
Didon – Aman Aman – Tunisian Tale
Didon – Beside You – Tunisian Tale
Klaus Schulze: The Complete Totally Wired Interview Part Two.
In this Podcast, the second part of our two-part 1982 interview with Klaus Schulze. He’s an Icon of Echoes, an Icon of Electronic Music and an icon period. All three are German electronic composer Klaus Schulze. He left the planet last year on April 26, but from 1969 until that date, he released hundreds of albums and shaped a generation of electronic artists including Steve Roach, Jean-Michel Jarre, Hans Zimmer, and many more. I have an interview with Schulze recorded in 1982 at his home in what was then West Germany. I talked with him for about three hours, and today, we’ll hear part two of that interview.
Albums like Moondawn, Timewind, X, and more, provided the soundtrack for many an imaginary movie during those years. There was something about the pulsing sequencers, free form, note-bending Moog solos, and spiraling, Escher-like architecture that spoke of a world outside of conventional rock or classical music. For artists like Steve Roach, Klaus Schulze was life-changing.
The first time I heard Timewind, it was the classical mystical experience, like a drug experience or near death experience. He had and continues to have a very significant influence on the music. -Steve Roach
Just imagine being ensconced in plush couches, dim lighting, and the blinking lights of a giant Moog Modular, racks of keyboards and the haze of Klaus’s ever-present cigarettes. Then settle in for this 86 minute interview,
Hear our obituary feature on Klaus Schulze here.
FIVE ESSENTIAL KLAUS SCHULZE CDs
X
Mirage
Trancefer
Timewind
Body Love
Klaus Schulze: The Complete Echoes/Totally Wired Interview Pt.1
In this Podcast, an Icon of Echoes, an Icon of Electronic Music and an icon period. All three are German electronic composer Klaus Schulze. He left the planet last year on April 26, but from 1969 until that date, he released hundreds of albums and shaped a generation of electronic artists including Steve Roach, Jean-Michel Jarre, Hans Zimmer, and many more. I have an interview with Schulze recorded in 1982 at his home in what was then West Germany. I talked with him for about three hours, and today, we’ll hear part one of that interview.
Klaus Schulze was part of the original genesis of Echoes and was voted as one of the 30 Icons of Echoes. The albums he recorded in the 1970s and early 80s reside at the core of music experiences for myself and the central Echoes staff. Albums like Moondawn, Timewind, X, and more, provided the soundtrack for many an imaginary movie during those years. There was something about the pulsing sequencers, free form, note-bending Moog solos, and spiraling, Escher-like architecture that spoke of a world outside of conventional rock or classical music. I remember synthesist Mark Shreeve of Redshift describing the 1977 album, Mirage as if it had “formed out of thin air, untouched by human hands.” Klaus’s music had that transcendental power, as if it came from somewhere beyond this plane of existence.
Klaus had recorded 16 albums at the time of our first interview, his latest being Trancefer. His only release in America at that point was his 1977 album, Body Love. Instead they were only available as expensive imports which we were happy to search out and pay for.
This interview features Klaus Schulze at the height of his powers as an artist.
FIVE ESSENTIAL KLAUS SCHULZE CDs
X
Mirage
Trancefer
Timewind
Body Love
Sound Unbound: Big Ears Festival Preview with Ashley Capps in Echoes Podcast
In the echoes Podcast a preview of the Big Ears Festival 2023. Founder Ashley Capps had his musical epiphany with The Mothers of Invention and their second album, Absolutely Free which, like all early albums from Frank Zappa, had the Edgar Varese quote, “The modern day composer refuses to die.” Capps took that to heart with his musical exploration and Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN. He tells us about some highlights of the line-up that includes John Zorn, Morton Subotnick, Charles Lloyd, Bill Frisell and Ibeyi and more. Open your ears wide on Echoes from PRX.
Big Ears Festival 2023 Feature Playlist
Gyan Riley – High Tide – Shelter in Space
Oneohtrix Point Never – Cross Talk – Magic Oneohtrix Point Never
Catarina Barbieri – At Your Gamut – Spirit Exit
Edgar Varese – Déserts – Pierre Boulez: Carter: Symphony of 3 Orchestras/Varese: Déserts, Equatorial, Hyperprism
Mothers of Invention – Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue – Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Ibeyi – Sangoma – Spell 31
John Zorn – Mo’ed – Bar Kokhba
John Zorn – Acanthopis Antarcticus – John Zorn’s Cobra Live at the Knitting Factory
Painkiller – Morning of Balachaturdasi – Execution Ground
Bill Frisell – Lookout for Hope – Four
Charles Lloyd – Blood Count – Chapel: Trio
Sun Ra Arkestra – Ra #2 – Live at Babylon
Morton Subotnick – Touch Pt.1 – Touch/Jacob’s Room
King Britt – Beyond the Sun – Fhloston Paradigm
Kate NV – Marafon – Room for the Moon
Oneohtrix Point Never – No Nightmares – Magic Oneohtrix Point Never
Carl Stone – Umi – We Jazz Works, Vol.2
Decoding Karmacoda and Sunroof's Joy of Wires and Knobs: The Echoes Podcast Interviews
Get your soul shoes on when we talk to Karmacoda. They started out as a trip-hop inspired band but have transitioned into a sound that is more 70s R&B. We talk to the singer Jessica Ford and instrumentalist and singer Brett Crockett about their soulful affinities, their new album, Lessons in Time, and American Idol. It all connects in the music of Karmacoda.
Daniel Miller ignited electronic pop with The Normal and launched the careers of Depeche Mode, who were produced by Gareth Jones. They get together in an electronic project called Sunroof that explores the outer edges of electronic music. In 2021 they released Electronic Music Improvisations Vol.1 and they just released the follow-up, Electronic Music Improvisations Vol.2. We talked to them in 2021 and we take a return trip to that feature as they take through electronic history into a possible future when we talk to Sunroof on Echoes.
Hammock Delivers Us from the Void: The Echoes Podcast
The ambient guitar duo Hammock talk about their latest album, Love in the Void. It’s a post-pandemic release and one of their most energized albums in years. Hammock’s Love in the Void sounds like an album from a band who has emerged from a long dark tunnel. The music they made in that tunnel was deep and immersive, wrapping you in a cocoon of sound. But Love in the Void carries you on a lighter, also more aggressive plane.
Marc Byrd: Honestly, Love in the Void is a reaction to everyone telling us how much they sleep to our music. And what did you say, Andrew?
Andrew Thompson: It’s time to wake up. It’s time to wake up.
Marc Byrd: It’s time to wake up. It’s good to be awake.
I suspect that it’s an album I’ll be listening to much more, wide awake. Hammock’s Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson talk about the emotions and events that fueled the album from sobriety to love, loss to anger, and joy..
Read John Diliberto’s review of Love in the Void
Brian Eno-Totally Wired-The Complete Interview
Brian Eno should need no introduction to any music fan. A member of Roxy Music, architect of Ambient Music, producer at the edges of Pop, his mark has been felt across music, from classical to rock and beyond. In 1987, I conducted the first of several interviews with Eno across three decades. Bits and pieces have been heard in the 80s radio series Totally Wired-Artists in Electronic Sound and on Echoes. But it has never been heard in its 64-minute entirety. Here’s the story.
In the 1980s I produced a radio series called Totally Wired, Artists in Electronic Sound which contained interviews with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Depeche Mode, Kate Bush, Vangelis, Steve Roach and about 130 more artists across the music spectrum. It started in 1982, and it took us five years to snag Brian Eno, which we finally did in 1987. At that time, albums like Another Green World, Ambient 1-Music for Airports, and Apollo had already reshaped music concepts, and his latest release was 1985’s deeply ambient Thursday Afternoon. Also behind him was his Low-Heroes-Lodger collaborations with David Bowie. We talk a lot about those releases, as well as Oblique Strategies, his card set designed to prompt creativity.
I conducted the interview in his apartment in the Kensington section of London. Brian sat in an heirloom-looking easy chair while I stuck my Electro-Voice 635A microphone in his face, switching it back and forth between us as we spoke. His manager, Anthea Norman-Taylor, prepared tea, of course. They would be married the next year. Settle in your own easy chair for this wide-ranging, deep dive into Brian Eno in the Echoes Podcast.
Marconi Union's A Live Connection in Echoes Podcast
Marconi Union are a UK electronic trio that rarely performs live, but they’re releasing concert film called Marconi Union: A Live Connection. We talk to them about bringing their moody, atmospheric sound to a live setting. It’s a pay-per-view video which will be available on a limited-time basis.
Premium Ticket buyers will also be able to stream Signals, an additional film featuring the band performing material from their most recent album Signals which was an Echoes CD of the Month in 2021. . Both films will be released to stream from 19.00 (GMT) Thursday February 23rd and will continue to be available to view on-demand until Sunday February 26th 23.59 (GMT)
Stream Tickets available from Concert Vision.
Hear Marconi Union Interview 2021
Hear Marconi Union Interview 2016
Hear Marconi Union Interview 2013 with Jah Wobble
Read Marconi Union Signals Review
Hear Marconi Union’s 2006 Live Echoes Performance
Imaginary Voices. Meredith Monk: The Echoes Podcast Interview
Hear the voice of the collective subconscious in Meredith Monk. Before Elizabeth Fraser, Lisa Gerrard and Azam Ali, there was Meredith Monk, singing in her own, abstracted language, creating a sound like folk songs from another planet. A 13-CD set of her music, The Recordings on ECM Records has just been released. We talk with Meredith Monk about ritual, aural ascension, and mysterious voices, on the Echoes Podcast.
A Trio of Resister Sisters: The Echoes Interview with Cosey Anni Tutti in Echoes Podcast.
Throbbing Gristle was an English band at the bleeding edge of Industrial rock. Cosey Fanni Tutti was at the center of that band and and one half of the duos, Chris & Cosey and CarterTutti, both with her husband and ex-TG member, Chris Carter. In her acclaimed 2017 autobiography, Art Sex Music, she talked about her career in music as well as her work in stripping, pornographic films and magazines, which she used for her own art works. She’s now released her second book, called Re-Sisters, which draws parallels between medieval mystic Margery Kempe, electronic pioneer Delia Derbyshire and Cosey herself. Hear her in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Jimi Hendrix at 80: Producer Eddie Kramer Looks Back
Jimi Hendrix would’ve turned 80 this past November 27th. We celebrate by talking to Eddie Kramer, producer and engineer of Hendrix’s first three albums and many of the posthumous releases as well as John McDermott, Hendrix curator for Experience Hendrix and author of several books on the legendary guitarist. We talk about the new release, The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Los Angeles Forum, April 26, 1969, a tour de force of the Experience’s live performance near their peak. Hear it in the Echoes Podcast.
World Fusionists Ricky Kej & David Vito Gregorio: The Echoes Podcast
American multi-instrumentalist David Vito Gregoli and Indian producer and keyboard player Ricky Kej take us on the journey of their album, Wild Monsoon. It’s an east-west fusion of electronics and Indian music that turns into a global fusion where shredding guitars meet Taiko drums, tabla and electronics. David Vito Gregoli and Ricky Kej talking about breaking down walls in the Echoes Podcast.
Sheila Chandra's Global Vocal Fusion: Monsoon at 40: The Echoes Podcast
Sheila Chandra is now a heralded singer lauded for her unique vocal style and global fusion heard on many albums including her ground-breaking trilogy on Real World Records: Weaving My Ancestors Voices, The Zen Kiss and Bonecronedrone. But that all began 40 Years ago with the group Monsoon featuring Sheila on vocals. They had a massive hit in England with the song “Ever So Lonely” and now, their debut and only album Third Eye is being reissued. Sadly, due to some complicated medical issues, Sheila cannot sing anymore and she rarely talk,s but she opened up to John Diliberto as they took a walk back to Monsoon’s Third Eye and the new deluxe package that has rare live performances, alternate takes, demos and B-sides.
August fourth in 1967 and 1947 were auspicious dates marking the album debut of Pink Floyd and the birth of electronic legend, Klaus Schulze, who died this year.
Robot Koch: From Metal to Meditation: The Echoes Podcast
German Composer Robot Koch has gone from death metal to deep ambient chamber music in his career. We follow the course of this inventive artist up through his latest dive into deep ambient music. We’ll talk about his most recent album under his name, the ambient chamber sound of The Next Billion Years, his collaboration with violinist Savannah Jo Lack, Particle Fields and his new release under the guise of Foam and Sand, Full Circle, an album made from tape loops, as in reel-to-reel tape. Walk the beaches of Robot Koch in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.
Hybrid and George Winston, the 30th Icon in Echoes Podcast
In the Echoes Podcast we go to the opposite ends of the Echoes spectrum. We’ll hear from the electronica duo, Hybrid and acoustic pianist George Winston, the 30th Icon of Echoes.
Hybrid takes us into the sometimes-dark world of their new album, Black Halo. Formed at the turn of the millennium, the husband-and-wife duo of Charlotte and Mike Truman have been forging an electronica sound hovering at the borders of EDM and dream pop. Their new album explores themes of politics and fallen angels as well the orange man.
George Winston is the 30th Icon of 30 Icons for 30 years of Echoes. We have arrived at the final icon of Echoes and the fact that this musician is last on the list just shows you what a heavy list it is, the 30 Icons for 30 Years of Echoes. George Winston is number 30. He helped boost Windham Hill Records into the upper atmosphere. His debut album on the label, Autumn has sold over 3 million copies. We’ll survey the music world of this pianist who brought contemporary instrumental music to popularity in the 1980s with commentary from Peter Kater, Moby, Philip Aaberg and Will Ackerman.
See the complete list of 30 Icons for 30 Years of Echoes.
See 5 Essential George Winston CD
Hear George Winston live in the Echoes Livingroom
The World of Kitaro, 29th Icon of Echoes in the Echoes Podcast
From the top of Mt. Fuji, the 29th Icon of Echoes, Kitaro, arrives. The Japanese electronic composer has created a stream of otherworldly sounds since the late 1970s. We’ll hear a profile of this artist from his days in The Far East Family Band to his emergence as a solo artist and up through Kojiki and his long-lived career.
See the complete list of 30 Icons for 30 Years of Echoes.
Here Kitaro playing live on Echoes from 2001 here.
Kitaro and John Diliberto: Kitaro’s studio, Boulder, 1997/Kitaro, Keiko and John Diliberto, John’s living room, 2001
Will Ackerman-28th Icon of Echoes and Jon Hassell Remembered.
It’s hard to separate the guitarist Will Ackerman from the record label he founded, Windham Hill Records. We’ll hear a profile of this influential artist who released his first album, In Search of the Turtle’s Navel in 1976. We’ll hear about the creation of Windham Hill, his influential approach to the guitar and listen to some of the music he’s created and fostered. Will Ackerman, the 28th Icon of Echoes.
Hear Will Ackerman performing live on Echoes from 2005 here.
Then we remember Jon Hassell, the brilliant, innovative trumpet player who brought a new sound to the instrument and created an entirely new genre of music with his Fourth World concept. He passed on June 26 at age 84. He collaborated with Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads, David Sylvian and many more, while releasing some 20 albums that were like transmissions from a 21st century global village. We’ll hear a feature on Jon.
Echoes Podcast: Sunroof with Daniel Miller & Gareth Jones and Hammock, the 27th Icons of Echoes.
Daniel Miller ignited electronic pop with The Normal and launched the careers of Depeche Mode who were produced by Gareth Jones. There might not be electronic pop without them. But when they get together in a new electronic project called Sunroof, they explore the outer edges of electronic music in free, modular improvisations. It’s a trip through electronic history into a possible future when we talk to Sunroof on Echoes.
Hammock swing in as the 27th Icons of Echoes. Both Sigur Ros and Ricky Gervais are fans and they are only one of four Icons who started their career in the 21st century. This band has defined both ambient guitar and ambient chamber music over the last two decades. We’ll hear an extended profile of this influential and powerful duo.
Hear Hammock’s Echoes Concert Streaming here.
Review of Raising Your Voice, Trying to Stop an Echo, January 2007 CD of the Month
Review of Chasing After Shadows, Living With the Ghosts, May 2010 CD of the Month
Review of Departure Songs, December 2012 CD of the Month
Review of Oblivion Hymns, January 2014 CD of the Month
Review of Everything and Nothing May 2016 CD of the Month
Review of Universalis, December 2018 CD of the Month
The Mastelotto's Romantic Guide to King Crimson in Echoes Podcast: The Echoes Interview
The Mastelottos, is the couple of King Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto and his wife, singer Deborah. They have an album with what might seem an oxymoronic title, A Romantic’s Guide to King Crimson. King Crimson? Romantic? But there’s more to than that as they transform music from this iconic and heavy progressive rock band turning them into sultry torch songs and wistful ruminations.
Echoes Podcast: Agnes Obel, the 25th Icon of Echoes and Emancipator, Rena Jones and Flowerpulse
Emancipator, Rena Jones, and Flowerpulse weave their electronic roots together into the ambient excursion of Xylem, their debut album. Emancipator has been featured heavily on the show with his gritty electronic sound, while Rena Jones is an old favorite who mixes electronics with her cello and violin. Flowerpulse is her husband (Marc Sciglimpaglia) and he’s a solo electronic artist and guitarist as well. They converge on music drawn from nature, with sounds recorded in the wilds of Oregon and electronically transformed into their organic mulch. We go to the garden with three electronic explorers in the Echoes Podcast..
Singer and composer Agnes Obel creates a sound that is both introspective and incandescent. She seduced us with her debut album, Philharmonics and has thoroughly enchanted us with each succeeding album, three of which were Echoes CD of the Month picks (see reviews below) and two were the number one album of the year. She is the 25th Icon of Echoes and among the 30 Icons, she is one of only four to have begun their career in the 21st Century. We’ll hear an extended portrait this amazing artist, who creates a deep, chamber pop sound. Join us with Agnes Obel, the 25th Icon of Echoes.
Read our review of Philharmonics
Read our review of Citizen of Glass
Read our review of Myopia
See our complete list of The 30 Icons of Echoes.
Gary Numan and Earth's Revenge: The Echoes Interview
Gary Numan paints a dystopian nightmare where earth takes revenge for a civilization that has fostered environmental and military catastrophe. Musically, his new album, Intruder, it’s a long way from his hit single, “Cars,” but listen close and lyrically it’s not. We ponder the apocalypse with Gary Numan in the Echoes Podcast.
Sufjan Steven's Meditations; Mythos at XXV and Patrick O'Hearn, the 22nd Icon in the Echoes Podcast
It’s a packed Echoes Podcast that begins with Sufjan Stevens going ambient, accesses the 25-year history of Mythos and ends with the 22nd Icon of Echoes, Patrick O’Hearn
First up in the podcast will be idiosyncratic folk-rocker Sufjan Stevens who shuts up and plays his synthesizers. His songs are great, but he also has an electronic instrumental side. He’s just released a five volume set of deeply ambient compositions called Convocations. It’s partly a response to deaths in the family and the pandemic.
Then it’s the Canadian band Mythos (as opposed to the German space music band Mythos), who celebrate their 25th Anniversary in 2021 with a collection of music from their quarter century and new songs called XXV. Founders Bob D’Eith, now a member of Canada’s Parliament, and guitarist Paul Schmidt talk about their chilled instrumental sound going back to their 1996 debut, Introspection. It’s the saga of Mythos.
Finally, we end strong with the 22nd Icon, Patrick O’Hearn. He came to renown with Frank Zappa, was a pop star in Missing Persons, then beginning in 1985 started crafting the most personal electronic music on a string of albums that began with Ancient Dreams. We profile Patrick O’Hearn as the 22nd Icon of Echoes.
See our complete list of The 30 Icons for 30 Years of Echoes
Check out 5 Essential Patrick O’Hearn Albums.
Get Big Ears in the Echoes Podcast. You need a big mind to explore the Big Ears Festival 2019. Big Ears celebrates its 10th anniversary in Knoxville, TN, as one of the most wide-ranging, furthest thinking music festivals in America. We talk to founder Ashley Capps, who also founded Big Ears and revived Moogfest, about a festival that embraces ECM jazz, avant-garde classical music, Appalachian folk musicians and outside the mainstream rockers. This year’s festival includes Harold Budd, Richard Thompson, Meredith Monk, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Bill Frisell and many many more. The Big Ears Festival 2019 takes place March 21-24, but watch the schedule. Events often occur just before and just after.
ELEON is a musician from Waco, Texas who has been isolated from the music world, working at Walmart. He finally released his debut CD in his late 40s, but he created one of the most exuberant, effervescent electronic albums of 2018, Dreams Beyond Terra. We head west to explore the Sci-Fi electronic music of ELEON along with his producer, ambient guitarist David Helpling, on Echoes.
In the Echoes Podcast, we ride with the fifth horseman of the Electrocalypse, Bluetech. Bluetech is a longtime denizen of downtempo electronics and he’s just completed his four album series, The Four Horsemen of the Electrocalypse. He also pays tribute to 70s space electronics with his album, Liquid Geometries. Plug in and ride when Bluetech talks the Electrocalypse in the Echoes Podcast.
P.S The Complete The Four Horsemen of the Electrocalypse has been issued on a limited edition double CD.
In the Echoes Podcast, we talk with ambient chamber music composer, Lena Natalia. Lena is classically trained, spent a lot of time in France and has emerged with a distinctive Neo-classical to ambient sound. Her album, Lonely Satellite was in Echoes Top 25 for 2018. Hear about her story and her cat in the Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast, we head into Infinity with Jean-Michel Jarre. The iconic French electronic artist talks about his latest album, Equinoxe Infinity, which references his second album from 40 years ago. We bring Jean-Michel Jarre talking about electronic evolution on Echoes.
Read CD of the Month review of Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygene Trilogy
Hear Jean-Michel Jarre's 2017 interview in Echoes Podcast.
Hear Jean-Micehl Jarre's 2015 interview in Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast, pianist Alexandra Streliski talks about burning out, scoring HBO’s Sharp Objects and her latest album of miniatures, Inscape. She recorded with her childhood upright piano, all creaks and squeeks part of the intimate sound she creates.We tickle Alexandra Streliski’s ivories on Echoes.
Guitarist Buck Curran was one half of the psychedelic duo Arborea with singer Shanti Curran. They put out several albums between 2006 and 2013 including Wayfaring Summer and Fortress of the Sun. But Curran is out on his own now and has released a couple of solo albums including his latest Morning Haikus, Afternoon Ragas. We caught up with him when he played live on Echoes talking about blues, raga, LSD and more
in the Echoes Podcast, an early legend of ambient and New Age music when Laraaji comes in to talk about his long-lived music career. Laraaji’s 1980 album, Day of Radiance was the 3rd in Brian Eno’s Ambient Series. But Laraaji had already released scores of cassettes before that with his zither improvisations and he’s released over 50 albums since then, including his latest with Arji and Dallas Acid called Arrive Without Leaving. Laraaji and Arji, his partner, come to Echoes, decked out head to toe in orange, and talk laughter, ambience and the new age.
In the Echoes Podcast, singer William Fitzsimmons. He was a psychological therapist and he brings that sense of introspection into his deep, somewhat ambient compositions.
Bassist Erik Scott played psychedelic music, performed with Alice Cooper and Flo & Eddie and survived cancer. So what does he do at the age of 70? Hear him in Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast, CloZee talks about a sound that she has called World Bass. She samples global instruments and motifs and puts them in a blender of beats.
In the Echoes Podcast, Dead Can Dance’s Brendan Perry talks about their conceptual album, Dionysus, a wedding of Greek mythology, tribal culture and global ritual sounds.
Singer Olivia Chaney came to renown as something of a folk revivalist and formed the folk rock group Offa Rex with The Decemberists, but there is more than folk to this enchanting singer.
Mystic Journey sound like the house band in Middle Eastern. We talk to flutist Suzanne Teng and percussionist Gilbert Levy about their world fusion in the Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast we talk to the legendary guitarist of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, Jorma Kaukonen. He has a new autobiography out called “Been So Long.”
Jan Hammer was keyboardist from Mahavishnu Orchestra and creator of the famed Miami Vice TV score. Join us as the 70 year old Hammer casts back on his career and new music in Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s monumental Electric Ladyland from 1968. Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, Moby and more talk about this epochal work.
It was 50 years ago that Wendy Carlos released Switched-On Bach, the album that put the Moog synthesizer and electronic music on the map. We go back with Wendy Carlos in the Echoes Podcast.
Fly Jefferson Airplane back to 1968 and their classic psychedelic album, Crown of Creation. We examine this politically and socially charged album in in the Echoes Podcast.