PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast: Recent Episodes
PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast
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 Brendas 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 – Title
Rich 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.
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. 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 – One Thing Leads to Another – 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
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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.
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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: Catarina Barbieri's Retro-Futurism: The Echoes Interview Electronic music Italian style when we talk to Caterina Barbieri. She’s a solo artist who works in modular synthesis, creating a sound of slowly-evolving patterns that weave through EDM, Minimalism and sequencer drive. She harkens back to pioneers like Morton Subotnick and shares his psychedelic underpinnings. She…
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.
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.
Guitar legend Michael Hedges performed live on Echoes twice. The two concerts featured music from across his career, even including an unreleased solo flute piece.
Robert Fripp is the founder of King Crimson and a pioneer of progressive rock and ambient music. We'll hear an exclusive rare live performance from the Robert Fripp String Quintet.
Internationally acclaimed artist Loreena McKennitt came to Echoes with her trio, an intimate performance ensemble featuring longtime guitarist Brian Hughes and cellist Caroline Lavelle, to perform live.
Echoes Podcast: Electronic Artist Dave Bessell of Node and Reality Engine In the Echoes Podcast, Dave Bessell. Dave Bessell is an electronic musician from England who is probably one of the few Doctors of Music we play on the show. He’s done session work on albums by Killing Joke and Suede, is a member of…
Echoes Podcast: Interviews with Electronic Artists Ben Blackett & Jim Ottaway Its an all-electronic Echoes Podcast with interviews featuring Ben Blackett and Jim Ottaway. From 1990s grunge rock engineer in Seattle to electronic soundscapes composer, Ben Blackett has had a long music career. He plugs in computers instead of guitars and creates dance floor trances…
Echoes Podcast: YPPAH's Psychedelic Dance: The Echoes Interview YPPAH is happy spelled backwards and it’s the name of an ambiently inclined post rock group headed up by Joe Corrales. He’s gone through heavy metal, drum and bass, hip-hop and Turkish psychedelic music to arrive at a joyful sound in the orbit of artists like Tycho,…
The Metamorphosis of Llynks in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, an interview with Llynks. She graduated from the Berklee School of Music, tried working as a model, started a music career with her birth name, Sara Kendall, then metamorphosed into Llynks, a dark, soul-revealing electronic pop project. She’s just released her debut album, Become the…
Echoes Podcast: The Moby Interview Moby talks about his presciently timely new album, All Visible Objects. Written mostly in 2019, its themes of revolution, isolation and contemplation seem to fit right in with these pandemic and protesting times. All Visible Objects harkens back to his dance and DJ days in the 1990s and also goes…
Four Albums from The Best of Echoes 2020, So Far by Austra, YPPAH, Grimes and Darshan AmbientThis past week we released The Best of Echoes So Far list, pausing at the midway point of an insane year to contemplate some of the music that has come out in the first six months. We picked 25…
Tangerine Dream-50 Years of Electronic Meditations: The Echoes Documentary In the Echoes Podcast, the Tangerine Dream Documentary 50 years ago Tangerine Dream began recording their electronic music in what was then West Berlin. Founded by Edgar Froese, Tangerine Dream has epitomized the electronic age of music, recording over 150 albums of synthesized compositions. Their film…
Taimane's Ukulele Fury in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, it’s a new generation of Ukulele player when we talk with Taimane. She’s a Hawaiian musician who studied with Jake Shimabukuro and is creating her own ukulele fusion that takes the instrument out of the luau and into the world on albums like Elemental and…
Emancipator's Electronic Folk and Jade Warrior-World Fusion Innovators in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast Emancipator and Jade Warrior Emancipator is an electronic musician who mixes synthesizers, sampled sounds and folk instruments into a hallucinatory sound. John Diliberto talks to Emancipator’s Douglas Appling about his father who made dulcimers and spun Orbital and how that…
Michael Whalen's Syntheszier Fantasy: The Echoes Podcast Interview In the Echoes Podcast, Composer Michael Whalen talks about his April CD of the Month, Sacred Spaces. It’s a return for Whalen to his progressive rock roots as he turns a classical composition into a synthesized fantasy. Sacred Spaces is an electronic symphony full of strikingly original…
Echoes Podcast: Kevin Braheny Fortune Talks to the Spirits In the Echoes Podcast it’s the return of a New Age pioneer when we talk with Kevin Braheny Fortune. He went 22 years without a new album, but now he has four releases of ambient music including his Dreamwalker Meditation Music trilogy. In the 1980s his…
Air's Nicolas Godin and Naneum in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast Air’s Nicolas Godin and Naneum The French Band AIR was one of the seminal electronic pop groups of the 1990s and oughts. They’ve gone dormant, but founding member Nicolas Godin has a new solo album out, Concrete and Glass, that began as an…
Poliça and Nicholas Gunn in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast we talk to singer Channy Leaneagh of Poliça and electronic musician Nicholas Gunn. Channy Leaneagh fell off a roof and broke her back, but that didn’t stop her from recording a great album with her group, Poliça . John Diliberto talks to Poliça’s Channy Leaneagh about her existential…
Ambient Chamber Music with AVAWaves and Blue Landscapes in Echoes Podcast. The Breadth of Ambient Chamber Music in the Echoes Podcast with Blue Landscapes and AVAWaves. Ambient Chamber Music is a meeting of classical music and ambient music and the duos of AVAWaves and Blue Landscapes are approaching it from very different directions. Blue Landscapes, is the…
Kitaro & Tigerforest's Gunnar Spardel in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast Two Generations of Electronic Artists: Tigerforest’s Gunnar Spardel & Kitaro From electronic space to ambient chamber music, we talk to Gunnar Spardel, who composes somber and serene chamber music under his own name and upbeat, progressive electronic music under the guise of Tigerforest.…
Poppy Ackroyd's Ne0-Classical Moods in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, English composer Poppy Ackroyd. Her album, Resolve was an Echoes CD of the Month two years ago. It’s finally out in the US. John Diliberto catches up with Poppy Ackroyd who talks about an approach to classical composition informed by punk rock and Radiohead.…
Eastern Fusion Past and future with Hans Christian and Ravi Shankar in Echoes Podcast.The Echoes Podcast explores Indian Fusion Past and Future with cellist Hans Christian and the 100th Birthday of Ravi Shankar. Cellist Hans Christian has been a fixture on Echoes for all its 30 years, both as a solo artist and with the…
Ukulele Giant Jake Shimabukuro Goes Beyond in the Echoes Podcast. In the Echoes Podcast, Jake Shimabukuro, the virtuoso Hawaiian ukulele player, talks about revolutionizing an instrument often seen as a novelty into a tool of pyrotechnic fury and ambient expanses. His new album, The Jake Shimabukuro Trio is a stylistic shift into more contemplative, ambient…
Alex Somers and Gentle Giant in Echoes Podcast.ALEX SOMERS In the Echoes Podcast this week, Alex Somers and Gentle Giant. Alex Somers is a name you hear on the fringes. He’s produced people like singer Briana Marella and Julianna Barwick. He worked on the last two albums from Icelandic Icons, Sigur Ros and then formed…
Lane 8's Chilled EDM & Ralph Towners 80th Birthday We talk to Daniel Goldstein, better known as the electronic artist, Lane 8. He makes a chilled brand of EDM and recently released his album, Brightest Lights with guest vocalists that include Polica and Artic Lights. He calls his sound “dreamy back-rub house music” and bands…
Agnes Obel Interview in Echoes Podcast: Myopic Beauty In the Echoes Podcast, Danish singer Agnes Obel. She creates a haunting ambient chamber pop music and has been a big part of the show since her 2010 debut, Philharmonics, an Echoes CD of the Month, as was her last album, Citizen of Glass. She puts out a…
Big Ears Festival 2020 Preview and Jon Christensen Remembered this Week in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, we talk to Ashley Capps about his Big Ears 2020 Festival. Then we remember drummer Jon Christensen, the ECM house drummer. The Big Ears Music Festival 2020 is upon us. We talk to founder Ashley Capps as…
Peter Kater's Hard Road to New Age Bliss & Lyle Mays RememberedWe talk with 2020 Grammy winning pianist Peter Kater and we remember Lyle Mays of the Pat Metheny Group. In the Echoes Podcast, pianist Peter Kater. When a musician wins a Grammy award, you often don’t know what they went through to get there.…
Echoes Podcast: David Helpling's Oceanic Ambience: An Interview In the Echoes Podcast, guitarist David Helpling takes us into the runic and oceanic influences of his January CD of the Month, Rune. Helpling is a southern California musician who has been a favorite on the show for about 25 years. He’s recorded all his albums on…
All India Radio's Space Rock for the Chill Crowd in Echoes PodcastIn the Echoes Podcast, All India Radio talks about his latest missive from Australia, Eternal, opens with a robot voice giving the exhortation, “Let’s Dance.” But this ain’t no party. It’s a space music opus influenced by Pink Floyd and early electronic music. All…
Steve Roach's Electronic Dig in the Echoes Podcast.In the Echoes Podcast we take a deep dive into the world of Steve Roach. The prolific electronic artist has been part of Echoes for all of its 30 years and more. We’ve chronicled his electronic evolution more than just about anyone. Steve released several albums in 2019…
Barrett Martin's Global Percussion and Darshan Ambient in Memoriam in Echoes Podcast.In the Echoes Podcast, Barrett Martin takes us on a Global percussion Trek and we Remember Darshan Ambient. First we talk to multi-instrumentalist, world fusionist, author, Zen monk and former drummer with Screaming Trees, Barrett Martin. He’s created a world fusion sound with his…
Fink's Dream Blues In the Echoes Podcast we talk with Fink. He’s a British electronic musician turned ambient singer-songwriter, who creates deep ruminative songs sung in his mellifluous tenor. He talks about his latest album, Bloom Innocent and finds links between blues, electronica and New Orleans.
The Best of Echoes 2019-A Select View with John DilibertoLast week we counted down The Best of Echoes 2019, a list of our 25 favorite album. Now, Echoes’ John Diliberto takes a stroll through that list, giving some context and commentary and highlighting some of the lesser known recordings and artists on the album including…
Vonavi's Ukrainian Ambiences in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast we travel to Ukraine to talk with Andrei Ivanov, who records as Vonavi. Ukraine is something of a backwater when it comes to any international music scene, but Vonavi has found a way out, through the internet. This young electronic composer has just released his…
Future Forward with Neuland and a Flashback 50 with Fairport Convention in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast we talk with Neuland and take a Flashback 50 to Fairport Convention’s Liege and Lief. Neuland is the name of a project featuring two former members of Tangerine Dream, Peter Baumann and Paul Haslinger. Baumann was a…
Rise Ascends from Talitha Rise in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, Rise emerges from the ashes of Talitha Rise. In 2018 our number one album of the year was An Abandoned Orchid House by Talitha Rise. We interviewed Jo Beth Young and Martyn Barker who made up that group. But now, we’ve gotten a…
We Celebrate Wendy Carlos' 80th Year in Echoes Podcast We look back at Wendy Carlos on 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.…
In Echoes Podcast Voxfire Brings Medieval Chants to the 21st Century In the Echoes Podcast, we get all Medieval on you. Remember when Gothic chant was all the rage in the 1990s? Albums featuring Benedictine Monks and Abbess Hildegard von Bingen hymns were heard in all kinds of configurations by artists, like Sequentia, Richard Souther,…
Oboist Jill Haley's Nature Soundscape in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, we go out to the park with oboist and composer Jill Haley. Her parks have names like Yellowstone, Glacier, Zion, and Badlands. She takes up residence in National Parks, and composes music inspired by the landscapes and her photographs. Haley has played on…
Vampires and Murder with Bat for Lashe's Natasha Khan in Echoes Podcast. In the Echoes Podcast, it’s vampires and dangerous love when we talk with Natasha Khan of Bat for Lashes. She’s been making dreamy, electronically draped moody songs since her 2006 debut, Fur and Gold. The English singer moved from England to LA a…
Hugar, King Crimson and Erik Scott in Echoes Podcast.It’s a 3-Part Echoes Podcast with Hugar, King Crimson’s 50th and a Remembrance of Erik Scott First we enter the chill of Iceland for an interview with Hugar. The ambient chamber music duo recently released their second album Varða. It was the Echoes CD of the Month…
Tycho Interview and Flashback 50 to Pentangle's Basket of Light in Echoes Podcast.In the Echoes Podcast this week: An interview with Tycho and a Flashback 50 to Pentangle’s Basket of Light First we go inside the music of Tycho with Scott Hansen and singer Saint Sinner. For most of the last two decades there has been a strain…
Echoes Podcast Echoes John Diliberto and Jeff Towne Talk 30 Years of Echoes. In the Echoes Podcast, John Diliberto and Jeff Towne cast back through 30 years of incredible music, live performances, great interviews and some 7800 Echoes shows. Taking questions from listeners and musicians John and Jeff talk about the origins of the show,…
Rob Simonsen's Reveries: A Film Composer's Refuge in the Echoes Podcast Rob Simonsen is a veteran film composer who’s movies include Nerve, Love, Simon and dozens of others. This year alone he’s scored The Friend, Fast Color and Captive State. Somehow, he found time to make his first solo recording, Reveries. He creates a nostalgic…
Flashback 50 with East of Eden and Hossam Ramzy Remembered in Echoes PodcastIn the Echoes Podcast, a Flashback 50 to East of Eden’s Mercator Projected and we remember Hossam Ramzy. We begin with a Flashback 50 with the 1969 debut by East of Eden, Mercator Projected. This seminal release was the blueprint that groups like…
Azam Ali takes her love of electronic music to create her new album, Phantoms. In the Echoes Podcast she talks about a sound born from social and political darkness and electronic grooves.
The Cosmogony of Beacon in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, Beacon shines. Beacon is the electro-pop group who mix R&B and mysticism in their expansive electronic sound. This duo of Thomas Mullarney III and Jacob Gossett talk about the influence of religion and the writings and art of Walter Russell, a 20th century renaissance man…
Azam Ali takes her love of modern electronic music to create her new album, Phantoms. John Diliberto talks to her about a sound born from social and political darkness and electronic grooves.
The Art of Electric Improvisation with John Swana, Tim Motzer & Doug Hirlinger in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, John Diliberto talks about the art of improvisation with three veteran musicians, trumpeter John Swana, guitarist Tim Motzer and percussionist Doug Hirlinger. They are denizens of the avant-garde and new music scenes in Philadelphia and…
Mary Lattimore's Ambient Harp in Echoes PodcastIn the Echoes Podcast, Mary Lattimore, a diva of new music harp. She’s performed with Harold Budd, Kurt Vile, Sharon Van Etten, Thurston Moore and dozens of others with her electric harp. On her album, Hundreds of Days, she manipulates her instrument with electronics, distorting the sound and looping…
Synth-Pop Artist Eve Maret Plugs into the Echoes PodcastIn the Echoes Podcast, a wonderful musician named Eve Maret who is completely plugged in. She recently released her debut album, No More Running, and fans of 70s German electronic music and 80s New Wave will find a lot of resonance in there. We talk about that…
Maps' James Chapman in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, we have Maps. James Chapman is half of the duo onDeadWaves but on his own, he records as Maps, merging electronics with Ennio Morricone grandeur and Beach Boys exultant harmonies. His new album is Colours Reflect Time Loss. We talk to James Chapman about childhood…
Heather Woods Broderick Interview in Echoes Podcast. In the Echoes Podcast, we talk to singer-songwriter Heather Woods Broderick. She’s backed up singers like Sharon Van Etten but on her own, she makes a personal and atmospheric music of peacefully contemplated turmoil articulated through the imagery of nature on the Oregon coast. Her album, Glider was…
Echoes Podcast: The Best of Echoes 2019, So FarIn the Echoes Podcast, John Diliberto dissects some of our picks in the top ten of The Best of Echoes 2019 So Far. It’s the midway point of the year which means it’s time to compile our Top 25 albums of the year to date. John Diliberto…
White Noise and It's a Beautiful Day in a Double Flashback 50 in the Echoes Podcast.It’s a Double Flashback 50 when we explore two albums from June 1969 that could not be more different. From London, It’s White Noise with their debut, An Electric Storm and from San Francisco we’ll hear It’s A Beautiful Day.…
Meat Beat Manifesto in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, Meat Beat Manifesto. The legendary British electronic artist who came of age during the industrial and trip-hop sampling days of the 1990s. Jack Dangers, the group’s founder, is a scholar of electronic music from Stockhausen to Cabaret Voltaire and beyond. He has a new MBM album…
Massergy's Song of Tragedy and Psychedelic Ritual in Echoes Podcast Massergy is the performance name of Eric Jensen. His story includes the loss of his brother, learning electronic music from scratch, psychedelics and recording his electronic music out in his yard. His album, Fire Opal was the Echoes CD of the Month in May. We go…
Echoes John Diliberto Dissects 2019's ZMR Music Award Winners.by John Diliberto 5/23/2019 The ZMR AWARDS IS OUT OF THE TYPICAL AWARDS ZONE The Zone Music Reporter Awards or ZMRs, bring a gel-filtered focus on music that often isn’t included in the usual Best Of and Awards lists. The Grammys pretty much ignore these recordings, although…
Chad Lawson's Ambient Piano Pianist Chad Lawson is reinventing the acoustic piano for the electronic age. He came up through classical and jazz and garnered some renown with his album, The Chopin Variations, turning the Polish composer into something acoustically ambient. But now he’s creating original ambient music, treating his piano with electronic processing to…
William Tyler's Rural New Age in Echoes Podcast William Tyler is a guitarist who has made it through to hipster circles and records on the highly regarded Merge label. But he’s not afraid to cite Windham Hill Records, astrology, and more as influences. He’s also making the most inventive music of any post-Windham Hill guitarist.…
Lamb's Secrets in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, The acclaimed English electronica band, Lamb, talks about their new album, The Secret of Letting Go. The title speaks to the duo’s sometimes contentious working relationship. Andy Barlow: I think she’s got a version of the album with all of my lyrics removed. You didn’t like…
Singer Rachel Eckroth Gets Weird in Echoes PodcastIn the Echoes Podcast, we discover the beautiful and edgy dream pop of Rachel Eckroth. She started out as a jazz pianist but then came a transformation into singer-songwriter and then electronic dream pop which is where she’s at on her latest album. When It Falls. Along the…
Alternative Electro-rocker UNKLE Walks Down The Road Trilogy In the Echoes Podcast, UNKLE’s James Lavelle talks about a journey that started at the dawn of trip-hop. He is working on a trilogy of albums called The Road and has just released the second volume, The Road Part II: Lost Highway. It explores dark themes of…
Electronic Composer Kevin Keller Goes Retro-Space in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, ambient chamber music composer Kevin Keller talks about going back to his roots to compose the retro-electronic sound of his latest album, Ice Worlds. It was the Echoes CD of the Month in March. It’s a beautiful album of effervescent electronic music…
Echoes John Diliberto takes an audio journey through his favorite concerts at Big Ears Festival 2019 including Nils Frahm, The Comet is Coming, Harold Budd and more.
Primer Travels Back in Electro-Pop Time In the Echoes Podcast, we trip in time with Primer and we remember Gert Van Santens of Wave World. Primer is the prep coating of paint. It’s also a textbook. And it’s the name chosen by Alyssa Midcalf, a Detroit based artist for her stripped down electronic pop. It comes…
Saul Stokes Talks Electronic Expansion in Echoes Podcast He used to make his own electronic instruments and when he plays live, he doesn’t use any computers. That’s a few of the things that make Saul Stokes a unique musician on the electronic scene. Kevin Keller, who has the March CD of the Month, said “I…
Yagull is a progressive rock group that strips down to a duo with the husband and wife team of guitarist Sasha Markovic and pianist Kana Kamitsubo. They talk about their album, Yuna.
Inside Big Ears Festival 2019 in Echoes Podcast 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…
Echoes Podcast: Eleon-From Walmart to Space. 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…
Bluetech Interview: The Electrocaplyse is ComingIn 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…
Lena Natalia's New Wave Neo-Classical Music 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…
Jean-Michel Jarre in 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…
Alexandra Streliski Talks About Her Creaky Piano Miniatures.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.
Buck Curran in Echoes Podcast: From Blues to Arborea to Raga and Beyond 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…
Ambient Pioneer Laraaji & Arji in Echoes Podcast 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…
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.
Bill Bruford is in the Echoes Podcast. One of the most erudite of progressive rock musicians, the drummer with Yes, King Crimson and UK now has a doctorate and a book to go with it.
In the Echoes Podcast, we take Chances. Chances is the name of a Canadian trio who are making a powerful music with a vocal sound that draws from Indian singing as well as gospel.
Liminal Drifter phases into the Echoes Podcast. Dr. Simon Order to create an electronic music that is often born of nightmares. The Australian-based artist sees it as a kind of therapy.
The Nightcrawlers and Chuck Van Zyl take us to Philadelphia’s 1980s electronic scene. These children of German Space music talk about finding their own, Philalectric Sound in Echoes Podcast.
Guitarist Adam Werner is a child of Windham Hill Records. He’s a former heavy metal guitarist who fell in love with Windham Hill Records. Hear his story in the Echoes Podcast.
Guitarist John McLaughlin talks about the psychedelic 60s, spirit transformations and returning to the music of the Mahavishnu Orchestra with Jimmy Herring in Echoes Podcast.
Michelle Qureshi is a classically trained guitarist but she’s gone beyond that in her ambient landscapes that mix multiple instruments and electronics. She talks about it in Echoes Podcast.
In Echoes Podcast, flutist Sherry Finzer and her New Age circle including Cass Anawaty from Majestica and multi-instrumentalist and ambient meditation composer Tom Moore.
Dead Can Dance Singer Lisa Gerrard recorded an album with The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices called Boocheemish. We talk to her and the album's producers in the Echoes Podcast.
Take a dive into 5 albums from The Best of Echoes 2018, So Far in the Echoes Podcast including albums by Talitha Rise, Khruangbin, Ian Boddy and Erik Wøllo, Klaus Schulze and Solomon Grey.
Imagine the sound of pre-pop Genesis with a dash of Fleetwood Mac and a singer of folk-like purity and you've got the sound of Shriekback with singer Jo Beth Young. Hear her story on Echoes.
On the Echoes Podcast, we go back eight years to talk with Martin Kennedy of All India Radio.
On the Echoes Podcast, Khruangbin talks about their sound, which mixes Thai pop, gospel, acid rock and krautrock.
On the Echoes Podcast, Loreena McKennitt talks about Lost Souls, a new collection of old songs.
On the Echoes Podcast, a pioneer of ambient chamber music, Jeff Greinke. He has a new album called Before Sunrise that uses the night skies of southern Arizona as an inspiration.
Brian Eno's 70th Birthday is celebrated in the Echoes podcast with four interview features with Eno and associates like Robert Fripp, David Sylvian, Loop Guru and more.
Composer Glenn Branca died on May 13. His “guitar armies” created a wall of distorted overtone layers with multiple guitars. We go back to an early interview in Echoes Podcast.
On the Echoes Podcast, a Flashback 50 to one of the seminal albums of the New Age, Paul Horn’s Inside. Recorded inside the Taj Mahal, it was a landmark release when it came out in 1968.
Electronic artist Chuck Van Zyl is a child of German electronic sounds of the 70s, He's keeping that alive on his Stars End Radio and in his own music. He talks about it in Echoes Podcast.
Holger Czukay, a founding member of iconoclastic rock band Can and a master of sound collage, the proto-typical sample artist. Learn about him in the Echoes Podcast.
Solomon Grey is an English dream pop duo who have just released “Human Music” exploring themes of love, familial relationships and assisted suicide. We talk to them in Echoes Podcast.
We interview the director and Kirtan chanters in the documentary Mantra: Sounds into Silence and explore Karlheinz Stockhausen and his Klang: the 24 Hours of the Day in Echoes Podcast.
On the 40th Anniversary of Brian Eno's “Music for Airports” and the 75th birthday of Vangelis we look back at these two iconic composers with interviews in the Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast, Overcoats, a folktronica duo making a deep and beautifully harmonized sound on their debut album, Young. We talk to Hana Elion and JJ Mitchell in Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast hear about The Nightcrawlers leaders of a Philly electronic music scene that tapped the sound of German space music. Their 1980s cassettes have just been reissued.
The United States of America created one of the definitive psychedelic albums in the winter of 1968. In the Echoes Podcast we hear interviews with band members on its 50th anniversary.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were among the biggest of the first wave of English synthpop artists. In the Echoes Podcast, they take us to the beginning and the future.
Winterlight is the recording persona of Tim Ingham who takes electric guitar and turns it into ambient shoegaze dreamscapes. We talk to him about roots that start in punk in Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast, Future Fire brings dystopian vision to their electronic sound. Founders Darren Burgos and Dylan Willoughby from Lost In Stars talk about it on Echoes.
Composer Forrest Fang talks about his ambient world music soundscapes and we remember Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson with a 2009 Echoes Interview. Jóhannsson died on February 10, 2018.
We talk with guitarist Mark Peters in Echoes Podcast. He’s the guitarist and leader of the dreamy shoegaze band Engineers, but on his own, he creates a more ambient, instrumental sound.
Poppy Ackroyd is an English composer creating a neo-classical sound full of kinetic drive and melody. Her album Resolve, is the Echoes CD of the Month for February. Hear it in Echoes Podcast.
Soundtrack composer Mac Quayle plugs in for the cyber-soundtrack of TVs, Mr. Robot, the dark, sci-fi dystopian drama. We talk about electronic music of a disturbed mind in Echoes Podcast.
The debut album by Gracie Coates and Rachel Ruggles is the Echoes CD of the Month for January 2018. Here a review of this beautiful chamber pop masterpiece in the Echoes Podcast.
Film composer Jeff Rona has worked with Hans Zimmer, Lisa Gerrard and Jon Hassell. Now he has his first solo album after 4 decades in music. He talks about “Projector” in Echoes Podcast.
Thomas Dolby was an early avatar of electro-pop with hits like “She Blinded Me with Science” but now he’s a Professor at the Peabody Institute. We talk to him in the Echoes Podcast.
Electronic artist Steve Roach rose up out of Space Music and the New Age into his own, deeply carved electronic music. He talks about his Grammy nomination in the Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast We talk to Hammock, the great ambient rock band. We’ll hear them talking about their new album, Mysterium, the #1 album in The Best of Echoes 2017.
Echoes's John Diliberto reviews Hiroki Okano's Return to the Soul, the Echoes CD of the Month for December. Okano is a Zen gardener of sound where everything is balanced and in its proper place.
In the Echoes Podcast we remember Michael Hedge, an iconoclastic musician who changed a generations approached the acoustic guitar. He died on December 2, 1997 in a car crash.
Whether composing for high fashion or cinematic expanses of the mind, Prequell is creating a 21st century symphonic music. Hear it when we talk to Thomas Roussel of Prequell in Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast we go inside the enchanting chamber pop of Gracie and Rachel. These high school friends have entered adulthood creating a sound in an orbit with Max Richter, Agnes Obel and Steve Reich.
Hear a review of Todd Boston's One, Echoes November CD of the Month. Todd is a post-Windham Hill guitarist with a global mind. He creates a one-man world music ensemble.
On the Echoes Podcast t’s the band called HDLSS (Headless). They’re an electronic dream pop duo who use 70s pop motifs to explore themes of racial and religious identity.
Steeped in jazz, bathed in ambience, aglow in pastoral warmth, Endless Field is an extension of Windham Hill and ECM. Hear Ike Sturm and Jesse Lewis talk about it in the Echoes Podcast.
Quindar discusses their NASA–inspired debut CD, titled Hip-Mobility, in the Echoes Podcast
It's a 21st century Electro-orchestral symphony from Prequell called "The Future Comes Before." It’s the Echoes CD of the Month, Hear about this dynamic work in the Echoes Podcast.
Jim Ottaway lives on the Gold Coast of Australia, and his music dives into the oceans of space. Jim Ottaway about traveling the Australian spaceways in the Echoes Podcast.
The Greatest Hoax is both a political statement, a commentary on life and death, and beautiful ambient chamber music. Hear Taylor Jordan talk about the soundtrack of dying in Echoes Podcast.
Tamsin Wilson, the namesake of her group, Wilsen with an “e” talks about dust and centipedes and her June CD of the Month, I Go Missing In My Sleep in the Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast, we take you inside The September CD of the Month, Mystic Journey's Kingdom of Mountains featuring flutist Suzanne Teng and percussionist Gilbert Levy
In the Echoes Podcast we go into a musical marriage counselling session with Daron and Jenny Hollowell. They are Nights and weekends and they have a new album called Music for Marriage. As you'll hear in this interview, it's not music for setting the mood.
Guitarist Terje Rypdal is an incendiary and influential figure among electric guitarists. Recording for ECM records since 1971, he's blazed a trail noted for his tone bending colors and free improvisation. We celebrate his 70th birthday in the Echoes Podcast.
Echoes interviews Pepper Proud and Masaru Higasa of New Age band, Yaima. We discuss Timothy Leary, transformational festivals, new album OvO, and sensory deprivation tanks.
Pierre Henry virtually invented the idea of sampling. Just using phonograph recordings, many of them custom made, he sampled the world and turned it into what became musique concrète.
Falling You’s Shine features many talented contributors as vocalists and lyricists. Instrumentalist John Zorko and two vocalists, Anji Lum and Danielle Colbeck, discuss thematic lyrics, influences, and gongs.
Nym is the recording persona of Lewis Scaife and he is creating a music born of the world, but turned into a surreal one of audio illusions. He recently released his album, Lilac Chaser.
Gurujas is the writer and singer of White Sun. She sits down with Echoes to describe how yoga and spirituality helped her acquire that Grammy in 2017, and the science of mantra.
Echoes John Diliberto takes a closer look at 8 albums from across The Best of Echoes 2017, So Far Top 25. It reveals the breadth of the list from dreampop to electronic to solo piano and more.
Johan Agebjörn is a psychologist. Mikael Ögren is a priest in the Swedish Church. But they sit at an electronic altar and explore synthesizer psychology in the Echoes Podcast.
Yasmine Hamdan is a Lebanese born singer and musician who takes her Arabic culture and infuses it with the influences of everyone from the Cocteau Twins to Prince, Arabic pop to new electronic music.
Tom Eaton is an acclaimed engineer and producer of acoustic music who also harbors a love of electronic music from Tangerine Dream to Tim Story. It comes out in a pair of ambient albums.
After abandoning synthesizers for many years, Suzanne Ciani has returned to electronic music, creating improvisations on her first electronic instrument, the Buchla Modular Synthesizer.
Goldfrapp is the English dreampop band of Alison Goldfrapp & Will Gregory. On Silver Eye, they explore themes of ritual, magic and social politics. We talk to them in the Echoes Podcast.
From Indian Lakes is the name of a dream-pop band from Indian Lakes via Brooklyn. Headed by Joey Vannucchi, he takes us on his music odyssey in a wide-ranging interview.
She created the theme for Doctor Who, tripped out with the White Noise, and inspired a few generations of British electronic musicians to plug in. Delia Derbyshire remembered in Echoes Podcast
Harmonica isn’t the sound heard in ambient music, but on The Recognition, Art Patience casts his harmonica out on desert echoes and ambient spaces. He talks about it in Echoes Podcast.
The Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society is less of a fan club and more of an electronic, deep ambient duo with Garry Hughes of Bombay Dub Orchestra and Harvey Jones.
In the Echoes Podcast, composer and keyboardist Michael Whalen talks about how to go to sleep and the music of his latest album, Dream Cycle. It's not the music of slumber.
Morton Subotnick was a pioneer of electronic music. His 1967 album, Silver Apples of the Moon, signaled a new way of making music that only used electronics. He talks about the early days of electronic music in the Echoes Podcast.
We talk to author Will Romano about his book Close to the Edge: How Yes’s Masterpiece Defined Prog Rock. Comments come from Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford and artist Roger Dean.
We look back on the career of trumpeter/composer Jon Hassell from through his Fourth World music permutations with interviews from Hassell, Brian Eno, and more in the Echoes Podcast.
In the Echoes Podcast French electronic musician Jean-Michel Jarre talks about oxygene then and now.
In the Echoes Podcast, Mike Oldfield takes us inside two of his epic works, 1975's Ommadawn and 2017's Return to Ommadawn. Tragedy and nostalgia beset both of these wonderful works.
Daniel Voth is a two-handed tapping finger-style wizard but with a composer’s sense of arrangement and melody. His album, Trancendance is the Echoes March CD of the Month. Hear John Diliberto's review with music.
Djam Karet are a now venerable American progressive rock group that doesn't sound venerable at all. They've just released one of their best albums, Sonic Celluloid and they talk about it in the Echoes Podcast.
From Western Australia comes Laliya, the duo of James and Melissa McGuire. Since 1995 they’ve been creating an acoustic based sound with electronic extensions like delays and loops to create a world fusion of the imagination. They talk about it in the Echoes Podcast.
Erik Scott has played bass with Alice Cooper and Flo & Eddie. He also co-founded the R&B band, Sonia Dada. But in his case, past wasn’t prologue to the instrumental soundscapes of his album, In the Company of Clouds. He talks about it in the Echoes Podcast.
We celebrate the 80th birthday of one of the Holy Trinity of Minimalism. Philip Glass turns 80 this year and it's hard to imagine the music of the last 40 years without him. Hear it in the Echoes Podcast.
Australia ambient pop artist Ry X talks about his introspective music that's torn between Australia surf beaches and Berlin gloom. He talks about it in the Echoes Podcast.
Alu is a singer of dark imagery, macabre moods and music that ranges from electronica grooves to jazz riffing. She's a one-woman Lambert, Hendrick's and Ross Meets Morrissey. She talks about her album, Mrs. Hypochondriac in the Echoes Podcast
Symbion Project explores themes of family, Sci-fi, and depression in the Echoes Podcast.
Jane Siberry has returned to release her most accessible album in years, Angels Bend Closer. She talks about themes of family, fame and faith in the Echoes Podcast.
Michael Cretu Deciphers the latest Enigma album The Fall of a Rebel Angel in Echoes Pocast.
Before it was corporate music for spas and yoga studios, New Age music had adventurous, experimental Indie roots. Producer Douglas Mcgowan unearths them in two collections. “I Am The Center, Private Issue New Age Music in America, 1950-1990” and “The Microcosm, Visionary Music of Continental Europe, 1970-1986."
Take a trip back in time and re-discover the beginnings of electronic music with Syrinx's Tumblers From The Vault. They spoke about the release of the collection on Echoes Podcast.
Explore the experimental side of Pink Floyd with their new box set Pink Floyd the Early Years 1967-1972. Drummer Nick Mason speaks about the birth of Pink Floyd in Echoes Podcast.
Skye Edwards and Ross Godfrey have evolved from Morcheeba to create a new self titled duo. They talk about their debut album, old drugs and new found domesticity in the Echoes Podcast
Step into the shoes of Agnes Obel as she reflects on Echoes CD of the month, Citizen of Glass, in the Echoes Podcast.
From Manchester England, Marconi Union is an electronic band that has been orchestrating melodic music since their first album in 2003. The three part band has just released a new album titled "Ghost Stations."
Nicholas Gunn has put down his flute in a shift towards a more chilled electronic sound. . Hear him talk about it in the Echoes Podcast.
Electronic artist Edamame, not to be mistaken for the asian bean, takes natural sounds and mixes them into downtempo ambient tracks. He has just released his latest album Ochre on Loci Records. He talks about it in the Echoes Podcast.
Singer-songwriter Hannah Georgas crafted a wonderful album of powerful songs that look at her life through the prism of her 98-year old grandmother who is the namesake of the album, For Evelyn. She talks about it in the Echoes Podcast.
On his 80th birthday, we look back at the career of composer and minimalist pioneer Steve Reich. He wrote Music for 18 Musicians. He influenced thousands of musicians.
Martin Tillman has been a first call cellist in Hollywood for 20 years and he's graced scores from Mission Impossible to Black Hawk Down. Now he has a new album inspired by his wife's multiple sclerosis. He talks about it in the Echoes Podcast.
Merrin Karras is an Irish electronic artist living in Berlin, ground zero, for 70s German Space music. He brings those sounds into his own music on his album, Apex.
OnDeadWaves speak about their reverb-drenched, Western Americana inspired self-titled debut in the Echoes Podcast
SHEL is four sisters from Colorado who have beautiful harmonies, intricate instrumental arrangements and evocative songs. So what are they doing covering metallica and writing songs about depression? Find out in the Echoes Podcast They specialize in making lyrically introspective, delicate, folk based music.
On the 10th anniversary of his death, we remember electronic composer Richard Burmer. He created musical fantasies and imaginary orchestras before dying tragically and alone at the age of 50. Hear his story in the Echoes Podcast with Stephen Hill, Steve Roach, Hollan Holmes and Michael Hoppé.
Al Jewer and Andy Mitran discuss collaborations and the ambient journey that led them to their latest record "Transmigration"
Global string player Hans Christian takes us on a journey from classical to New Wave to New Age and a trip that includes Billy Idol, Rasa and more.
Peter Baumann talks Tangerine Dream, the Baumann Foundaiton, Berlin, inspirations, and more in the Echoes Podcast
Dave Preston talks about his influences, current projects, and how his humble beginnings, recording with just a Shure SM-58, led to working with Justin Timberlake and his own ambient guitar albums.
Bryan Tewell Hughes, otherwise known as AeTopus, speaks with Echoes about his influences, process, and Sci-Fi musings. His latest album is entitled When.
Ron Korb explains how he went from playing the plastic recorder as a child to becoming a grammy nominated world flute master. His latest album is Asia Beauty.
Markus Sieber is the German musician of Aukai whose debut self-titled album is deeply meditative, spacious and steeped in vaguely surreal, pastoral all-instrumental tones
Julius Dobos is a Hungarian composer steeped in those sounds and he's developing a concept called Forgotten Future that's meant to provide a soundtrack for those ideas
Steve Kimock has played with just about every member of The Grateful Dead. With his own groups, he plays pays extended guitar centric compositions full of improvisation, and he’s often mentioned in the same breadth as bands like Phish and The String Cheese Incident. But don’t dare call his group a jam band.
Echoes sits down with iconic electronic musician Moby to discuss his latest album and accompanying memoir.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Greek music, and iZombie are all part of the haunting, introspective songs sung by Haroula Rose on her latest album, "Here the Blue River." The former Fulbright Scholar comes in to talk about her music on the Echoes Podcast.
Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble is among the premiere world music institutions, bringing together artists form traditional and classical worlds into a sometimes joyous, sometimes challenging fusion. Now they have a documentary film, The Music of Strangers.
The Gloaming Experiments with Traditional Celtic Music in the Echoes Podcast.Listen to the interview with The Gloaming above, or download it from iTunes. The first Irish renaissance happened in the 1970s when Irish bands like Planxty, Dedanan and brought virtuosity and more expansive arrangements to Irish traditional music. Then came the popular wave in the 1990s…
Maia Vidal was in a punk group called Kievan Rus, appeared in a series of Coca-Cola TV ads and could be found strumming an autoharp in Barcelona. All that has led to her beautiful album, You're the Waves. She talks about her journey in the Echoes Podcast.
John Heart Jackie makes a trippy psychedelic folk with country harmonies, ambient textures and electronica loops. They came into Echoes to play and talk about their music.
Deborah Martin's new album Eye of the Wizard is inspired by supernatural myths, but she used to be a country singer. She talks about going from country to cosmic in Echoes Podcast
Kiasmos is the electronic project of ambient chamber music composer Ólafur Arnalds and fellow Icelander, Janus Rasmussen. They talk about their techno journey.
Ane Brun’s music is always personal, touching on themes of love and life’s tribulations. But on her latest album, When I’m Free, Brun sings songs of empowerment.
John Luther Adams talks about his award-winning composition, Become Ocean, and his decision to leave Alaska in the Echoes Podcast.
On her new album, Echoes of the Dreamtime, Miranda Lee Richards takes folk sounds and deploys them through delayed guitar and psychedelic hues.
Big Ears is one of the most expansive, eclectic and challenging music festivals in the world. In downtown Knoxville Tennessee, musicians from around the world and across genres convene in concerts that test the limits of sound and music.
Cavern of Anti-Matter is a group steeped in analog synthesizers and worships at the electronic altar of 70s German groups like Neu! Harmonia, Cluster and Can. We talk to band leader Tim Gane about plugging in to the sound of his youth.
We remember Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, who died on March 8, 2016. He was a master musician who recorded with Pat Metheny, Jon Hassell, Laurie Anderson and Talking Heads.
Discreet Music, arguably the first of Eno’s ambient works, has entered the acoustic canon, via the Canadian group, Contact. They turn the piece into an immersive meditation. Contact’s Jerry Pergolesi talks about making contact with Discreet Music.
Kenji Williams makes a different kind of "World Music" with Bella Gaia, a view of the world and its music, seen from space. Bella Gaia is a project put together by Williams, using NASA images of Earth from Space, quotes from astronauts and and music from around the world
You don’t usually find academic composers making music that you might find on a dance floor or in a chillout room, but J. Anthony Allen breaks that convention.
Smoke Fairies talk about their unique take on Christmas and how they’ve been together since age twelve.
The Mynabirds is the vehicle of singer Laura Burhenn. Her new album explores a dark, electronica direction. It comes on the heels of a break-up, a cross country trek and journey to South Africa. We talk to Laura Burhenn about her musical journey.
Laurie Anderson is a true icon of modern music, creating a sound that brings together cultural observations, acute humor and ambient textures. Anderson is hitting a new period of creativity with large-scale works like Landfall, Habeas Corpus and her new album, and film, Heart of a Dog.
Iconic Irish singer, Enya talks about her new album, Dark Sky Island. It’s her first album of all-new material in 7 years. Many of the familiar Enya sounds are there from the pizzacato strings, vocal choirs and of course, the pure beauty of Enya's voice. She talks about castles, church and the cosmos.
Todd Tobias creates ambient vignettes; short excursions into a mysterious sound dominated by multiple guitars and manipulated samples. He's worked extensively with the rock band, Guided by Voices, but makes an ambient sound on his own. He talks about it on Echoes.
Named for a theater in David Lynch’s film, “Mulholland Drive”, Silencio plays music inspired by Lynch films and Angelo Badalamenti’s scores for them. We talk to the band about their evocative and haunting sound.
Twilight Archive is a trio of musicians from Southern California exploring an ambient jazz sound. They get together to make a dark, swampy ambient jazz, channeling Miles Davis through Jon Hassell Fourth-World grooves and electronica modes. They talk about their evolution and new album, Mood Chain.
Jean-Michel Jarre is steeped in the lineage of electronic music. On his new album he collaborates with contemporaries like Tangerine Dream, electronica artists M83, Moby, Massive Attack and Air and techno artist Armin Van Buren.
The English duo Anima is a band steeped in shamanic mysticism, psychedelic plants and electronic music. They’ve lived in the jungles in the Amazon and partaken in local rituals, which they translate into detailed electronic landscapes.
Steven Halpern released his first album of electric piano modalities, Spectrum Suite, in 1975. That makes 2015 his 40th anniversary as a recording artist. We talk to Halpern about the evolution of his music from the “anti-frantic alternative” to his concepts of sound healing.
Slow Meadow is the performance name of Matt Kidd who has collaborated with the band Hammock, but has created his own approach to ambient chamber music. We walk through the fields of Matt Kidd’s Slow Meadow.
Michael Spriggs is an A-list session guitarist in Music City who has played on, and written, dozens of country hits. But when he goes home, he plugs in to a different sound, turning country into Ambient Americana, with touches of Celtic music.
Chad Kettering started out as a classical trumpet player, but something happened on the way to the concert hall. He discovered synthesizers and started creating an orchestral electronic sound that’s part progressive rock and part New Age.
Árstíðir is a band out of Iceland with an organic, acoustic sound that has roots in the harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Playing guitars, violin, piano and cello, these musicians create introspective songs on their latest album, Hvel.
Clarinet isn't an instrument you often hear in electronic music, but it's a central part of the sound of Digitional the English ambient chamber music band headed up by Andrew Dobson. Along with violinist Samy Bishai, Dobson creates a music of haunting melodies and luxurious moods. Their latest album is Beautiful Broken, where they find a common ground between chilled electronic grooves and the modern classicism of Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt.
Chronotope Project is the name used by electronic musician and cellist Jeffrey Ericson Allen to deply his free-floating atmospheric compositions that merge concepts of Buddhism, astrophysics and ambient music. he talks about his new album, Dawn Treader.
Unlock the door to your mind with when Steve Roach gives you Skeleton Keys. That’s the latest album from the legendary electronic musician. Noted for his acclaimed albums, Structures from Silence and Dreamtime Return and as a pioneer of techno-tribal and drone-zone music, Roach has carved a unique and independent path over the last 35 years. He was also voted the number one Icon of Echoes last year. He returns to his analog roots for an album of furious sequencer syncopations called Skeleton Keys. He unlocks it when we talk with him in the Echoes Interview Podcast.
Ascendant is a duo of Californian musicians exploring the Big Bang, and other mysteries of the universe, through meticulously-crafted synthesizer soundscapes.
Dieter Moebius, Electronic Pioneer, Switches Off
Dieter Moebius: 1944-2015. In the world of progressive space and ambient music, the German group called Cluster were eccentric wizards, musical alchemists who defied traditions, even the ones they helped create during the space music days of 1970s Berlin. Hans Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius have released dozens of albums as Cluster, and under their own names, over the last 45 years.
Cluster influenced three generations of ambient composers, beginning with Brian Eno and continuing through Robert Rich, The Orb, Ulrich Schnauss and countless others. Although they were lumped in with the space music of Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk in the 1970s, Cluster always followed their own path, creating sonic landscapes that could be quaint and spacey, like a surreal music box slightly sprung, or they could assault the walls of dissonance.
Now, one half of this influential band has flipped the off-switch for the last time. Dieter Moebius died on July 20 at the age of 71. I first met Moebius in 1982 in his Berlin apartment where I was interviewing him for the radio series, Totally Wired: Artists in Electronic Sound. Moebius was a gracious, shambolic host, offering us food and weed in equal doses. He had a friend there, who might have been Gerd Beerbohm, his collaborator on a couple of albums. The interview wandered down many paths revealing Moebius as a music omnivore as he joyfully recounted tuning in John Peels’ radio show on the BBC. We wound up never using that interview because it didn’t quite reach a state of coherence.
The two members of Cluster were like the zero and one, yin and yang. Roedelius is a tall, gregarious man who seems like everyone’s favorite grandfather. Dieter Moebius was the perfect foil, small and quiet with a wry sense of humor.
Although they are considered pioneers of electronic music, when Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius got together with Conrad Schnitzler in 1969 as Kluster, there weren’t a lot of synthesizers around. But they already had a slightly different vision of music so they used whatever was at hand.
“There were synthesizers but they were way too expensive,” lamented Moebius in a 1997 interview. “In the beginning we had drums and all kinds of cellos and all kinds of things that we picked up.”
“We started by using our instruments such as violins, cello, guitars, and flutes, electrified,” added Roedelius, who turns 81 this October. “Also very different stuff like alarm clocks, woods, metal, and our voices and percussion, we used everything: Cooking pots, cups, glasses, water drops, vases, wood, metal”.
In the beginning, even though Cluster used acoustic sound sources, they manipulated these signals in the same ways a synthesizer would.
“In a way it was a synthesizer we created with our instruments with pick-ups,” revealed Moebius, “because we would send this signal, this sound through a wah-wah pedal or phase-shifter. That’s like in a synthesizer with the filter stuff and all these things. So we each had our own synthesizer made up with our possibilities.”
They eventually did adopt conventional synthesizers, but in their hands, they always sounded like something they had cobbled together on a workbench. Schnitzler left the group and they changed the “K” to a “C” for Cluster. In the early 1970s, they found themselves at the heart of the burgeoning space music scene in Germany, alongside Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Kraftwerk, Ash Ra Tempel and Popol Vuh. Most of the music emerging from this scene was surreal, electronically-charged and awash in hallucinogenic and space imagery. Moebius said that these sounds reflected the mood of the city at that time.
“It was quite a chaotic time in Berlin,” he remembers, “Perhaps that’s why we made the decision to make it loud and strong and a machine sound, because of the police running around the streets every day, woo, woo.”
Although they were there at the genesis of the Berlin sound, the music Cluster made bore little resemblance to Klaus Schulze or Tangerine Dream.
“No, we have different backgrounds,” explained Roedelius, who is older than most of the musicains on that scene by more than a decade. “My family, in the past, my ancestors were teachers and preachers and people who had very much to do with spirituality and also with music. They were cantors and organists and all of that in church so, I think I got my roots back then.”
“We didn’t care about what the other people did really,” boasted Moebius. “We met them all the time.”
“And know them still,” adds Roedelius.
“But theses friends of ours were thinking more commercially than us,” said Moebius proudly. “We never thought really commercial. That’s perhaps also the difference. You can hear it in the music in a way.”
In 1976 as well as 1996, Cluster didn’t play their instruments so much as coax sounds out of them. A strange whirr collides with a muffled drum, a distant piano fights its way out of a thick electronic fog, and lush strings encounter industrial rhythms.
Ironically, thirty years down the road, Cluster’s music still sounded like it could’ve been made in someone’s kitchen. They use modern synthesizers, digital samplers and computers but their music still sounded like a sprung music box on their 1997 album, One Hour. But like a music box, it has a certain timeless charm.
Cluster is frequently cited as being the fathers of ambient music, a reputation that partly arises from a pair of albums they recorded with Brian Eno in the 1970s. You can hear the influence of each musician on the other with Eno’s Before and After Science and Cluster’s Sowiesoso. The Cluster-Eno pairing looms large in their mythology, but for Roedelius and Moebius, it was a brief moment.
“He knew more about the instruments and studio than we did at that time,” recalls Roedelius. “Of course he was working at that time with David Bowie in the studio and he was working on his own solo project, Before and After Science.”
They initially got together at an informal jam session during recordings with Roedelius and Moebius’ other project, Harmonia, which included guitarist Michael Rother.
“Our first real session was 76 when we worked together with Michael Rother from Neu!,” says Roedelius. “Then Brian came to our studio and we sat down for one week and played together and put it down on tape and it worked like we work always sitting together and doing it and just listening to it and saying yes or no.” Some of those earlier recordings came out in 1996 on the album, Harmonia ’96.
Eno brought a precision to their recording methods that was new for them.
“I learned a lot from him because to be a bit more organized in a way,” admits
Roedelius.
“Yeah. He was really good organizer” agrees Moebius, slightly tongue in cheek.
“I think he still is and that’s the reason why he’s so successful because he is so well organized,” continues Roedelius. “But in a way we stayed the way as we did. We just behaved a bit more concentrated in our work after.”
“For one week,” concludes Moebius dismissively.
Many people think Cluster’s music changed after their encounter with Eno.
“No,” Moebius quickly disagrees.
“It changed the work of Brian Eno,” boasts Roedelius. “It’s the other way around.”
Cluster’s music still speaks to later generations, including Alex Paterson. As the mixmaster of ambient superstars, The Orb, he’s probably sampled his share of Cluster albums.
“It’s a compliment to them in their own way,” he says, defending his appropriations. “It’s also a shame that people never heard things like that before. And again it takes people like ourselves to turn around and say, ‘Well look we made music being influenced by these types of people.’ But none of them people know what we are talking about. ‘Who in the hell is Cluster?’ said a lot of people.”
Maybe some people said that, but Robert Rich cites them as an influence as does their fellow German, Ulrich Schnauss, who was only a baby in 1977, at the height of Cluster’s influence. One of his songs, “One Finger In Someone Else’s Chords,” from his collaboration with Mark Peters of Engineers, was consciously influenced by Cluster.
“This is one of the songs on the album that took the longest time,” said Schnauss when he visited the Echoes studio in 2013. “And when it actually started working it did work because we put that humorous element in. And that’s obviously something that’s a trademark of the Cluster sound. It’s humorous, but not in a cheesy way, more like in a quite warmhearted and empathetic way.”
Cluster was pleased by the recognition they were receiving later in their careers when people started calling them the “Godfathers of Ambient Music”.
“Yes, I mean for me it was very new to learn about this that we are kind of fathers for this scene’” says Roedelius with surprise. “Also because it developed in so many directions and it’s so varied. Some is really boring and hard to stand and hard to listen to, and some is really very nice. But we always did what we did and didn’t care about what other peoples did with it.”
Moebius is less sanguine. “I think all the good stuff that’s happening now, they got it from us,” he laughs, even though I suspect he was serious.
Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius continued to make music right up till the end. The last Cluster album was Qua in 2009. The two separated in 2010, but live albums continued to be released throughout this decade. Moebius’ final solo album is Nidemonex on which he continued to create fractured sounds for fracturing skulls. Roedelius has been recording as Qluster with another musician.
Dieter Moebius came from a time when experimentation was hard work and invention was the mode of the day. Failure was an accepted outcome and music was meant to be challenging. Throwing conventions to the winds, along with kitchen utensils and anything else you could gather, was standard procedure. If anything, Cluster returned to an even more experimental sound in their later years. Now, another light from an era has passed.
~ John Diliberto with contributions from Jeff Towne
Hear Olafur Arnalds’ interview above or download the podcast from iTunes.
When we first started playing Ólafur Arnalds five or so years ago, he was a little-known secret. But in the last couple of years, he has exploded as a leading avatar of a new neo-classical sound, ambient chamber music. He’s been especially prolific in the last year, releasing three albums in three different genres: The Chopin Project, with pianist Alice Sara Ott, the all-electronic Kiasmos, and the soundtrack to Broadchurch. I caught up with Ólafur Arnalds in the midst of transglobal tours with all these projects.
What links the ambient chamber music of Broadchurch, the classical interpretations of The Chopin Project , and the electronic music of Kiasmos? According to Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds, nothing at all.
“I don’t think there’s a common thread in that,” Arnalds insists. “Like with The Chopin Project, I’m more working with ideas, like Chopin’s motifs, and trying to make something out of them. Or with Kiasmos, sitting here, the two of us just having fun, and doing some beats and playing on top of them, so there’s not really a common thread of emotion through them for me”.
Although there is punk rock and heavy metal in his background, the core of Ólafur Arnalds’ reputation is built around the ambient chamber music he’s created on albums like “They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness” and For Now I Am Winter. It’s that sound that is closest to his adaptation of music by Frederic Chopin, recorded with pianist Alice Sara Ott. The history of rock and contemporary musicians tackling classical works is not a glorious one, and according to Arnalds, classical pianist Alice Sara Ott agreed.
“When I first asked Alice to come on board with this,” Arnalds recalls, “I sent her an email and told her, ‘hey, I’m thinking about you know, redoing Chopin’. And she told me later that she was gonna say no, . . . because of this tradition. Usually when this has been done, it’s remixing classical works and or it’s not always showing a lot of respect to the composers. But then after we talked on Skype for an hour and the first time we actually met, she changed her mind, thankfully”.
Arnalds’ approach to Chopin’s compositions wasn’t to contemporize them. He has some straight readings of Chopin with Ott playing piano.
“My idea was more to make something new based on his ideas,” Arnalds clarifies, “rather than take his works and change them. And this is why we have the original works on there as well. And we don’t really touch them because we didn’t really want to be remixing Chopin”.
But then there are the original compositions based on motifs by Chopin.
“For example, like on ‘Letter of a Traveler,’” Arnalds explains, “I’m only taking the first bar of that piece and the left hand, and just making a completely new piece out of it which has very little to do with the original, except that one motif”.
Coincidentally, Arnalds’ Chopin project came out on the heals of a very similar recording by American pianist, Chad Lawson. In 2014 Lawson released the album, Chopin Variations.
“Yeah. That was funny,” Arnalds laughs, “We’d been in touch a few times. I’ve never met him, but we talk sometimes online. And when I first announced The Chopin Project, he actually emailed me like ‘are you serious?’ I’m working on exactly the same thing. So we ended up coordinating our releases so that they wouldn’t be released in the same week and stuff”.
Although he is an unassuming musician, Arnalds has become a ubiquitous figure in modern music to the point that he is often used as a reference in comparison to other artists. There was even a recent article on the website, A Closer Listen, called “How To Be Like Ólafur Arnalds.”
Ólafur Arnalds has definitely reached the tipping point. Over the past couple years, we’ve received dozens of press releases from artists and labels mentioning his name. Here’s a sampling of quotes (with names removed so as not to embarrass anyone).
“If you’ve ever enjoyed Ólafur Arnalds …”
“… prefigured the likes of Ólafur Arnalds …”
“… inspired by the likes of Ólafur Arnalds …”
“… sounds like Ólafur Arnalds …”
“… a similar vein to Ólafur Arnalds …”
“… recommended if you like Ólafur Arnalds …”
A similar trend is happening in film. Directors often use “temp tracks,” placing previously-recorded music in as a temporary soundtrack to get the feel of a scene, before it gets replaced with the film’s final music. That’s why so many film scores sound like Philip Glass or Thomas Newman, even if they didn’t compose them: their music had been used a placeholder, and the director had asked the composer to create something similar . Now, when Arnalds hears a temp track from a movie project, it’s often his music that’s already on there.
“Usually when I’m asked to do a score, they’ve first temped my music in there,” admits Arnalds, “For example, Broadchurch, 90% of that was temped from For Now I Am Winter and my album before that”.
Broadchurch is an acclaimed British TV series that can be seen on BBC America. This project brought Arnalds into some new musical terrain.
“Definitely, especially in the second season,” says Arnalds, “it just calls for ominous things, and drone-y things, and long drawn parts that I usually wouldn’t really write”.
Running concurrently with all these projects is something truly different, a duo called Kiasmos with Icelandic electronic composer Janus Rasmusson. Electronics have always been part of Arnalds’ music, but Kiasmos is completely wired.
“Well, he comes purely from an electronic producer background while I’m kind of the opposite,” Arnalds points out, “I also produce electronic music, but I come from a totally different background with it, so he’s bringing the rhythms and that whole approach to the table, while I’m maybe more bringing the melodic approach and the acoustic sound approach”.
In this electronic terrain, Arnalds writes differently.
“When you have a four-on-the-floor kick under everything, you write something to fit to that,” he details, “And those are different things than what you write when you don’t have, you know, a kick drum under it”.
The audience at a typical Ólafur Arnalds performance is similar to one you’d find at a classical concert: seated, quiet and attentive. But the audience for a Kiasmos concert has a different posture.
“Standing and dancing, actually,” Arnalds chuckles, “Jumping.”
Standing and dancing, or sitting and listening, Ólafur Arnalds has all the bases covered. His latest albums are the soundtrack to Broadchurch and The Chopin Project with Alice Sara Ott, both on Mercury Classics, and Kiasmos on Erased Tape Records.
Forrest Fang Fantasy Global Orchestra
Forrest Fang’s music sounds like it’s made by a global orchestra, but all of it takes place in a bedroom in his home in San Francisco’s East Bay.
“So I’ve always been a bedroom musician, I mean from the beginning,” he reveals.
When I was in Forrest Fang’s bedroom 15 years ago, I said it was dominated by five computers, synthesizers and recording gear. And that’s still pretty much the case.
“It is to some degree. I still have my DSS1 although now it’s under the bed. I do have company in this house, so she would probably not like the idea of having to wade through piles of instruments to get to the bathroom. That’s why I have some instruments in different parts of the house. But yeah, it’s basically a bedroom studio is what it is.”
Out of that bedroom comes an explosion of surreal, global sounds, a world music ensemble beyond imagination. Forrest Fang has been recording since his first cassette in 1980 and for the last 35 years, he’s been creating ambient world music soundscapes using western instruments like the violin and synthesizer, eastern instruments like the gu cheng and dan bau, gardening instruments like flowerpots and toy instruments like the Marxolin. His albums range from folkloric to deep space. Earlier this year he released an ambitious new CD that may be his most fully realized album yet. It’s called Letters to the Farthest Star.
He was trained as a violinist but Fang started to veer away when he began hearing minimalist composers.
“The strongest influence when I started as a musician is being very, very influenced by the three major pillars of minimalism — Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Terry Riley,” he says. “In fact, my second album, Some Brighter Stars, was completely created using tape delays.”
In the mid 1980s, Fang began exploring his Chinese roots and studied the gu cheng, a Chinese zither similar to the Japanese koto. This set him on a world music path that continues today. Sitting on his bed, Fang is surrounded by instruments.
“Well, I have my cheng, which takes up about the length of the bed,” he laughs. “It’s just a very big instrument, There’s my mandolin. I have a Japanese palm harp. I have the baglama. I have my cumbus which is on another piece on that album, ‘Burnt Offerings.’”
As you can tell, many of his instruments come from other countries, like the South American Banduria.
“I came across this when I was living in San Francisco in the ‘80s. Paid $7 for it at a garage sale,” Fang laughs.
It’s usually played like a guitar, but Fang plays it with mallets. “Then I have two pencils here,” he says, demonstrating the technique. “So it really sounds more like a hammered dulcimer the way I’m playing it, but I just love the overtones you get from the instrument. I make no bones about the fact I’m not playing it traditionally. I’m not native Peruvian and I don’t make any pretentions of being one.”
Then there are the instruments that are as fanciful as his music like the Marxolin, one of many instruments from the Marx Colony, designed for pure amateurs to play.
“It’s a one-stringed instrument. It’s a one of a kind thing. It’s got a body like a balalaika, and a string that just runs across the top like an erhu, and it’s got this weird metal slide. It’s built right into the strings so I don’t know what happens if a string breaks. You can basically bend the thing. It’s just like a whammy bar, but it’s just the craziest sounding thing. Like a Warner Bros. cartoon effect or something, you know, Quick Draw McGraw.”
Along with cumbus, baglamas, Kenyan flute, saron and a host of other instruments, the Marxolin makes up Forrest Fang’s global music orchestra from the other side of dreams. Virtually everything on Letter to the Farthest Star is hand played.
“I was trying to avoid sounding like the pieces were machine driven,” he reveals. “I mean everything was played by hand.” Except for those things created by computers. On a track called “Veldt Hypnosis” it sounds like an African drum ensemble. Ironically, that came from a computer program.
“The basis of that kind of the exotic mbira, xylophonic type of African sound really came from Yan Terrien who wrote the algorithm for the “Katorzer” program. It was developed in the mid ‘90s when I was really into fractal music. And he developed these really crazy programs where you basically throw in–what looked like trigonometry or algebra, he had these long equations and he would insert numbers and rough parameters, and you get these really crazy movements that that were really non-linear, not tied to any meter, nothing. And it just sounded so fascinating, and believe it or not, the xylophone part for that was generated on this program,” Fang explains.
Forrest Fang has been at the furthest edges of instrumental exotica, but on Letter to the Farthest Star he returns to his original instrument, the violin, playing it more than he has on any previous album.
“Early in my career I made more of a conscious attempt to not play it so much because I thought it was a bit of a crutch,” he confesses. I thought it would be more challenging to play these other instruments that I couldn’t play, even though I don’t have nearly the technical ability on these other instruments. I could find something interesting to say, you know, maybe like a little 2-3 minute segment or something that I could use somewhere.”
Forrest Fang’s Letter to the Farthest Star is a return to melody for this sonic explorer who has made albums that even he said were “kind of like commercial suicide maybe, I don’t know…I’d forgotten how much I missed hearing melody in acoustic instruments, in particular. I’d gotten away ffrom just purely melodic music. And it wasn’t by any design. It was just a process that I was following at the time. And I thought well, this seems like as good a time as any to try to do something that really consolidates a lot of different things I’ve done, and yet put a current twist on it so I’m not just rehashing old methods and really try to make a statement that speaks for the past and present.”
The past and present exist in the singularity of Forrest Fang’s timeless music. His latest album is Letter to the Farthest Star on Projekt Records.
~John Diliberto
Kristin Hoffman's Spiritual Space in Echoes Podcast
Hear Kristin Hoffmann’s interview above or download the podcast from iTunes.
Kristin Hoffmann was supposed to be a classical singer, but something happened on the way to the opera house. She became a singer-songwriter, releasing critically acclaimed albums like The Human Compass in 2014. I cited one song from it, “Let Go,” as one of my top ten songs of the year. But she’s gone back to her classical roots in a spacey, new age kind of way with the soundtrack to a DVD called Amazing Space. Kristin Hoffmann came into our studio to play live a while back, and we talked about music, space, chakras and the spirit.
Hoffmann has been playing piano since she was four but in her teens, she switched to operatic singing, which she studied at Juilliard.
“I just loved opera,” proclaims Hoffman. “And I really did consider following that as my main path.”
But as you can tell from her several albums, including the The Human Compass, she didn’t go that way. Instead of singing operas written by other composers, Hoffmann started writing her own tunes, and they weren’t the kind you hear at The Met.
“Once I discovered songwriting and once I discovered that there’s a whole other world as a creator, interacting with music and allowing music to be a vehicle for a deeper expression, suddenly I fell madly in love,” she says. “I really knew that that was going to be my vocational path. I put out a record during my senior year in high school. I had an-an amazing band and we recorded a full-length record called Spring Comes. And, you know, even to this day, I look back and I feel really proud about that record. It has a much more folk quality to it. I was very inspired by Joni Mitchell at the time and I still am. But I was listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell and you can definitely hear the influence in a lot of that music.”
Kristin Hoffmann is slender with brown eyes and long, flowing brown hair. Wearing a full-length black dress with elaborate embroidery and bell sleeves, she could be the picture of a 60s flowerchild. But born in 1978, she missed that era by a bit. But her parents didn’t.
“My parents were hippies,” she laughs. “Just look at their wedding picture and you can tell they were hippies.”
Hoffmann has evolved considerably as a singer-songwriter and in the process she had to lose some of her classical vocal technique.
“If you listen back to some recordings I did when I was in my very early 20s, you hear a lot more vibrato and whatnot in my regular singer-songwriter playing,” she observes. “It took me a while to really get in touch with all the different textures, and qualities, and the whisper of my voice in contrast to the full operatic belt, you know.”
There’s no denying the power in Kristin Hoffmann’s voice. She isn’t one of those ethereal girl singers and that makes her music so much more emotionally intense on her 2014 album, The Human Compass. It was written in a period emotional distress.
“Yes, The Human Compass, it came after a huge shift in my life,” she reflects. “ I had been in a very long relationship and that came to an end. And I was on my own for a while and it really was my time of tuning back into myself at a different part in my life as an individual, right, because when you’re in a long relationship, sometimes you start to identify as the couple and whatnot. So The Human Compass looks within to find the direction as opposed to a regular compass, which you look at the compass to find your direction to go out into the world–The Human Compass is kind of the reverse.” You can hear that in a song like “Let Go.”
If The Human Compass is an album born of sorrow and anguish, then Amazing Space is an album born of peace.
“Amazing Space is about expanding open into a space of pure peace, bliss, getting to the higher parts of yourself, the higher resonance of humanity, of soul, right,” she blissfully declares.
Amazing Space is a DVD film that uses animated images from the Hubble Space Telescope. Hoffman scored the soundtrack and Ralph Stevens, a film archivist, came up with the concept.
“I had an experience when I was younger, when I was 19 years old, I was climbing in South America, where I saw the night sky at 21,000 feet, and it was literally the most mind-blowing experience of my life and I always wanted to recreate that,” Stevens says with unbridled awe. He found that sense of space in the images of the Hubble Space Telescope.
“What ties in everything, the music, the images, the whole idea of the transcendental experience is the vastness of space, just how huge it is,” he explains. “I mean, you’re looking at these nebulas that are these gorgeous, like, sculptures, and to think how huge they are.”
Kristin Hoffmann plugged directly into that feeling and took it to a different, even more spiritual place. She wasn’t just thinking of stars. In Hoffmann and Steven’s conception, this was an aid toward meditation and yoga. Hoffmann has studied sound healing and in 2008 recorded a meditation album called Sol Aum, Songs of Light. On Amazing Space, Hoffman says that a song like “Elixir” lines up with the sacral chakra in the pelvis.
“So I designed it to be the first track on Amazing Space, which is kind of like birthing its way into space, right,” she explains. “So in the body, the second chakra deals with birth, deals with opening to new experiences, opening to the deeper rooted new beginnings within yourself, and then within space, this was the part of the Amazing Space film, where we first start to go out to the stars. So I thought it was the perfect alignment that we’re birthing ourselves into the cosmos, literally and figuratively.”
Amazing Space is free of lyrics except for one song, Hoffmann’s adaptation of “Amazing Grace.” She turns the gospel hymn into a chant.
“Ralph and I were talking about space,” recalls Hoffman, “and I was thinking about the soundtrack, and suddenly it was one of those spontaneous ah-ha moments. Oh, let’s do a play on words and call this Amazing Space, and then for the theme song I’m going to do a little take on ‘Amazing Grace.’ But also I designed it so it could go nicely if somebody’s doing a yoga class, and at that point I thought it would be really wonderful to bring in the style of mantra singing, which is so important to the practice of yoga. And really that hones in on the meditation aspect as well.”
Amazing Space is in perfect alignment with the spiritual nature of Kristin Hoffman’s music. It’s a sensibility that goes all the way back to her first album.
“I feel that I’ve always been very tuned into spirit, very tuned into soul,” Hoffman remarks. “And if you listen to Spring Comes, I recently listened to it for the first time in a few years, and I was really reflecting like, wow, even when I was 17, I was deeply tuning into spiritual themes and human themes of suffering, and overcoming those parts of our being that are challenging, that bring us to places of light. This has always been the main theme for me.”
Kristin Hoffmann’s latest albums are The Human Compass and the DVD Amazing Space, which comes with a DVD, CD, and blu-ray disc.You can also stream Amazing Space here.
~John Diliberto
The Sound of Deep Space & Deep Time with Robert Rich
Hear Robert Rich’s interview above or download the podcast from iTunes.
Over the course of the last 35 years, Robert Rich has created one of the most stylistically diverse and artistically centered catalogues of almost any electronic artist. From 7-hour Drone Zone expanses to driving sensually percussive melodies to a style that he calls “glurp,” they are all centered by one of the more thoughtful and cerebral aesthetics in music. Earlier this year, Rich released his album, Filaments.
When Robert Rich creates an album, his concepts are rarely simple. Take a couple of his earlier recordings, Gaudi and Geometry.
“Gaudi perhaps was a little bit of an experiment in in architecture. Geometry was more algorithmic, mathematical and the other half is more grounded,” explained Robert Rich.
Robert Rich’s latest album, Filaments, finds the veteran composer exploring further themes of science, psychology and the spirit.
“Well, it’s dealing mostly with my sense of awe and wonder at our ability to ask questions about the unseen,” expressed Rich. “Deep time, deep space, cosmology, and for me, gluing it together with the idea of the anthropic principle, which in a nutshell says that for some reason, this universe allows consciousness to exist because we’re here, so then how–we can start asking what is it about the conditions of space and time that allow us to exist. And now the seeking other planets and other life is getting so far along, we might find it in our lifetime,” said Rich.
On Filaments, that manifests in a few ways. One is the composition titles which are drawn from physics, like “Majorana.”
“Majorana”, it’s the name of an Italian physicist who theorized the kind of fermion, which is its own anti-particle, so something which is particle and its own anti-particle” says Rich. “Turns out it might help us explain what dark matter is.” Particles and anti-particles, that’s something in which only Robert Rich could find inspiration for music, but I think you might understand what he’s talking about when you hear the piece.
If you want to central casting for an intense, intellectual actor you couldn’t do better than Robert Rich. Slender with a shaved head and wire-rimmed glasses, all you need is a white lab coat to make him look like the prototypical Poindexter as he leans across his synthesizers. Born in 1963, Robert Rich initially thought science was his path.
“I studied physics and engineering when I was a freshman in college, and then I discovered that I really liked psychophysiology and that fit my brain more,” confirmed Rich.
Rich was already interested in early minimalist composers and heard the psychedelic, mind-altering effects of their music.
“Minimalists, Terry Riley and Lamont Young, try to use music as a psychoactive trigger” enthuses Rich “Many of my albums skirt around that very fond feeling I have for Terry’s music. And there’s a certain complex emotion that he somehow pulls out, this mix of joy, and wonder, and mystery and calmness. It’s a feeling that I think comes from seeking for an emotion that doesn’t have a name, that sort of ecstatic feeling.”
At the same time, Rich was hearing the space journeys of German electronic artists like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze.
“It knocked me sideways when I first heard Rubycon and Stratosfear back in the mid ‘70s. I was like in eighth grade and it was–I was already into Vangelis and things like that, so it wasn’t the first electronic music I heard. But I think what I ended up finding more inspiration from were groups like Cluster and Popol Vuh,” Rich recalled, citing a couple of even lesser known bands with sounds that are quirky (Cluster) and spiritual (Popol Vuh.)
One of the lesser-known influences on Rich was a 1972 album called The Wind Harp: Songs From the Hill. It was a recording of the wind blowing through a 30 foot tall Aeolian harp on a Vermont hilltop.
“When I was about 11-12 years old, I found an album in the cutout bin at Woolworth called Wind Harp Song from the Hill,” recalls Rich. “And I remember putting that on and it sounded like the music in my head. It was the music that I heard when I closed my eyes and I would fly on an out of body experience. I was a weird kid,” remembered Rich.
All of these experiences led Robert Rich to move from being a scientist, to being musician with a scientific mind.
“I had the sense that the only thing that I was capable of doing with my introverted personality was to try to find ways of being a 21st century shaman, and to guide people through experiences that would show them new kinds of beauty or understanding that actually made sense in a modern world,” said Rich.
That’s a lot to put on your back, but Robert Rich has been doing it for 35 years. Most musicians talk about the cosmos and questions of existence in broad and abstract terms, like when Yes’ “mountains come out of the sky and stand there.” It’s often just dressing that’s hung on their music as metaphorical context. But Robert Rich’s music actually explores things like the relationship of nucleotide sequences.
“If you take that piece “Telomere”, you know, about DNA, and you realize it’s about timing,” he says, as if explaining the obvious. “it’s about clocks, and so there’s one element, this sort of heartbeat rhythm that actually permeates the whole album. And just limiting it right down to a pulse and that pulse is like the heartbeat. And that’s our human timekeeper, isn’t it? It’s the thing that that keeps us alive, but also sort of counts the seconds,” details Rich. “And musical rhythm always ties into that heartbeat. And then the extremely fast, and medium and slower cycles of the melodies that are interlocking with each other are playing around with these experiences of time. As we focus on one thing or another thing, our mental construct of time changes, and so when the music has these multiple layers of counting, it creates the ability to shift attention from one mode of time scale to another. And that to me is a little bit like the expanding out from the heartbeat to a lifetime or to cell divisions and to the different layers of time and all the way out to the biggest to deep time and the lifetime of the universe and what a little spec, what a brief blip we are,”
Robert Rich isn’t going out of his way to make brainy electronic music. It’s just the way he sees the world.
“For me, that fragile, precarious aspect of existence is wondrous and a little scary, you know,” he says. “realizing that an errant solar flare could pretty much obliterate all of the life on this planet, you know, at any time. How completely powerless we are. And so that becomes art then. That becomes the question. When we start looking at ourselves in this precarious place, then it becomes sort of magical and then I can start coming up with ideas.”
For all his scientific and cosmic ideas, Robert Rich has created some of the most beautiful and sensually enveloping albums of the last 35 years. Rainforest, Propagation, Seven Veils, and the 7 hour long Somnium are only a few of the recordings where Rich creates elaborate worlds and microscopically detailed environments. Filaments continue that tradition. It’s has been released on Soundscape productions.
~John Diliberto
Terry Riley Turns 80!
Hear this interview in the Echoes Podcast here or download it from iTunes.
What do musicians such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass have in common? How about Brian Eno or German electronic bands like Tangerine Dream? What links rock acts like The Velvet Underground and The Who? And for that matter, what links them all to New Age artists like Kitaro? They all share the inspiration of composer, Terry Riley who turns 80 years old on June 24. He’s influenced each of these musical artists and a lot of the music you currently hear on Echoes. As he hits 80, he is as active as he’s ever been, composing compositions for the Kronos Quartet. A new collection of their music together has just been released, Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector. I’ve interviewed Terry a few times in the 1980s and early 1990s, all at his Shri Moonshine Ranch in Northern California.
Terry Riley lives tucked away in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California on his Shri Moonshine Ranch. That is where he opens the gate with cowbells on it to a vast field. The sound of his dog’s bark echoing off the mountains near his home in 1988 serves as a metaphor for Riley’s own music which has used echo, delays and looping. Yet, his career has done anything but loop. His music was birthed minimalism, charted a new course in just intonation and launched a second career as a classical composer. It all goes back to a piece he composed in 1964 called “In C.” To some contemporary ears, it might sound a bit cacophonous, but in 1968, when it was recorded, it sounded different.
“At the time I did it, I thought it was clearing things up because it seemed like music was in a real cacophonous period,” explained Riley. “You know, the early ‘60s, especially contemporary music. So ‘In C’ seemed like kind of a clear little gem, like something, you know, sparkling and bright. But I guess looking at, looking at it in the light of the more mellow New Age music, it would seem that way.”
“In C” was the ignition switch of minimalism. Even La Monte Young, the Godfather of minimalism, acknowledges Riley’s influence on the style.
“And you know Steve Reich played “In C” in California before it’s New York presentation and he used to hang out around Terry Riley and he heard Riley’s work early,” conceded Young, back in the 1980s. “Steve himself has admitted this kind of influence through Riley on him. Although I don’t think Phil Glass acknowledges any influences it’s well known that Steve and Phil had a group together.”
It all began in Paris where Terry Riley played piano on military bases. He was classically trained, jazz toned and hallucinogenically inclined. He started working with tape loops, which in the early 60s, was a new concept.
“They had primitive tape recorder, Wollensaks, you know, these old tape recorders that you could get in the ‘50s,” recalled Riley. “And we worked with those in making loops. And so that’s how I got started. Loops were the first opportunity to hear something over and over again like that.”
Daevid Allen & Terry Riley in Later years.
Daevid Allen, the late founder of the progressive rock groups, the Soft Machine and Gong, explored the world of loops with Riley.
“Yeah we are very very good friends and we met very early on,” Allen fondly recalled backstage at Nearfest in 2009. “We were both selling Herald Tribunes on the backs of motor scooters in Paris. And that was the time when he was composing ‘Mescaline Mix‘ and was working with a very adventurous dance company, during happenings and events in Paris in the early 60s.”
Allen and Riley would reputedly make tapes loops that circles the room and went out windows. “He taught me how to make tape loops, which is huge for me because that was a very important thing for me to understand the nature of, repetitive music,” said Allen. “And the trance value of it. And how when you did it live, it had yet another value and quality to it. He has always been a teacher. I have always looked up to him spiritually and musically as my guru.”
Riley compositions like “Mescaline Mix” and “Music for the Gift” used found sounds or looping orchestrations of recordings as their source materiel. It was his 1964 composition, “In C” that codified his early concepts. The piece consists of 53 short sequenced musical phrases where each phrase is played in order by any number of musicians. However, each phrase can be played as long as the musician performing it desires.
“In C,” which was my first written piece for instruments, definitely has the same feeling and does the same thing,” explained Riley. “I got a lot of feedback from my electronic work, which enabled me to conceptualize “In C.” But you can play it without the technology.”
In fact, you can play it on just about anything. There have been versions for piano orchestras, guitar orchestras, and African Ensembles. Trumpeter Jon Hassell played on the first recording of “In C” and worked with both Riley and La Monte Young. Hassell also helped mix a rendition of “In C” with the Shanghai Film Orchestra.
“It’s like a process piece in a way where, like all good ideas, they can change as the time changes and as was exemplified by this Chinese orchestra,” noted Jon Hassell. “I mean he had pipa, Chinese lutes and all sorts of strange Chinese instruments playing these patterns and it sort of breathed new life into it. So, you know it still stands as a kind of a touchstone for that whole epoch.”
“In C” led to “A Rainbow In Curved Air” and “Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band,” compositions based on Terry Riley’s looping performances on electric organ and soprano saxophone. These compositions sent a generation into mind-expanding dreams and sequencer cycles.
“I think I was probably the first person to start using a delay in live performance,” claimed Riley. “I know I was the first person to use the long-term delay between two tape recorders, like you get in “Poppy Nogood.” And then the when I was doing “Rainbow,” I always had the desire to have this short term delay, so I was for a long time I did it with a tape recorder.”
“I think that echo and all these devices which change the ambience of music are drug-like in the sense that they pull the, they pull the listener in deeper than he would get otherwise,” observed Riley, noting that “A Rainbow In Curved Air” plugged into the psychedelic spirit of the times. “They kind of create this softness that you can go into. 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. So I feel, it creates a stasis of the sound, a tape loop in that you can watch something as if it were stopped in a camera frame. And it’s repeating over and over again and you start to notice the real, the real deep details that draws the mind in also.”
Riley’s A Rainbow In Curved Air laid the groundwork for German space music bands like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, as well as Brian Eno’s ambient music. Robert Rich is a second-generation disciple of this sound.
“Terry Riley especially influenced them, you know, when he would tour with his tape loops back in the late ‘60s on Rainbow and Curved Air in 1968,” he observes.
“Absolutely transformative! Those people heard that and wanted to do that, but they didn’t have the chops that Terry had, so they used the Moog sequencer.”
Riley’s music reached popular consciousness via The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” named after him and using his cyclical techniques and Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells.
“Terry Riley…” said Mike Oldfield, drifting back a couple of decades to his teen years. “I remember when A Rainbow in Curved Air was a popular album around in that time and he had this ostinato thing going on. Yeah, I used to listen to that and in a way that influenced me with the beginning of Tubular Bells. It’s quite a simple trick. You know you hear it a lot in film scores these days, especially on piano: repetitious ostinato phrase with a hammering on the thumb.”
Underscoring all of Riley’s work are his Eastern studies in religion, philosophy and music. He, along with La Monte Young, studied extensively with Indian singer Pandit Pranath.
“I’d been interested in India as a spiritual center for years and years,” proclaimed Riley. “When I met Pandit Pranath and was able to go to India with him, I was introduced to some very high yogis who were his spirit teachers, and had a chance firsthand to see some of the things I’d seen in books or experienced in people, the kinds of people I’d been reading about. And he has taught us that music practice is as fine a way to practice religion as any. Through music you can become one with God.”
In the 1980s, Riley began moving further away from his minimalist roots. He recorded a double LP of a solo piano work called The Harp of New Albion. Played on a piano tuned in just intonation, it was by turns expansive, rhapsodic, poetic and stormy.
Well I feel with playing that piece, pretty free.” He explained. “I feel like I can go in almost any direction I want to go, that’s possible within the tuning, that is, and with the piano. Also, the piano I feel gives me a lot more liberty than I’d experienced before with electronic instruments in the sense of the way I can phrase or even orchestrate.
Kronos & Terry Riley 1985: Four people in this photo probably regret what they are wearing.
The biggest change in Riley’s career has been his association with the Kronos Quartet. The adventurous new music string ensemble has been commissioning works from the composer non-stop for 35 years. When Riley began composing for Kronos in 1980, he’d never written a string quartet before and hadn’t really written music for other ensembles. Former Kronos Cellist Joan Jeanrenaud remembers their first encounter.
“It was really nice when we first worked with him because we went up to his ranch,” she recalled fondly in her gentle Tennessee drawl. “It was a very slow process. He had these little things written on scraps of paper and we sort of put them together in some order. He also sang with us and played his keyboard and sang. He couldn’t have written anything down at first without going through that process with somebody. It actually was very revealing too and from that we learned a lot about Terry’s music than if we had just been presented with a finished score.”
“Well, he would be the first to say that his pieces for Kronos are, in his own mind, the most important works he’s notated,” maintained David Harrington, founding member and violinist with Kronos. “I always have this sense that when he’s doing something new for us, he’s mindful of what he’s done before but he’s, like, pushing himself. Like, he doesn’t want to write another “Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector” or another “Cadenza on the Night Plain,” or “Salome Dances for Peace,” or “The Cusp of Magic.” He wants to kind of bring Kronos into the area where he’s at, right at that moment.”
The results have been dozens of compositions of Terry Riley’s that Kronos has performed and recorded. Listening to the music Terry Riley has been recording with the Kronos Quartet over the last 35 years, you might not recognize him as a minimalist composer at all.
“Yeah, that’s probably, that’s probably true of me,” agrees Riley, But it’s true of probably most of the composers that have been associated with minimalism. Now, they’re all saying they don’t like the restrictions of being considered [minimalist], but this is something you get stuck with no matter what you do, you know. If you become a heavyweight champion of the world and later you become a great chef, you’re always going to be known as the heavyweight champion of the world.”
Yet whether composing for string quartet, Chinese pipa or solo keyboard, Terry Riley has become a musical world unto himself. He has outlived his own influence from 50 years ago, to become a vital composer deep into the 21st century.
“For me it’s a goal for myself to try to take the music into the highest and purest level I can, that is working itself out the truest level,” asserted Riley.
Terry Riley turned 80 on June 24. He is currently working on new music with the Kronos Quartet as well as performing solo and with his son, Gyan Riley and violinist Tracy Silverman. He’s just released a collection of his work with Kronos called Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector.
~John Diliberto
More on Terry Riley
Thoughts in Sound
Wu Man in Echoes Podcast
Hear this interview in the Echoes Podcast here or download it from iTunes.
The pipa is a Chinese lute, shaped like a teardrop with a course of deeply fretted strings that are played with fingernails. Wu Man is the Yo-Yo Ma of this instrument. And she’s played with the renowned cellist among many American and Asian composers and musicians, bringing the ancient Chinese instrument into the 21st century. At this year’s Big Ears Festival, Wu Man played with the Kronos Quartet, performing Terry Riley’s Cusp of Magic and a solo set. In her Knoxville hotel, Wu Man took me on a pipa journey.
When Wu Man came to America some 25 years ago, there weren’t a lot of places where she could play the pipa, the ancient Chinese lute of which she is a master.
“I think I was very brave,” Wu Man laughs, “Cause when I left China, all my friends asked like what are you doing there? You know, you play this Chinese instrument, you’re not a pianist. And what are you gonna do? That was very challenging, but I’m really fortunate when I look back 25 years and now I’m still playing this instrument”.
A diminutive, delicately beautiful woman with stylishly bobbed black hair, Wu Man becomes part of her instrument when she sits it on her lap, bending her body around its teardrop shape.
“It is part of my body,” she expresses, “I think that’s the only way you can, not only can control the instrument, but you can express. That’s like your extension, your body extension”.
Wu Man has done more than just play pipa. She’s created a western home for it in contemporary music, performing compositions by minimalist composers and collaborating with folk musicians and world music ensembles. Some of her most renowned work has been with the Kronos Quartet.
“For me, not only is Wu Man one of the great instrumentalists of our time, she also is a very generous musician,” proclaims violinist David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet. “She’s not restricted by a viewpoint from this conservatory, this tradition. She’s kind of interested in the expanse of Chinese culture. So I’ve come to think of her as my best window into the culture of a billion people”.
Wu Man has been part of several Kronos Quartet projects including, Soul written by Chinese composer Zhou Long and Ghost Opera, written by another Chinese composer, Tan Dun.
And then, “About ten years later, Terry Riley was at the San Francisco performance of Ghost Opera,” says Harrington.
That resulted in Terry Riley composing The Cusp of Magic for Wu Man and Kronos. Riley’s compositions have subtexts of Indian music and jazz, and he brought the pipa to a different place.
“A lot of Indian music inference,” explains Wu Man, “Like a sitar and a lot of passages are like jazz guitar, which never happened on pipa before”.
Wu Man didn’t come to this musical freedom easily. She was a child during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when traditional culture was prohibited in favor of revolutionary propaganda songs. That lasted until 1976 when Wu Man was 13.
“When I started to play pipa in the late ‘70s,” she reflects, “ a lot of traditional pieces weren’t allowed to be played publicly. Mostly we played revolution songs publicly, but we could learn privately. So that’s actually how we learned the traditional music”.
Western music was considered blasphemy against the revolution, except underground. But she made up for lost time when she moved to America in 1990. She had an easy affinity for western music. She says when she heard the blues on the radio, she thought it was Chinese.
“Yes, I heard it on the radio and I wondered, ‘that’s Chinese music! Wow! It’s playing on the radio’”, she hoots, “And I listened closer and realized ‘Oh, that’s blues’”.
With a pipa on her lap, she goes to the Mississippi Chinese delta, bending notes like a blues guitarist.
“The technique of the pipa, the left-handed vibrato, bending notes, that’s what really kind of makes blues,” she explains..
Work with Kronos Quartet, Philip Glass and Lou Harrison came in quick succession when she arrived in America. She’s also an original member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, a global music fusion that celebrates 15 years together.
Last year Wu Man released the album, Our World in Song with Hawaiian slack key guitarist Daniel Ho and percussionist Luis Conte. It’s a deceptively deep dive on children’s classic songs from around the world. Among the surprising arrangements on the album is a meditative take on “Frere Jacques.” Wu man says the French song has a doppelgänger in China.
“So Frere Jacques in Chinese is Liang Zhi Lao Hu,” she explains, “It means two tigers, but it’s the same song, but just different lyrics. I grew up with that song. If you sing that in China, everyone will know”.
There isn’t much left for Wu Man to do except plug in, and she’s done that too.
“I did!” she exclaims, “I actually did! I have an electronic pipa with me in my home. I have that because I had a project through the Kronos Quartet, it’s called A Chinese Home. So in one section, which is all electronic music, my pipa is plugged in”.
They haven’t recorded A Chinese Home yet, but there is a short clip of Wu Man goofing on Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” during a sound check. Tony Iommi has nothing to worry about but it shows how far Wu Man has come from playing revolutionary songs. She has traveled as far musically as she has geographically and it has changed her approach to the pipa.
“I wouldn’t say changed, but definitely I have my own musical language,” she ponders, “my own style because I learned from other cultures. Even when I play traditional pieces, you can hear the difference. I feel like I’m much richer”.
Wu Man’s latest albums include, Elegant Pipa Classics and Our World in Song and she’s also currently performing Pipa Concerto No. 2 written for her by Zhou Jiping.
~John Diliberto
Rebekka Karijord's Priests and Poets.
Listen to this interview above or download from itunes.
Earlier this year we saw the U.S. release of Rebekka Karijord’s 2012 album, We Become Ourselves. She came over from her home in Sweden to play live and talk about her music and life.
If you hear a church like quality in some of Rebekka Karijord’s music, there’s a reason for that.
“My stepfather was a priest and I grew up singing a lot,” Karijord recalled, “I had my own key to his church up in northern Norway, and I could go and play the church organ whenever I wanted to. So I wrote some songs up there when I was younger. But I think I came back to that kind of sonic universe because when I wrote We Become Ourselves. I was in a very existential period of my life”.
Appropriately, perhaps, the first track on the album is called “Prayer”.
“The album was written when I lived up in the nature outside Stockholm, and I had a little cabin,’ she reminisces, looking back 4 years. “It was in a period where that was quite existential for me and I think ‘Prayer’, maybe you can call it religious, but with nature as the religion and human body as the church. And it’s a prayer for something to last, a relationship or something like a safety or a pureness to be kept intact.”
Karijord coupled this sentiment with music that has the elevating fervor of gospel. She explains, “In this record I really wanted to make something that was almost like influenced by the old blues, you know, slave songs…something like really physical…the mantra to get into the body in a way”.
Sitting at a grand piano at Echoes, Rebekka Karijord looks younger than her nearly 40 years. She has long auburn hair and wearing a black print kimono jacket over a sleeveless blouse. She didn’t come to music until late in her career. Acting was her initial profession.
“I was an actor when I was younger as well,” she added, “I studied both music and acting and I went to the National Academy of Acting in Sweden. And I was acting in films since I was 12 to 30-ish. And then I felt okay, I’ve done this now and I’m done with it. I didn’t want to do it anymore. And then music took over”.
The spirit of song was already there. Her birth father had been a musician and even though her parents had separated when she was only three, Karijord stayed in contact with him through music.
“My dad was a fantastic musician when he was young,” she recalled, “but he suffered from a drug addiction, so he was away. I grew up with my super steady mom and had a nice upbringing in that regard, but him and the music became something that formed my personality in a way. And when I was older, I inherited all his lyrics. He gave them to me. So I started to send tapes to him, and we sent tapes back and forth and in an indirect way he kind of gave me music without realizing”.
It’s hard to think that this experience isn’t part of her album, We Become Ourselves, especially songs like “Save Yourself”. Her father wasn’t the only man who inspired many of the songs on We Become Ourselves. The album was actually created when she fell in love.
“I had fallen in love very profoundly, maybe for the first time, and it was something that came out of that. There was sort of an existentialism. It was like finding a connection to nature, and a connection to my own mortality and my timeline, in a way, and I wanted to express that in music”.
These are not simple love songs. “Oh Brother” is an ode and a lament for men who have been in her life, but not in the way you might expect.
“It’s an ode to all the amazing men I have around me that are struggling in their man role in these modern times,” she says. “It’s to the fathers, and the brothers, and the friends and the lovers and all of those who really are trying their best. I mean of course, I’m a feminist, but first and foremost I’m a humanist and I think we have to acknowledge that we all have the same needs deep down. There’s a sentence in the song saying ‘If I ever had a son, I’d teach him it’s okay to cry’.”
Rebekka Karijord’s church upbringing also plays into the final song on her album, a piece inspired by the tragedy of the 2011 Norwegian terrorist attacks on a government building and a children’s camp. Although Karijord lives in Sweden, she was born and raised in Norway and it hit close to home.
“It’s called “Bandages” and it’s the one where the boys choir is really present. And I was in the middle of recording and I opened the news in my laptop. And I couldn’t continue. Because it was so close, you know. I knew people there. And so I wrote this song and it felt like a good ending, like it’s kind of a prayer as well”.
Although Rebekka Karijord doesn’t act anymore, films called her back, this time as a composer.
“My film contacts and my theater contacts and my modern dance, everything I’d been working with as an actor, they were still there,” she enthuses. “ And they heard the music that I did and they wanted me to try to compose for films and so it slowly has evolved”.
She’s composed for dozens of film, TV and theater works and last year released an all-instrumental album of her scores called appropriately, Music for Film and Theater. Her scores tend to be much more avant-garde in sound.
“I love researching sonic universes,” she muses, “When you don’t use your voice in that same way it just opens up all these possibilities”.
Rebekka Karijord lives in a world of possibilities. She had a baby girl shortly after recording We Become Ourselves and she’s currently working on a project using only women’s voices. Her latest albums are We Become Ourselves and Music for Film and Theatre, both on Control Freak Kitten Records.
Listen to this interview at the top of this post or download from itunes.
Angela Sheik Brings It On In Echoes Podcast
Angela Sheik is a compelling 21st century singer-songwriter who doesn’t just sit at a piano or play a guitar. With live looping, she creates her own elaborate orchestrations using those instruments plus autoharp, theremin, flute and whatever else she can get her hands on. Her album, Home Before Dark, is a miraculous construction of provocative, sometimes humorous songs where she tackles themes of romance, religion and hardship. It’s all built around her theatrical approach, often drawing comparisons to Kate Bush as she layers her voice into soothing choirs and Andrews Sisters style choruses. Angela Sheik talks about music, life and looping.
Hear it in the Echoes Podcast below, or download it from iTunes. If you like it, leave a review there.