In the cooling nights of autumn, we return to the treasury of music on the German ECM Records label. For quality, consistency, and unity of vision, ECM has no peer. In the post-genre, trans-cultural world of ECM, the motto is "The Most Beautiful Sound Next to Silence." It began in 1969 as Editions of Contemporary Music, focused on European jazz. In the course of over 1200 albums, the repertoire has broadened to include classical music both old and new on the ECM New Series, as well as innovative recordings of contemporary folk, world and experimental music. Yet for all the breadth, depth and variety of the ECM repertoire, there are sonic and emotional streams that run through the entire catalog, the product of the refined sensibility and native perfectionism of ECM founder and producer MANFRED EICHER. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, the introspective, atmospheric sound of ECM Records, on a program called RUMINATIONS. Music is by ELENI KARAINDROU, JOHN SURMAN, MIROSLAV VITOUS & JAN GARBAREK, EBERHARD WEBER, and EIVIND AARSET. [ view playlist ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

If you're feeling masochistic, turn on the unrelenting stream of disaster, tragedy, and malfeasance that passes for "news" in these troubled times. Is it any wonder that each year at the end of October we celebrate a Celtic and medieval Christian holiday haunted by death, decay, and supernatural dark spirits? For ambient musicians, it's a time for deep drones, disembodied voices, melancholy wailing, gloomy strings, and a dark galaxy of electronic and environmental effects. On this Halloween transmission of Hearts of Space, we embrace the gathering gloom with a program of cathartic dark ambient atmospheres called...OMINOUS. Music is by SOUND PHENOMENON, ATRIUM CARCERI, GEORGE WALLACE, MONOCUBE, TOM JENSEN, MYUU, SUSPERIA-ELECTRICA, and SOUNDING THE DEEP. [ view playlist ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

Autumn brings transformations both subtle and powerful. The shadows lengthen as the focus of the sun moves south below the equator. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we now experience rapid seasonal climate change on top of slow global climate change. It's a transition marked by familiar changes in temperature, color, and activity in the natural world, disrupted by increasingly extreme weather events. For ambient musicians, it's a time for complex tone colors burnished with glints of silver and gold, bittersweet harmonies, descending progressions, and gently melancholy emotions. On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE, we transition to the darkening electro-acoustic soundscapes of autumn, on a program called SHADOWLANDS 2. Music is by MYCHAEL DANNA & TIM CLÉMENT, STEVE ROACH & MICHAEL STEARNS, MIGUEL NOYA, CLIFF MARTINEZ, ALEX HAAS, and LISA BELLA DONNA. [ view playlist ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

The dulcet tones of the Native American cedar flute have inspired a soothing sub-genre of contemplative music. Pioneered by native musicians from the American Southwest, over the last 30 years the genre has attracted non-native musicians, who expanded into electronics and exotic percussion. It's a sound we enjoy in the fall, when it complements the mellow light and withering colors of the landscape, and evokes the vast, echoing canyons of the high desert. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, an Indian Summer journey for Native American cedar flute, on a program called TWILIGHT EARTH 4. Music is by ANN LICATER, COYOTE JUMP, COYOTE OLDMAN, BYRON METCALF, JOHNNY WHITEHORSE, PAMELA WHITMAN & RICH KURTZ, TONY GERBER, MYSTERIES OF THE NIGHT, and SCOTT AUGUST. [ view program page ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

The powerful creative stimulus that came with the first wave of popular electronic instruments was nowhere more intense than Germany in the early 1970s. In Berlin, a young drummer named KLAUS SCHULZE began working with early electronic instruments. He was a founding member of important bands like ASHRA and TANGERINE DREAM, but soon went solo with a series of groundbreaking albums that established a cosmic sound and a musical language that's still influential today—combining native electronic ornaments, trancey sequencer rhythms, and electronic string lines inspired by his hero, RICHARD WAGNER. On this transmission of Hearts of Space we're back in our comfort zone, with another classic spacemusic journey called COSMIC ELECTRONIC 3. Music is by KLAUS SCHULZE, COSMIC REPLICANT, EXTRAWORLD, JUTA TAKAHASHI, NIMANTY, DREAMSTATE LOGIC, SPACECRAFT, and JONN SERRIE. [ view playlist ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

Like sopranos, the violins get all the attention. The violas, famously, get ignored. But of all the orchestral string instruments, the real star is the cello. In its low range, it anchors the string section; as a solo instrument, it soars with a beautifully lyrical singing voice; while in the studio, its four octave range is a compact string orchestra in one instrument. So for range, tone, versatility, and expression, the cello is unsurpassed — and it sounds especially right in the fall. On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE from longtime guest producer for classical and sacred music ELLEN HOLMES, we follow the cello to the emotional heart of autumn, on a program called CELLO ELEGIES. Music performed by 2CELLOS, STJEPAN HAUSER, MICHAEL HOPPÉ & MARTIN TILLMAN, JULIAN LLOYD WEBBER, YO-YO MA, JACQUELINE DU PRE, SHEKU KANNEH-MASON, MATHEW BARLEY, BARRY PHILLIPS, FRETWORK, and JORDI SAVALL & HESPERION XXI. [ view playlist ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

The transition to autumn is marked by shorter days, cooler nights, and deepening colors. As the sun drops inexorably lower in the sky here in the northern hemisphere, the natural world begins the transformation to a colder, darker season scented with "the perfume of decay." In music, the complex tones and smoky timbres of the woodwind family—the oboe, English horn, clarinet, and bassoon—bring a sonic analog of the changing atmosphere. Writer MARIA POPOVA calls it "a bewildering harmonic of the transcendent and the transient." On this transmission of Hearts of Space, autumnal ambient for woodwinds and electronics, on a program called AUTUMN WINDS. Music is by RUSSEL WALDER, DEBORAH MARTIN & JILL HALEY, ALTUS, ANDREW LAHIFF, and MAX RICHTER. [ view playlist ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

This week we pass through one of the yearly waypoints on our journey around the sun. The Autumnal Equinox, with day and night of equal length, marks the start of the Fall season in many countries. As the air cools and the shadows lengthen here in the Northern Hemisphere, it's a good time to return to the sublime world of the contemplative piano. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a program of solos and duets, acoustic and electronic keyboards and rare ambiences called PIANOSPHERES. Music is by KJETIL BJERKESTRAND, RALPH ZURMUHLE, HAROLD BUDD, LUDOVICO EINAUDI, BRUNO SANFILIPPO, DAVE EGGAR, RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, KETIL BJORNSTAD & DAVID DARLING. [ view playlist ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

Over the last 30 years, the gentle world of Indian devotional music has been updated and transformed by an international group of ambient musicians. Inspired by this venerable heart-centered tradition, often working with authentic Indian musicians, they've stretched the boundaries and expanded the atmospheres of the genre with electronic drones, echoes and reverberations, overdubs, and studio magic. Slow, deep, and meditative, you don't have to know anything about Indian music or religion to enjoy it. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, ambient excursions in Indian devotional music—on a program called DEVOTION 2. Music is by HANS CHRISTIAN, GARY STROUTSOS & STEVIN McNAMARA, BEN LEINBACH, CRAIG PRUESS & ANURADHA PAUDWAL, MARK SEELIG, and AL GROMER KHAN. [ view playlist ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

Across the spectrum of Ambient, Electronic, New Classical and New Age music we find a common metaphor: the journey. It's music for virtual travel, for progressive ascent towards a goal, arrival at an apex, descent, and return. New York composer ZENON MARKO has given classic architectural form to the experience by making it rigorously symmetrical. His album SYMMETRY, he says, "is a musically symmetrical journey — whether physical, intellectual, imaginary, emotional, psychological, or spiritual." As if serious music wasn't already difficult enough, the entire album is symmetrical, with the descending sections as actual reverses of the ascents. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, the power of form, and the powerful sound of heroic ambient electronics, on a program called SYMMETRY. Music is by ZENON MARKO, SENSUALISM, KEVIN KELLER, CHRONOTOPE PROJECT, HAMMOCK, MAX RICHTER, and TOM EATON. [ view playlist ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]