Idyllic Music Podcast | Trip Hop - Downtempo - Electronica

This week, it's the many flavors of America's great art form. Jazz. For more than a century this style of music has refused strict categorization. From Bop to Rag, Funk to Swing the cool sounds of Jazz are always mixing with and attaching itself to other genres. Today the polyrhythms, syncopation, and blue notes blend seamlessly with electronic beats, bass and melody.

This week we'll try unlikely pairings. Nowhere are they more readily accepted than in music. When Joe Venuti's violin first played jazz, or Kraftwerk hit the top of the charts with computer music, listeners nodded and said "Yeah'. When Kate Bush brought the mystery of Eastern European harmonies to the west or the Beatles covered Little Richard new rock n' roll music, the world got a bit smaller, less separate and more inclusive.

This week, it's feedback and reverb, the mathematics of sound and physics of music. Looking into this super symmetry are Way, The Stringed Theory, postscript, Roll Film and Ronan Dec.

This week, we'll look at artists in exile. Not those forced from their homes through political or legal turmoil but the more romantic expatriation of the kind envisioned by Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene. The 'Lost Generation', living in hotels, on allowance and awaiting inspiration. Finding their muse this week are Azoora, Kesakoo, My Toys Like Me, Juliet Hotel, Darren Scott Nesbit and The Chill Conspiracy.

This week, we'll examine the creative process. Painter Kimberly Brooks offers up and octet of stages of which six match the songs on this episode of Idyllic Music. They are Vision and Hope. Excitement, Clarity, Obsession and Resolution. Look for these in music of Screenatorium, Lasswell, Synthetic, Electric Hippies, Fauna and Endlos.

This week, we'll look at the tension created when fashion comes full circle. As Massive Attack's Tricky points out you have "A dread of the past and fear of the future. You're brand new, You're retro" Finding that singular point for us on the edition of Idyllic Music are Polished Chrome, Return To Mono, Letters In Numbers and Cassettes Won't Listen.

This week we'll spotlight mendacity. There was a time, not long ago, when you could assume a benchmark of truthfulness. Not from everyone or about everything but you could feel fairly secure in the notion that you weren't being lied to about the big things, all the time, with a straight face. Exploring the sad state of this tendency to lie are Trifonic, QuiOui, the silk demise, Orange Crush, DRT, Humus Luminus-Quinslonn and Tacet.

This week, we'll look at ruins and relics. Places long abandoned for more promising prospects. Whether ancient or post-modern they recall a measure of greatness that evokes more sadness than nostalgia. Leading our tour on this episode of Idyllic Music are Steric Hindrance, NeiLicis, Clear Plastic, Rude Corps, Sardinia Bass Legalize and Electric Salmon.

This week we'll explore the edge of the world. A point on the horizon that marks the end of what is known and all that lies beyond. It's a gray, ill-defined area that defies the usual measurements. Making concerted efforts to try this week are The Uberkids, The Artificial Sea, Monotronaut, Dive Index, onkgusD, Stabilizer and Schev.

This week, we'll feature the music of the Orb. Of all the bands that inspired us and helped formulate the scope of this program, it was The Orb's determination to move the mind as well as the hips. Blending the pioneering electronica of Tangerine Dream and the beats of Chicago's warehouse scene with the deep dub of Scratch Perry and Byrne and Eno's Bush of Ghosts sampling, The Orb remain a central pillar of today's electronic music.