Interview Podcast – Echoes

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 some have slipped into the New Age, Electronic, and Contemporary Instrumental categories. You’ll definitely never see these musicians on The People’s Choice Awards and many of them aren’t “hip” enough for rankings like the old Pazz & Jop Poll of the Village Voice. These are musicians in electronic, ambient, world music, neo-classical, solo piano and meditation worlds. Many of them are independent artists releasing their own music. Some, like White Sun, Sangeeta Kaur and Deva Premal, come from spiritual backgrounds more than musical ones. But The ZMR Awards, voted on by DJs who report to the Zone Music Reporter, a New Age music trade website, puts these artists at center stage.

This year’s awards were given out this past weekend, on May 18, at the annual Zone Music Awards Show in New Orleans. As usual, there were surprises, disappointments and for me, who cares winners.

Jeff Oster’s Reach also picked up Album of the Year Honors, beating out a surprisingly much weaker field, except for Erik Scott’s A Trick of the Wind.

In the Best Instrumental Acoustic category, pickings were also a little thinner. This category lends itself to quiet, polite music and that’s pretty much the way voters went, nominating the laid back guitar of Don Latarski’s “River”, Michael Kollwitz’s Serenity II: More Peaceful music for Chapman Stick (the title says it all); and Michelle Qureshi’s classically inclined solo guitar Short Stories. Only Jamie Bonk’s rhythm-enlivened, driving acoustic guitar album, Who Said It Was Easy, deviated from the formula. The win went to Ryan Judd’s album of guitar and cello duets, An Open Sky. It’s pleasant and well-mannered, like afternoon tea.

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 give him a more atmospheric sound. You can hear it on his serene new album, Re:Piano.  We talk to Chad Lawson about reinventing the piano in the Echoes Podcast. You can also catch Chad Lawson's live Echoes performance streaming now.

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. His latest album is Goes West. We talk with William Tyler in the Echoes Podcast. After the podcast, go hear William Tyler playing live on Echoes, streaming now on demand.

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 that much, did you? The whole me writing lyrics thing?

LR: I didn’t like it, no.  It was a real tricky one, yeah, I think that was a big part of almost splitting up and "The Secret of Letting Go," actually, was about lyric writing and stuff.

Through conflict comes the bliss of Lamb's The Secret of Letting Go We counsel Andy Barlow and Lou Rhodes of Lamb in the Echoes Podcast.

In 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 way, she’s also supported musicians like Rufus Wainwright and Chris Botti. Rachel thinks she's bringing the "weird" notes into pop. We talk to Rachel Eckroth about getting weird on Echoes.

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 drugs, loss and rebirth, with some of his best music in years. We probe UNKLE in the 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 with retro-futurist sound design and beautiful, kinetic baroque melodies. We bundle up to talk with Kevin Keller about “Ice Worlds” on Echoes.

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 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 from an obscure but compelling movie about time travel. She explores dark terrain and a cover of a Beach Boys song on her debut album, Novelty.

Then we remember Gert Van Santens of the Dutch electronic/multi-media trio Wave World. This group created their own sci-fi fantasy complete with its own language and turned it into roaring, sequencer forays. They performed on Echoes in 2001.  Gert Van Santens took his final ride to Wave World last week. We go back to a great interview with them from their 2001 American tour.

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 think he's a total genius. I mean that guy is so amazing." Saul Stokes comes in to talk with us about a different mode of electronic music making heard on his latest album, Expansion,  in the Echoes Podcast.