PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast

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 – Journey to the Underworld – Afterlife

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

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

Deborah Martin & Jill Haley's Ambient Chamber Space Music: The Echoes Interview

Neo-Classical meets electronic space on Echoes when John Diliberto talks to wind and piano player Jill Haley and electronic artist Deborah Martin. Jill is known for her decades-long work with the acoustic fusion group, One Alternative, multiple recording sessions on the productions of Windham Hill Records founder Will Ackerman, and her own series of National Park-themed neo-classical albums. Deborah is a founder of Spotted Peccary Music and an electronic/ambient musician with a deep catalog and collaborations with the likes of Erik Wøllo and Dean Debenedictus a.k.a Surface 10.. They’ve released their second collaboration Into the Quiet. We hear the quiet talk of Jill Haley and Deborah Martin in the Echoes Podcast

Deborah Martin & Jill Haley Feature Playlist

Artist – Title – Album

Moby's Complete 2011 Echoes Interview: Echoes Podcast

Moby at his Drum Machine Wall. pic: Diliberto

Today, I’ve got another extended Echoes Podcast for you. We’re going to hear from Moby. I’ve interviewed him about 7 times, most recently in the spring of this year. But I wanted to go back to one of my early interviews from 2011. This was the second time I spoke to Moby and it was when his album, Destroyed was released. It was the second of what I considered to be a trilogy of more organic and introspective albums that began with Wait for Me and ended with Innocents. At something of a turning point for Moby, we looked back across his career. We spoke in his condo in the NoHo neighborhood New York City on Mott Street where he was living at the time. You’ll hear us talking a lot about his equipment and drum machine wall. All of that has gone since he moved to Los Angeles. Destroyed was Echoes CD of the Month that May as was its predecessor Wait for Me and the next album, Innocents. We talked a lot about those, about his early career, spirituality and Christianity.  Moby’s latest album is Resound NYC, the follow-up to his 2021 album Reprise, both of which revisit Moby’s music with new performances.

Hear Moby’s 2023 Interview

Mimi Page's Sound Healing Dream Pop in Echoes Podcast: The Echoes Interview

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. John Diliberto talks with Mimi Page on Echoes from PRX.

MIMI PAGE FEATURE PLAYLIST

Artist – Title – Album

Echoes Podcast II: In the Moment with John McLaughlin: The Complete Echoes Interview

Several weeks ago we presented you with our produced interview featuring guitarist John McLaughlin. In the Echoes Podcast, we now give you the complete interview. John McLaughlin comes in to talk about Shakti and improvisation. He explains how improvisation is related to meditation, putting you in a state of not thinking, but being in the moment, In the 1970s, McLaughlin followed-up the electric fury of the Mahavishnu Orchestra with the acoustic Indian fusion of Shakti. Now he returns with a new edition of this legendary group and a new album, This Moment.  McLaughlin talks about world fusion, gurus, and his long friendship with Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain.

Hear the original produced podcast with music here.

Echoes Podcast: Ambiences from the Heartland: SUSS & Balmorhea: The Echoes Interviews

The Ambient Country band SUSS struggles with loss and finds a way to be reborn. After co-founding member Gary Lieb died, they had to reevaluate not only their existence, but their sound. Their new double album, SUSS, tracks their journey from union to loss to renewal.  John Diliberto talks to SUSS about hidden rhythms, loss, and where the twang went on Echoes from PRX. See the playlist for their feature below.

Balmorhea was one of the early bands who we called ambient Americana chamber music. Hailing originally out of Austin Texas, they had that wide open plains sound, but set in a classical mood. They’ve been favorites on the show since we discovered their defacto debut album, Rivers Arms in 2008, released on the adventurous Western Vinyl label. The classical was already becoming more dominant by the time they signed to the venerable German label, Deutsche Grammophon. They released their debut there, The Wind, in 2021 and this year put out their second release, Pendant World. We talk to founders Rob Lowe and Michael Muller tonight on Echoes from PRX.

SUSS FEATURE PLAYLIST

Artist – Title – Album

BALMORHEA FEATURE PLAYLIST

Artist – Title – Album

Chinese Poets and Surreal Sound: Robert Rich-The Complete Echoes Interview

Robert Rich is the 11th of 30 Icons of Echoes and has been a fixture on the show from the first day. He’s a polymath who is not only adept at many instruments but many other disciplines.  They include audio recording and mastering, wine making and dream theory. He writes poetry, seriously, and he creates beautifully abstract, often primal paintings that you can buy on his website. He’s an artist of questing intellectualism, which is what brought him to the poetry of Tu Fu from the Chinese Tang Dynasty. His Zen-like poems, translated by David Hinton, compelled Rich to create the sensual, ethereal moods of his album, Travelers’ Cloth. But there’s more than that, including Rich’s youthful hippie, techno-futurism, his current anti-humanism and rain drops falling on his head. We heard his shorter Echoes feature a few weeks ago. This is the complete interview.

Read John Diliberto’s CD of the Month review of Robert Rich’s Travelers’ Cloth

The Echoes Summer Fund Drive is On.