PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast

Echoes Podcast; Nathan Speir-From the Basement to the Heavens: The Echoes Interview

On Echoes we often have big name artists. Just recently John McLaughlin, BT, Moby and Ladytron have graced the show. But we support lesser known artists with the same enthusiasm, artists who aren’t out in the world and in the case of Nathan Speir, making music in his basement.  He’s an eclectic player who started out on his grandmothers distressed upright piano, but heard electronic sounds:

Nathan Speir: I would just imagine, boy, if I had a synthesizer right now, like some of these people I like, this must be what it feels like. And so I just kind of spaced out on some of those sustained notes sometimes.

He’s an eclectic musician influenced equally by Windham Hill pianists like George Winston and electronic artists like Steve Roach.His music ranges from pure electronic, to solo piano, to ambient chamber music. His latest album is Over Earth Under Stars. Nathan Speir talks about his music and the spiritual search it embodies in the Echoes Podcast

Hear it on Echoes On-Line right now or whenever you want!

Be sure to support Echoes NOW during our Summer Fund Drive. Artists like Nathan Speir are depending on it! Do it right HERE.

Echoes Podcast: The Complete BT Interview

We recently featured the artist known as BT on Echoes and in the podcast.  But the whole interview was so engaging that we’re going to give you the entire interview here. BT, aka Brian Transeau, is a polymath who gets into the code of his music. Alongside his more rhythm-driven releases, he has a string of more atmospheric, experimental works that began with This Binary Universe. He’s recently released the 4th album in this series, The Secret Language of Trees, and although it’s forest-inspired, it’s not a pastoral romp. When we talk to BT about his new album, it’s not just about music, but also nature, technology, literature and more.

Echoes Podcast: Amaara's Amazing Technicolor Dream Trauma: The Echoes Interview

Amaara is actress Kaelen Ohm. She’s been in some recent TV series including the short-lived Hit and Run (Netflix) and the horror series, From (MGM+). That one just concluded its second season. Amaara is actually Ohm’s middle name. In between filming and during the pandemic she managed to create a statement album called Child of Venus, and it’s as personal in its lyrics as it is inventive sound design. The album is Echoes CD of the Month for July.  Amaara takes us on the album’s journey when she talks about loss, betrayal, psilocybin healing and psychedelic sounds.

Read John Diliberto’s review of Amaara’s Child of Venus.

Robert Rich's Asian Journey and A Produce Remembered in Echoes Podcast

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 talk all about it on Echoes from PRX.

Hear it on Echoes Online Right Now!

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

ROBERT RICH FEATURE PLAYLIST

Robert Rich – Shadow Mist Beneath –Travelers’ Cloth

We look back at A Produce. That was the moniker of Barry Craig. Under the name of A Produce, he made  an ethereal brand of techno-tribal ambiences across the 90s and into the 2000s. He died young in 2011.Craigstarted out as a guitarist and even made records with a mid-80s new wave group called After Image. That music was far from the sounds he created a A Produce. And he looked different, completely hairless.  He cut a striking figure, but it wasn’t a fashion statement. He had Alopecia.   His music is being reissued so Echoes goes back to our 1996 interview with Craig.

Hear it tonight on the air or at Echoes Online Right Now!

Read John Diliberto’s updated obituary for A Produce.

BT Finds Electronic Grooves in Nature: The Echoes Podcast

The artist known as BT, not to be confused with BTS, is a polymath who gets into the code of his music. Among his more rhythm-driven releases, he has a string of more atmospheric, experimental works that began with This Binary Universe. He’s just released the 4th album in this series, The Secret Language of Trees, and although it’s forest-inspired, it’s not a pastoral romp. When we talk to BT about his new album, it’s not just about music, but also nature, technology, literature and more.

BT – Meet Her In The Mines – The Secret Language of Trees

Echoes Podcast: Whipped Cream & Other Delights: The Echoes Interview

It’s Whipped Cream and other delights in the Echoes Podcast. Well really, just Whipped Cream. And no, I’m not referring to the 1965 album by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass with that suggestive cover. I’m talking about the moniker of Caroline Cecil who makes downtempo electronic music as Whipped Cream. She went from being a competitive figure skater to professional DJ. Her new EP, Someone You Can Count On, chronicles her woes in electronic moods.

Whipped Cream: If someone doesn’t know how much you wanted something, and it’s just taken away from you, or tragedy, trauma, you know, things like this have happened in my life. People I loved walking away, not who I thought they were, being used by people in the industry, just a lot of that.

Whipped Cream. We I stir it up with her in the Echoes Podcast.

Whipped Cream – Lil Gypsy – Law of Attraction

Echoes Podcast: Shakti Reborn Again-The Echoes Interview with John McLaughlin

In the Echoes Podcast, guitarist 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 it on Echoes Online Right Now!

Shakti – Fact to Face – Natural Elements

Echoes Podcast: Pregnancy, Motherhood and Nature with Shana Cleveland: The Echoes Interview

If you follow the outskirts of alternative rock, you may have run across the band, La Luz. They specialize in a surf-influenced brand of sometimes-dreamy rock. The lead singer and guitarist in the group is Shana Cleveland. She’s been nurturing a quieter solo career, creating more introspective music with dreamier, more detailed settings for her lyrics. In 2023 she released her third album, Manzanita.  She talks about the personal stories behind her enchanting new album and her approach to twang guitar in the Echoes Podcast.

Echoes Podcast: Caterina 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 just released her new album, Myuthafoo. At Big Ears Festival 2023, we caught up with Caterina Barbieri after her stellar live performance. Hear it in the Echoes Podcast.

Read John Diliberto’s review of Big Ears Festival 2023 and Caterina Barbieri’s performance.

Caterina Barbieri Feature Playlist

Caterina Barbieri – Canticle of Cryo – Spirit Exit

Echoes Podcast: The Dream Pop Dynasty of Delerium - The Echoes Interview

We enter a hallucinogenic state when we talk with Delerium, the long-lived Canadian dream pop duo. They emerged out of the industrial rock of Front Line Assembly in 1987 and have run in parallel in a perfect yin & yang of noise and serenity. We’ll talk to founder Bill Leeb and longtime collaborator Rhys Fulber about their electronic approach to pop, and working with some of the more heavenly vocalists on the planet, including Sarah McLachlan, Mimi Page, Kristy Thirsk, and Leigh Nash. They recently released the album, Signs.    

DELERIUM FEATURE PLAYLIST