PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast

Psychedelic Dreams in Dystopia: The Black Angels Echoes Interview in Echoes Podcast

Black Angels descend on the next Echoes. The Black Angels are a psychedelic band out of Austin Texas, who sound like they mainlined the Nuggets collection of 60s garage rock from the first Psychedelic Era. But there’s more than hallucinogens to this long-lived band who tackle political and social themes amidst a delirious onslaught of feedback, fuzztone and reverb. John Diliberto drops a tab with Alex Maas and Christian Bland, who talk about music born in a hallucinogenic dream on the Echoes Podcast.. .

Echoes Podcast: We remember Low Roar's Ryan Karaziya

Ryan Karaziya of Low Roar Live on Echoes 2014

On the Echoes Podcast, we go back to a couple of Echoes features that ran in 2011 and 2014.  Both were with the group, Low Roar, whose founder and principal creator, Ryan Karaziya, left the planet on October 29th. I was saddened to hear that Ryan had left us. He was only 40 years old. Ryan was one of the founders of The Auydrye Sessions, an alternative rock band from San Francisco.  But he moved to Iceland in 2010 for love and something in that Nordic nation’s air, probably the same thing imbibed by Sigur Ros, Olafur Arnalds and Bjork crept into his music. Karaziya’s debut as Low Roar was a haunting mix of electronic ambiences, acoustic folk and shoegaze moods.  When Echoes started playing more vocal music a decade ago, Low Roar fit right in with our ethos, creating heartbreaking songs bathed in ambience.  He’s recorded several albums since then, a couple talking about love lost. In the Echoes Podcast we’ll hear Ryan talking about his music.

Delay Tactics Return: The Echoes Interview

The progressive rock band Delay Tactics returns after 38 years with three of the original members: Carl Weingarten, Walter Whitney and David Udell. They talk about their new album, Elements of Surprise and the influence of space age bachelor pad music, Giorgio Moroder, Fripp & Eno and Tangerine Dream  with John Diliberto on Echoes from PRX.

Hear our interview with Carl Weingarten from 2014

Rebecca Pidgeon's Yoga Journey: The Echoes Interview

John Diliberto and Rebecca Pidgeon

Rebecca Pidgeon may be best known as an actress from films like Homicide, The Spanish Prisoner, and State and Main. But she’s also released a string of really good solo albums. However, her latest is a departure. Inspired by her yoga practice she explores themes of the mind, consciousness and chakras. It’s called Parts of Speech, Pieces of Sound. It’s a beautiful album that taps Beatlesque psychedelia and singer-songwriter introspection along with astronauts, Morse Code and primal screams. Hear her talk about it in the Echoes Podcast.

Bob Moog's Electronic Dream-The Story of the Moog Synthesizer

Author and composer Albert Glinsky talks about his book, Switched-On, Bob Moog and the Synthesizer Revolution. It’s a deep dive into the inventor who changed the face of modern music with the Moog Synthesizer and Mini-Moog. From avant-garde obscurity to Switched-On Bach, to the popular music mainstream, we hear the tale of this icon of modern instrument-making.

See a playlist of music used in the Podcast feature.

Daniel Lanois-Past, Present, Piano: The Echoes Interview

John Diliberto and Daniel Lanois

Daniel Lanois is the famed producer of U2 and collaborator with Brian Eno. He’s a a musician who is usually found behind an acoustic, electric and pedal steel guitars or a mixing console. But he has created an album of ambient piano works called Player, Piano. It will take you back to the piano ruminations of Harold Budd, who Lanois produced. We talk past, present and piano.

The Ambient Waiting Lounge of Airport People: The Echoes Interview in Echoes Podcast

Lumenette's Songs of Despair, the Spirit and Sex in Space: The Echoes Interview

Singer Christine Byrd has emerged out of the Christian music scene and backing vocals for the band Hammock to forge her music of liberation, loss and atonement as Lumenette. Each song on her debut, All Around My Head taps into the emotional waveforms of Christine Byrd. She composed the album over the last several years, most of it on her own, working out arrangements in Garage Band, layering her voice and putting in lots of reverb. The final production of All Around My Head was done by Christine, with Marc Byrd and Matt Kidd of Slow Meadow taking it to another level. Byrd’s voice is often double-tracked, or more, and her choruses and wordless choirs are stacked in cathedral ambiences, letting the psychic resonance of her lyrics rebound around your head. It is the Echoes CD of the Month this August. We dig deep into her album of love songs and pain when we talk with Christine and her cohorts on Echoes.

Read John Diliberto’s review of Lumenette’s All Around My Head

Echoes Podcast: Otyken's Siberian Groove

Experience the Siberian sound of Otyken. They are marrying a tribal sound of the native Chulym people with modern production and the ferocious voice of Azyan. We talked to them from their studio in Siberia where Azyan and Svengali Andrei Mendonos talk about horsehead fiddles, Jaw harps and the primal voice of Azyan. Their latest full-length album is Kykakacha and they’ve just put out a new single, “Legend.” Bundle up with Otyken on Echoes from PRX.

Tone Ranger Giddy-ups Into Ambient Country Space in Echoes Podcast

Hit the trail with Tone Ranger. That’s the moniker of Alex Simon who has been immersing himself in country gone psychedelic sounds for a long time. Now he’s taken influences from the desert southwest, soundtracks, country music, electronic music and more, creating desert southwest landscapes merging electronics with guitar and pedal steel guitar and more. And then there’s spaghetti western film composer, Ennio Morricone.

Tone Ranger: “Palomino!.” There’s just no doubt that that comes from the spaghetti Western world. I had taken a film class in high school one summer and “Once Upon a Time in the West” woke me up entirely.

He released the album, Desert Rose this year. We talk about the southwestern electronic journeys of Tone Ranger in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.