PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast

Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn turns 55 and Electronic Legend Klaus Schulze Would've been 75

Today, August 4th is something of an auspicious date. This was the day, 55 years ago, that Pink Floyd released their debut album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. And 20 years before that on August 4, 1947, electronic Legend Klaus Schulze was born. So I thought we’d take a flashback to our interview with Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason and our Mini-documentary on Klaus Schulze who left the planet in April 26 this year.. You’re going to want to be in the right headspace for these.

Read our take on Piper at the Gates of Dawn

FIVE ESSENTIAL KLAUS SCHULZE CDs

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Steve Tibbetts's Hellbound Sound: The Echoes Podcast

We ride a Hellbound Train with Steve Tibbetts. Among my friends and many musicians, Steve Tibbetts has been a legend since his second album, YR came out in 1980. And his first release was really good too. He’s released twelve albums in the last 40 years, eight of them on ECM Records. Each one has been a journey of the most unique world fusion including using Balinese percussion and rhythms.

Steve Tibbetts: The double drumming style of Balinese gong kebyar is furious, wild punk rock, and immediately makes you think this would work well with a Marshall stack and a Telecaster. And so that’s what we did.

Steve Tibbetts. He’s just released a double CD retrospective called Hellbound Train on ECM. We talk about  Buddhism, Balinese gamelan music, ECM Records and more.   Join John Diliberto with Steve Tibbetts in the Echoes Podcast.

Echoes Podcast: Animalweapon's Electronic Songs of Love, Depression and Constraints

Animalweapon sounds like it could be either the name of a heavy metal band or the moniker of music comedy troupe. But no. It’s the stage name for Patrick Cortes who brings us a melancholy sound confronting depression and shattered relations on his latest album, Set of Constraints.

Patrick Cortes:. I had always known that I had been depressed, but I didn’t realize how bad it was until later last year. I was like, I just have been languishing in this for way too long and I haven’t done anything about it. I realized I just needed to start putting in the work.

Animalweapon puts in the work with his electronic songs. Hear him in the Echoes Podcast.

Zola Jesus Fends Off the Arkhons: The Echoes Interview

When you hear a name like Zola Jesus you think of something either sanctified or blasphemous. In the case of singer Nika Danilova, who uses Zola Jesus as her stage name, it’s definitely on the sanctified side, though not necessarily religious. On her new album, she tackles Arkhons.

Zola Jesus: Arkhons which is a Gnostic term. The Arkhons are these malevolent forces in Gnostic Christianity that they think control humankind in a nefarious way. I feel like we’re living in very Arkhonic times.

 John Diliberto sorts out the demons, depression and magic when he talks with Zola Jesus about her new album, Arkhon in the Echoes Podcast.

Steve Reich Cycles Through Time: The Echoes Interview

John Diliberto and Steve Reich 2006

There is hardly a musician on Echoes who does not cite Steve Reich as an influence, especially his 1978 work, Music For 18 Musicians. Reich has moved away from that cyclical sound over the years but his new album, Reich/Richter brings him back. Richter is Gerhard Richter, the German abstract painter.  

Steve Reich: Richter is known to be non-systematic. . . . . then this project is very systematic, which for him, this is unusual. But that’s when we joined forces, so to speak. So I joke, “Hey, here you go trying to make me sound like i did years ago.” And in a sense, the good part is that, as people say, it reminds them of “Music For 18 Musicians,” and hey, you know, it could be a lot worse than that.

Composer Steve Reich is 85 years old, but he’s still making the music of tomorrow. Besides his new album, inspired by paintings of Gerhard Richter that were turned into a film, he also has a new book, Conversations, where he interviews people like Brian Eno, Stephen Sondheim and Nico Muhly who talk about the impact of Steve Reich. John Diliberto talks with Steve Reich in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.

Steve Reich Conversations

Steve Reich Reich/Richter

Röyksopp Deciphers Profound Mysteries in the Echoes Podcast

John Diliberto & Royksopp

An exploding puff ball mushroom is the inspiration for the name of Norway’s Röyksopp, a duo whose music has ranged from ambient to pure dance pop. Their new album, Profound Mysteries, finds a place somewhere between that spectrum with icy instrumentals and collaborations with singers like Alison Goldfrapp. John Diliberto talks to Röyksopp from their studio on Echoes from PRX.   https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B09RCLJJHZ/echoes0a0-20

Animals, Art and Angst with Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg: The Echoes Interview

Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater talks about their new album, The Great Awakening. It’s a subtle work of ambient songs employing nature sounds that Meiburg recorded in South America.  Using natural sounds in music, recorded from the environment, has become a staple tactic in music, especially in New Age recordings. But Shearwater has taken a different approach, using nature as both accompanist and soloist. While natural sounds from the animal world populate the record, they sing on a landscape that is often electronic and ambient. And then there’s Meiburg’s voice, singing to you from inside your head.  John Diliberto bungles in the jungle with Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater. 

All Aboard for Michael Whalen's Ride on Imaginary Trains in Echoes Podcast

Electronic artist Michael Whalen grew up on the new sounds of 70s and 80s European electronic music like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Vangelis and Kraftwerk.  He pays tribute to his roots on a new album called Imaginary Trains. It was Echoes May 2022 CD of the Month. Michael Whalen talks about his homage in the Echoes Podcast.

Read John DIliberto’s review of Imaginary Trains.

Check out a song from Michael Whalen’s Live Stream at the Electronic Music and Preservation Project.

Echoes Podcast: Vangelis Remembered

In the Echoes Podcast this week, we remember Vangelis. The legendary Greek electronic composer died on May 17th in Paris after complications from the Covid-19 virus. He was 79 years old. Today, we’re going to replay our feature on Vangelis, originally produced in 1999 as he was one of the 10 Icons of of Echoes back then. I reproduced it with newer material in 2009 when he was one of the 20 Icons of Echoes, and again in 2020 when he was The 6th of 30 Icons for 30 Years of Echoes. You can tell that Vangelis has been an important part of Echoes from the very beginning. I was fortunate to interview Vangelis twice, once in 1982 for the show Totally Wired and again in 2001 for Echoes.  We take a deep dive into his life and music from Aphrodite’s Child through Mythodea.  We remember Vangelis on in the Echoes Podcast

See our list of 10 Essential Vangelis Albums

Echoes Podcast: Sherry Finzer

In the Echoes Podcast this week, flutist Sherry Finzer goes into The Tank.  That’s an abandoned water tank in Colorado that has been turned into a naturally reverberant recording studio. Flutes played in deep reverb have a long tradition, which began in modern times with Paul Horn’s 1968 album, Inside. That album was recorded within the deep echo of the Taj Mahal. Many artists have followed suit in different locations, and Sherry Finzer is one of the latest, as she sends her many flutes into the natural acoustic space of The Tank.

It’s a conversation.  The tank talks back to you because the music just swirls around you, and you hear all these harmonizing notes on some of those songs, you know, you can hear the echo. -Sherry Finzer.  

John Diliberto talks to Sherry Finzer, without the echo, in the Echoes Podcast.

Hear our previous interview with Sherry Finzer.

Hear our previous interview with Sherry Finzer with Majestica and with Tom Moore

Hear Sherry Finzer performing live on Echoes with Majestica