PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast

Echoes Podcast: David Helpling Takes us Inside his album "In" and we remember Electronic Legend, Klaus Schulze.

John Diliberto & David Helpling

In the Echoes Podcast, David Helpling takes us inside his new double CD that’s just titled IN. The title is simple but the music is an expanse of dynamic ambient orchestrations for guitar and synthesizers. David Helpling talks about the personal meaning of this dramatic sound.

We remember Klaus Schulze (1947-2022) The giant of electronic music left the planet on April 26, 2022 at the age of 74. His music in the 1970s influenced a generation of musicians including Academy Award winning composer Hans Zimmer, electronic artists Steve Roach, Jean-Michel Jarre, Giorgio Moroder and so many more. Klaus, as we refer to him, is in the DNA of Echoes and without the influence of his music, there would probably be no Echoes. Hear this mini-documentary on Klaus, drawing on John Diliberto’s interviews with him in the 1980s and commentary from Steve Roach, Mark Shreeve (Redshift), and drummer Michael Shrieve.

Read John Diliberto’s remembrance of Klaus Schulze: A Titan of Electronic Music, Klaus Schulze, Gone at 74.

FIVE ESSENTIAL KLAUS SCHULZE CDs

The 40th Anniversary of Laurie Anderson's Big Science: Echoes Podcast

It’s the 40th Anniversary of Laurie Anderson‘s Big Science,  released on April 19, 1982.  Hear an extended version of the broadcast feature in the Echoes Podcast.

That’s a line from Laurie Anderson’s “From The Air,” One of the songs off her album, Big Science, released 40 years ago on April 19, 1982. It was part of a bigger project, United States.

Laurie Anderson: “A lot of people would ask, you know, how could you be living in a country like that? And what’ the answer to that? I mean it’s not a simple answer. And it’s not a simple question either, so I, I began to write this as a way of just understanding myself.”

The results were her seven-hour stage work, United States, which spawned the songs of Big Science, including her best known piece, “O Superman.”  We look back at this influential work. I’ll be drawing from about a dozen interviews I’ve conducted with Laurie over years, and get some comments by Jean-Michel Jarre, Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark, John Cage, and others. We’ll hear all their voices, and Laurie Anderson, in this extended version of the broadcast feature.

Hear Laurie Anderson’s 2015 Echoes Interview

Michael Stearns Unfurls the Story of his ambient Masterpiece, Planetary Unfolding in the Echoes Podcast

Michael Stearns creates music that’s like the universe expanding. That’s why he’s picked to score Imax films and movies like Chronos and Baraka. In 1981, Stearns released Planetary Unfolding, an album length work of seminal ambient electronics that would go on to influence a generation and beyond. Now that recording has been reissued by Projekt Records.  We’ve picked it as the Echoes CD of the Month for April. In this Podcast, we talk to Michael Stearns who takes us back to 1981 and the dawn of ambient and new age music.  Stearns talks about the new age culture from which it emerged including the Continuum movement studio. He’ll reveal how the album’s endless evolution was conceived and hear the roar of the Beam, his 12-foot, 24-string cosmic lyre. Steve Roach & Kevin Braheny Fortune also weigh in on the work.

Read John Diliberto’s review of Planetary Unfolding,  Echoes April CD of the Month.

.   

Wouter Kellerman & David Arkenstone's World Fusion Dream and Vonavi in the Ukraine War Zone: The Echoes Podcast

2022 Grammy Nominees David Arkenstone and Wouter Kellerman talk about their world fusion album, Pangaea. They worked on it during pandemic, with South African flautist Kellerman trapped by Covid travel regulations in Australia, and Arkenstone in Southern California. Their album is a hymn for world peace. They talk about their plea for peace and the global elements that make up their music.

We also make contact with Ukrainian electronic musician Vonavi, aka Andrei Ivanov. We interviewed him three weeks ago when he was in the city of Zaporizhzhia, where one of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants is located. If you’ve been following the news, you know what’s been happening there. So this time John Diliberto spoke to Vonavi from the northwestern border near Belarus where he has fled with his family.  We talk about his experience during the Russian invasion.

The Royal Arctic Institute's Ambient Guitar Moods: The Echoes Interview

The Royal Arctic Institute. They aren’t a science organization, although two of them are in the medical field. This band grew out of a lot of music including punk, psychedelic music and jazz. a few of the members have played with 60’s psychedelic rockers Arthur Lee (Love), Roky Erickson (The 13th Floor Elevators) and in the punk band, Das Damen. But they emerged with an all-instrumental sound that has that feel of an Angelo Badalamenti Twin Peaks score or the Ventures gone slowmo and psychedelic.

Guitarist Lynn Wright:  I call it mood music, which is what they called exotica when it was originally being made in the ‘50s before it became kitsch, kitsch when it was just out. So I call it mood music.

We talk to them about science fiction and fantasy, reverb and drum sticks with The Royal Arctic Institute in the Echoes Podcast.

Hollan Holmes Sequencer Landscapes: The Echoes Interview

Hollan Holmes & John Diliberto

Texas-based artist Hollan Holmes paints south western landscapes and rusty artifacts by day, but he heads into electronic space at night, composing music like his CD of the Month, Emerald Waters.

Hollan Holmes: I paint a lot of old rusty things and things of that nature.  That doesn’t really come across in my music because things that inspire me in my art are tangible, things that I can see and touch and feel. The things that inspire me in my music are rather intangible.

Hollan Holmes’s  album, Emerald Waters was the Echoes February CD of the Month. We find out what’s behind it in the Echoes Podcast.

Read John Diliberto’s review of Emerald Waters.

Trentemøller's Memories & Vonavi in the Ukraine War Zone: The Echoes Podcast

Trentemøller & John Diliberto

Trentemøller is a Danish electronic musician who started out on the dance floor. But now he’s creating a more introspective music drawing upon his memories as well as his recent status as a father. He mixes downtempo grooves, New Wave moods and Dreampop vocals on this wistful album with a beat. From his home in Copenhagen, he and his partner, singer/guitarist Lisbet Fritze talk about Memoria with Trentemoller in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.

Vonavi in Blackout Conditions on Zoom

Today we’re taking a bit of a departure. John Diliberto talks with with electronic musician Vonavi. That in itself isn’t a departure. We interviewed him 3 years ago. But this new Interview took place at 8PM Ukraine time on Monday, February 28th. Vonavi was at home, with fighting going on just outside his city of Zaporizhzhia. He was sitting in the darkness of blackout and waiting for the next round of air raid sirens.  We talk about his experience during the Russian invasion.

Hear Vonavi’s first Echoes Interview:

Chieli Minucci's Meditative Moods in the Echoes Podcast

This week in the Echoes Podcast, a guitarist who came to renown in the later days of fusion, Chieli Minucci. He is the founding member of the group Special EFX who recorded a string of albums on the GRP label as well as others. He also has a solo career and does soundtracks including scoring the long-running soap opera, Guiding Light. He’s got a sweet new album called Someone’s Singing which, despite the title, is all-instrumental and is one of his more introspective recordings. We talk about Special EFX, his father, who worked A&R for Columbia Records and wrote the this “Domani” and reinventing “Kumbaya.”

Brian Dunning, Irish Flautist for Nightnoise and Jeff Johnson Remembered.

We remember Brian Dunning. The brilliant flute player with Nightnoise, Puck Fair and numerous collaborations with Jeff Johnson.

Many of the musicians you hear on Echoes are our favorites, but only a few of them are friends.  Brian Dunning was one of those.  He was an extraordinary flute player who breathed melody out of every pore of his being. He came to renown with the Celtic fusion band Nightnoise and did the greatest body of his work with keyboardist Jeff Johnson, recording some two-dozen albums across 30 years. Brian was on the show about a dozen times in live performances and interviews and became, along with Jeff Johnson a true friend of the show. But now, Brian Dunning has passed, leaving the planet on February 10th, after a long illness. We’ll survey his music and hear some memories about this wonderful man and musician from Jeff Johnson, Triona Ni Dhomnaill and Bob Duskis. It’s in the Echoes Podcast.

Read a review of Jeff Johnson & Brian Dunning’s Under the Wonder Sky

Sound Resounds at Big Ears Festival 2022 in Echoes Podcast

Every year I look forward to the Big Ears Festival. It’s a massive event in Knoxville, Tennessee, that covers all kinds of music, most of it on the bleeding edge. The Festival began in 2009 and  every year since 2015 I’ve featured a preview of the show, interviewing founder Ashley Capps. I produced a preview in 2020, but ultimately, Covid-19 cancelled Big Ears 2020 as well as the 2021 event. But Ashley Capps is pushing on with the festival this year featuring many of the artists originally scheduled for the 2020 event.

In the Echoes Podcast, I have a preview of the Big Ears Festival 2022. Ashley Capps tells us about some highlights of the line-up that includes Patti Smith, John Zorn and Meredith Monk.  He also talks about the vagaries of producing a festival in an era of pandemic. Open your ears wide on in the Echoes Podcast for Big Ears Festival 2022 from PRX.