PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast

Echoes Podcast: Composer Kevin Keller, Cellist David Darling Remembered and an Icon of Echoes, Vangelis

In the Echoes Podcast we hear an interview with Kevin Keller, we remember cellist David Darling,

Ambient chamber music composer Kevin Keller had a scare last year when he went in for heart surgery. It made him contemplate life and what happens when they stop your heart.

Kevin Keller: “I guess I asked myself the question like well where does one go when that happens? Do you go somewhere? Are you aware that your heart is not beating? Do you know somehow, somewhere in your consciousness? And so this album grew out of that question of where do you go when you’re on the edge of death?”

That contemplation turned into his haunting, beautiful album, The Front Porch of Heaven.  Sit on a rocking chair with Kevin Keller and hear life pass before your ears on Echoes from PRX.

The world is missing a unique sound. Cellist David Darling left the planet on January 8th. Born in Elkhart, Indiana on March 4, 1941, he was 79. We remember him as a great cellist and pioneer of ambient chamber music. His albums like Cello, Eight-String Religion and Prayer for Compassion remain timeless beauties. He was also a member of the classic edition of the Paul Winter Consort. We’ll listen back to his last interview and some tracks from across his career.  

You can read John Diliberto’s full tribute here.

The 6th of 30 Icons, Vangelis. We’ll hear a profile of the legendary Greek electronic artist who won the first Oscar for an electronic film score for Chariots of Fire. He has charted a course through electro-orchestral space for over 50 years.  We’ll hear Vangelis talking about his career from Aphrodite’s Child to Mythodea and playing a spontaneous synth improvisation.  See our list of Ten Essential Vangelis Albums.

Olafur Arnalds in Search of Peace: The Echoes Podcast Interview

We talk to Icelandic composer, Ólafur Arnalds. Ever since his 2007 debut album, Eulogy for Evolution,  he’s been a leading avatar of ambient chamber music, combining classical forms and electronic ambiences.  HIs previous album, Re:member, was among his most complex, using the stratus piano system of upright, self-performing pianos. (Read about it here.) On his new album, Some Kind of Peace, he pares-down to a simpler sound for music of introspection. It’s a pandemic meditation when we talk with Ólafur Arnalds on Echoes.

Roedelius, Thievery Corporation & Philip Glass, an Icon of Echoes, in Echoes Podcast.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius was a founding member of the bands Cluster and Harmonia, groups that influenced artists like David Bowie on his Berlin Trilogy and especially Brian Eno, who not only co-produced that trilogy, but went on to make music with these musicians as well. But while Roedelius began in the electronic zone, at 86, he says he’s unplugging and just playing acoustic piano. His latest album is Drauf und Dran

Thievery Corporation’s Rob Garza and Eric Hilton credit Jen Maler

Then it’s the many moods of Thievery Corporation. In 2020 Thievery Corporation released their Symphonik album with orchestral renditions of some of their best known songs and Eric Hilton, one half of the duo, released a pair of ambient lounge music recordings,  The Impossible Silence and Infinite Everywhere.  We put together a 2020 interview with Hilton and a 2010 interview with Garza about a music born in dub and music sampling.

Finally the latest in our Icons of Echoes series. It’s a minimalist dervish when we hear the fifth Icon, Philip Glass. We’ll hear a profile of this highly influential composer, who inspired artists like Tangerine Dream, David Bowie, Brian Eno and more. He created at the dawn of minimalism with Steve Reich and Terry Riley and has gone on to score operas like Einstein on the Beach, movies like Mishima and the influential “Qatsi series” of films: Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqatsi and Naqoyqatsi. Spin in minimalist cycles with Philip Glass, an Icon of Echoes. See the complete 30 Icons of Echoes.

Echoes Podcast: Dead Can Dance Icons of Echoes and We Remember Harold Budd 1936-2020

In the Echoes Podcast, It’s the fourth Icon of Echoes: Dead Can Dance. This duo of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry have created some of the most transcendent, time-shifting music of the late 20th century. From the score to Gladiator to albums of tribal mysticism, hear Gerrard and Perry tell their story, from their beginnings in Australia, to their break-up, to Gerrard’s film scores, to reunion.

We also remember Harold Budd who left the planet on December 7th.  He was 84 years old and a victim of Covid-19. Harold Budd is a legend in the ambient world, but like his music, he’s a subtle legend, known probably more among musicians than fans. His early 1980 albums with Brian Eno, The Plateaux of Mirror and The Pearl, are among the early signposts of ambient music. Older artists like Tim Story and John Foxx of Ultravox genuflect at Budd’s altar, while a new generation of composers including Balmorhea, Olafur Arnalds, Mary Lattimore and Nils Petter Molvaer have been influenced by his work. His collaborators have included Robin Guthrie of The Cocteau Twins, Andy Partridge of XTC and guitarist Bill Nelson.

Ane Brun & Steve Roach in Echoes Podcast

Norwegian singer Ane Brun has been captivating us for several years now. She sang with Peter Gabriel on his tours and on the version of “Don’t Give Up” that appears on Gabriel’s New Blood album. As a solo artist who released her debut in 2003,  she started out as something of a conventional singer song-writer, inspired by Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, but she’s evolved over the years into a chamber brand of dream pop that is sometimes acoustic and sometimes electronic. She’s just released two albums that reveal both those sides, After the Great Storm and How Beauty Holds the Hand of Sorrow. We couldn’t pick just one, so they are both Echoes CD of the Month for December.  In the Echoes Podcast, Brun talks about the loss, loneliness and existential themes that inform much of both recordings.

Steve Roach was voted #2 of 30 Icons of Echoes. When we created the show 31 years ago, Steve Roach was one of the artists at the forefront of our thoughts.  In fact, he was the first artist ever heard on the show since he composed the theme song we used in our earlier years. He has continued evolving his sound across that time, chronicled with a prolific outpouring of releases. And while other artists from the early years of Echoes have faded away, Steve Roach has remained vital. He is the second of 30 Icons of Echoes. Hear his story from Berlin School sequencers to techno-tribal and back again in the Echoes Podcast.  Steve roach’s latest album is Tomorrow.

30 Icons of Echoes and Brian Eno, #1 Icon

For our last celebration of Echoes’ first 30 years, we’ve selected the 30 Icons of Echoes. These are the artists who have informed the show over our first 30 years. We started with the 25 Icons from our 25th Anniversary and, with listener votes, we’ve added five more and made some adjustments. New additions to the list include Olafur Arnalds, Agnes Obel, Mike Oldfield, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre.  John Diliberto gives his thoughts on the list in the Echoes Podcast.

Brian Eno is number one of our 30 Icons of Echoes.  He has  influenced our sonic landscape for nearly a half-century. We’ll hear an interview profile on Eno. See John Diliberto’s list of 10 Essential Brian Eno Albums.

Homepage

Copyright 2020 Pennsylvania Public Radio Associates, Inc.

Kraftwerk's Man-Machine Music: The Echoes Documentary

It’s the 50th Anniversary of Kraftwerk’s first release.  The iconic German electronic band switched on their debut album in November, 1970. We’ll hear from Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hutter as well as Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark, Jean-Michel Jarre, Orbital, Michael Rother, Depeche Mode, James Merle Thomas (Quindar), Karl Hyde (Underworld), Manuel Gottsching (Ashra)  and Conny Plank, looking back on a band that altered the face of music for decades.  Kraftwerk is on our list of 30 Icons of Echoes. We go down the Autobahn with Kraftwerk’s Man-Machine Music: The Echoes Documentary in the Echoes Podcast.

Greg Lisher-A Rock Refugee: The Echoes Interview

In the Echoes Podcast we hear from a rock refugee, Greg   Lisher. You may not know that name, but he’s the guitarist in the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Monks of Doom. He’s built his career over the last three decades in rock music but heads out on an instrumental path that is more Windham Hill than Rock n Roll.  His new album is Songs from the Imperial Garden and it sounds a lot like that title. It’s takes a different, more contemplative turn.

Greg Lisher: my father passed away in 2008 and that was a big life changing moment for me.  And you know, I really, I really started digging into my art much more, you know, and started focusing much more. 

John Diliberto talks to him in the Echoes Podcast.

Thomas Lemmer & Christoph Sebastian Pabst - Downtempo Dreams: The Echoes Interview

In the Echoes Podcast, it’s a new generation of German electronic artists when we talk to Thomas Lemmer and Sebastian Pabst. They’ve been churning out downtempo dreams and electro-lounge moods at a prolific pace. We go inside their studios to find out how the classically trained Lemmer merges with electronic native Pabst. They’ve just released their new album, Bergblick.  John Diliberto plugs in Thomas Lemmer and Sebastian Pabst, on Echoes.    

Erik Wøllo& Michael Stearns: The Echoes Interview

In the Echoes Podcast, we talk about brain tumors, dreams pandemic and some of the best music of 2020 when we talk with Erik Wøllo and Michael Stearns. Stearns is a legend of electronic music from the 1980s. His album, Planetary Unfolding is a classic. Erik Wøllo isn’t far behind with 5 CD of the Month Picks over the last 30 years. But their first collaboration, Convergence almost got terminated.

Michael Stearns: I took the train down to Berlin to visit a friend for 3-4 days before I came back here. And I had a seizure and they took me to the hospital and discovered a brain tumor, so I was in Berlin for the whole month of March and got the last flight out on United Airlines back to the US.

We talk with Erik Wøllo and Michael Stearns about the trauma and dreams behind their September CD of the Month, Convergence , on Echoes.

Read John Diliberto’s review of Convergence.