PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast

All India Radio's Space Rock for the Chill Crowd in Echoes Podcast

In the Echoes Podcast, All India Radio talks about his latest missive from Australia, Eternal, opens with a robot voice giving the exhortation, “Let’s Dance.” But this ain’t no party.  It’s a space music opus influenced by Pink Floyd and early electronic music. All India Radio’s Martin Kennedy use’s samples from a bad 1962 Sci-Fi Film, The Creation of Humanoids, to tie together a retro-futuristic album.

Martin Kennedy: My mission is to bring space rock to the chill out crowd with a little bit of old school hip hop thrown in, too.  I don’t know, I honestly don’t know what I would call my music.  But  I do like space rock.

Eternal was the Echoes CD of the Month for December 2019 and his previous album, Space earned the same honor in 2018. Hear Martin Kennedy talk about his space rock opuses on Echoes.

Read review of All India Radio’s Space

Steve Roach's Electronic Dig in the Echoes Podcast.

In the Echoes Podcast we take a deep dive into the world of Steve Roach. The prolific electronic artist has been part of Echoes for all of its 30 years and more. We’ve chronicled his electronic evolution more than just about anyone. Steve released several albums in 2019 including Bloom Ascension and Trance Archeology. After several years of modular synth strategies, Ambient-Tribal music returns. We talk about them and new directions with Steve Roach.

Read John Diliberto’s Review of Bloom Ascension and Trance Archeology

Barrett Martin's Global Percussion and Darshan Ambient in Memoriam in Echoes Podcast.

First we talk to multi-instrumentalist, world fusionist, author, Zen monk and former drummer with Screaming Trees, Barrett Martin. He’s created a world fusion sound with his group in which he specializes in global percussion. We go on a world music journey with Barrett Martin on Echoes.

Then, we remember Michael Allison, who recorded as Darshan Ambient.  He has a new recording, A Day Like Any Other, but tragically, just as this album was released, Allison passed-away from cancer. We’ll hear music from one of the most distinctive and eclectic of ambient composers and hear his life story from interviews we’ve conducted on Echoes over the last two decades.

Darshan Ambient Little Things CD of the Month Review :

Fink's Dream Blues

In the Echoes Podcast we talk with Fink. He’s a British electronic musician turned ambient singer-songwriter, who creates deep ruminative songs sung in his mellifluous tenor.  He talks about his latest album, Bloom Innocent and finds links between blues, electronica and New Orleans.

The Best of Echoes 2019-A Select View with John Diliberto

Last week we counted down The Best of Echoes 2019, a list of our 25 favorite album. Now, Echoes’ John Diliberto takes a stroll through that list, giving some context and commentary and highlighting some of the lesser known recordings and artists on the album including Michael Gulezian, Theodore, Mark Dwane, Spatialize, Hugar, Rise, Bluetech and our number one album, The Secret of Letting Go by Rise. Join us in the Echoes podcast as John Diliberto puts words and music to The Best of Echoes 2019. You can see the complete list here as well as a Spotify Playlist.

Hear Michael Gulezian Concert.

Vonavi's Ukrainian Ambiences in Echoes Podcast

In the Echoes Podcast we travel to Ukraine to talk with Andrei Ivanov, who records as Vonavi. Ukraine is something of a backwater when it comes to any international music scene, but Vonavi has found a way out, through the internet.  This young electronic composer has just released his impressive debut album, Reflections. He talks to us from his Ukranian home studio. We also talk to his vocal accomplices, Chris James of Run RIvers and Lorna Rose.

Future Forward with Neuland and a Flashback 50 with Fairport Convention in Echoes Podcast

Neuland is the name of a project featuring two former members of Tangerine Dream, Peter Baumann and Paul Haslinger. Baumann was a member of the classic edition of the dream, appearing on albums like Phaedra, Rubycon, Ricochet and Stratosfear. He went on to found the Private Music label. Haslinger was a member in the 1980s, during their Private Music years and most prolific soundtrack years. He went on to release some wonderful solo albums, record with Lightwave and has scored several movies and TV shows, including editions of the Underworld and Resident Evil series, and the TV shows Halt and Catch Fire and Fear the Walking Dead. They’ve gotten together for an all-electronic project that takes them beyond their roots. We talk to Peter Baumann and Paul Haslinger of Neuland in the Echoes Podcast.    

Then we travel back 50 years to December 2, 1969 and the release of Fairport Convention’s Liege and Lief, in a Flashback 50. Released on December 2, 1969, the third of three albums they put out that year, they wed rock timbres and rhythms to 16th century folk songs. Singer Sandy Denny, violinist Dave Swarbrick, guitarist Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings, and drummer Dave Mattacks created a classic of English folk rock that has influenced generations, including groups like Led Zeppelin, Loreena McKennitt, and The Decemberists. John Diliberto takes us back to this epic album.   

Rise Ascends from Talitha Rise in Echoes Podcast

In the Echoes Podcast, Rise emerges from the ashes of Talitha Rise. In 2018 our number one album of the year was An Abandoned Orchid House by Talitha Rise. We interviewed Jo Beth Young and Martyn Barker who made up that group. But now, we’ve gotten a new album by Young, and it’s released just under the name of Rise. It’s called Strangers and that title works on many levels. We’ll talk to Jo Beth Young, who reveals the harrowing changes she endured to emerge with her self-produced album. Join us with Jo Beth Young of Rise on Echoes.

We Celebrate Wendy Carlos' 80th Year in Echoes Podcast

We look back at Wendy Carlos on her 80th Birthday.

You know that a lot of time has passed when your references become dated. With its array of cords and cables crisscrossed in a patchbay, we used to compare it to a telephone switchboard gone crazy. Well, synthesizers don’t look like that anymore, the modular renaissance excepted, and most people under thirty wouldn’t know what a telephone switchboard was unless they watch the TCM channel a lot.

It was 1968 when Wendy Carlos took her Moog synthesizer and applied it to the contrapuntal 18th century music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The album was called Switched-On Bach and it changed the shape of modern music forever. It took synthesizers out of the world of sound effects and the avant-garde and into the mass market. It’s 50 years later and Wendy Carlos first masterwork is now an iconic moment in the history of electronic music. She’s done other great works since. She presaged Brian Eno and Ambient Music with her 1972 album, Sonic Seasonings (from whence we stole the title of our annual Christmas show). Her Beauty in the Beast was a manifesto for the synthesizer in the global village as Carlos digitally hand-crafted her own global orchestra coupling hybrid instruments and timbres that are remarkably true to form, from the roaring Tibetan trumpets that open the album to the Balinese xylophones and suling flutes.

She only did a few film scores, but they are legendary. A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Tron were signal works in film scoring.

10 Years ago we did a feature on her 70th birthday. In the Echoes Podcast, we update it for her 80th Birthday drawing from 30 years of interviews with Wendy Carlos.

Listen to our earlier Podcast on the 50th Anniversary of Switch-On Bach

In Echoes Podcast Voxfire Brings Medieval Chants to the 21st Century

In the Echoes Podcast, we get all Medieval on you. Remember when Gothic chant was all the rage in the 1990s? Albums featuring Benedictine Monks and Abbess Hildegard von Bingen hymns were heard in all kinds of configurations by artists, like Sequentia, Richard Souther, Vox and Enigma. A band called Voxfire continues that tradition in the 21st century, taking Medieval chants and turning them into free-floating ambient expanses with beautiful vocals. We talk with the members of Voxfire who infuse their chants with ambient moods, minimalist expanses and even blues harmonica.