Brian Eno at 70 in the Echoes Podcast

In the Echoes Podcast, we have an extended celebration of Brian Eno on his 70th Birthday. It’s hard to talk to a musician on Echoes and not have the name Brian Eno come up. He’s been a looming force in modern music for nearly half a century. He’s a sonic provocateur who codified the concept of ambient music in the 1970s, embraced a grunge electronic aesthetic in the early 1990s and then sought the holy grail of generative music, essentially, music that composes itself. He’s produced hit albums for U2, Talking Heads and Coldplay that defined pop music at the time. Now, he turns 70 on May 15th. We celebrate his birthday with a profile feature, an excursion into Eno’s ambient thought, The Wit and Wisdom of Eno and Touched by Eno.

Glenn Branca's Last Overtone R.I.P.

Avant-garde composer and guitarist Glenn Branca has died. The announcement appeared on Facebook from his wife and musical collaborator Reg Bloor. She said Branca “passed away in his sleep last night [May 13] from throat cancer.”

Branca was best known for his “guitar armies,” creating a wall of distorted overtone layers with multiple guitars and later, custom designed stringed instruments. It was a glorious, all encompassing sound mass, as exhilarating in its own right as the textural sounds of Ligeti or Penderecki. On the other hand, composer John Cage called it “evil.” His sound was taken up by noise bands like The Swans and Sonic Youth.

In a special Podcast, we go back to an episode of the documentary series Totally Wired that featured Glenn Branca.

Paul Horn's Inside Turns 50 in Echoes Podcast

Coming up, a Flashback 50 to one of the seminal albums of the New Age, Paul Horn’s Inside. Recorded inside the Taj Mahal on April 25, 1968, it was a landmark release when it came out in 1969. Paul Horn has left the planet but we’ll hear his words as we go back in time to “Inside” and the musician who made it. It’s a Flashback 50 with Paul Horn on Echoes.  See our obituary on Paul Horn for more detail on this musician.

Star's End Host and Electronic Musician Chuck Van Zyl in Echoes Podcast

Echoes Podcast: Can Founder Holger Czukay's Sonic Collage

He was master of sound collage, the proto-typical sample artist, and Hip-Hop before hip-hop. I’m talking about Holger Czukay, a founding member of iconoclastic Krautrock band Can. He died last year but a collection of his complete solo works is out. We profile this brilliantly eccentric musician on Echoes. While you’re listening read about the Five Essential Holger Czukay albums.

Solomon Grey's Dream Pop Hymn In Echoes Podcast

Solomon Grey isn’t a person, it’s an English duo Joe Wilson and Tom Kingston who have made one beautiful album and some soundtracks including the scores to The Last Post and JK Rowlings’ Casual Vacancy. But on their second proper release, Human Music,  they tackle the emotions surrounding the assisted suicide of Joe Wilson’s mother. It’s not a political polemic, but an exploration of life, family, love and mortality. Hear them talk about it along with the beautiful music in the Echoes Podcast.

Mantra chants and Stockhausen's KLANG in Echoes Podcast.

We go to extremes this week in the Echoes Podcast, from Mantras and Kirtan chanting to an iconoclast who wrote music for the post Apocalypse, Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Kirtan chanting has been sweeping the world for most of this century. You’ve been hearing it for years on Echoes with groups like Rasa. And in 2017, a mantra album won the New Age Grammy Award. A new documentary about the phenomenon is out called Mantra: Sounds into Silence. We talk to director Georgia Wyss and chanters Deva Premal and Miten, Jai Uttal and White Sun about Mantra on Echoes.

And once we have you chilled out and at one with the universe, it’s the sound of KLANG. . KLANG: The 24 Hours of the Day was composer Karlheinz Stockhausen’s last work. . We talk to Elizabeth Huston who presented a marathon live performance at Fringe Arts in Philadelphia the weekend of April 7th with performances by Cologne’s Ensemble MusikFabrik and Lilac94, light paintings by Thomas Dunn, and sound projection by Dolf Kamper.  We sound a Klang in the Echoes Podcast.

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Brian Eno and Vangelis Anniversaries Celebrated in Echoes Podcast.

Brian Eno & John Diliberto from Echoes

In the Echoes Podcast, two icons of Modern Music. First up we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports. With this album, released in March of 1978, he created a new sound, and coined a new term in modern music that is still being explored today. We’ll hear Eno in a non-narrative meditation on his ambient concepts.

Then we’ll hear an extended feature about Vangelis, celebrating his 75th Birthday. Born on March 29, 1943, we’ll draw on interviews from 1982, while he was composing the Blade Runner score and 2001 when he staged Mythodea in Greece. While you’re listening, check out our list of The Ten Best Vangelis Albums.

John Diliberto & Vangelis, Greece, 2001

From Acapella to Electronica with Overcoats

Overcoats started out singing acapella in college and they’ve infused that song with electronica beats and looping strategies.  Hana Elion and JJ Mitchell have created an inventive folktronica, with innocent harmonies and deep beats. We talk to Overcoats about change, relationships, family and a reinterpretation of folk music.

Interview with the Philadelphia's Nightcrawlers

Hear The Nightcrawlers in the Echoes Podcast. The Nightcrawlers were the reluctant leaders of a Philadelphia music scene that tapped the sounds of German space music. Electronic music had its first real explosion in the 1970s with European artists like Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze, Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis exploring an entirely new music born from the new technology of synthesizers. The second generation of that sound were artists like England’s Mark Shreeve and Ian Boddy, Michael Garrison from Oregon and The Nightcrawlers from Philadelphia. Of all these artists The Nightcrawlers were the most enigmatic and mysterious. You couldn’t add to that mystery more than with the new collection, The Biophonic Boombox Recordings, a double CD/LP comprised of boombox cassette recordings the band made between 1981 and 1991, most in their garage. I interviewed the Nightcrawlers extensively in the 1980s for WXPN’s Diaspar program and the radio series, Totally Wired.  We go back to one of those interviews, when the Nightcrawlers were at the height of their impact and creativity.