PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast

A Deep Dive into 5 of the Top 25 Albums of 2018, So Far

We reached the halfway point of the year 2 weeks ago and at that time I presented The Best of Echoes 2018. . . So Far. These were the 25 albums we thought were the best in the first six months of the year. I thought on the Echoes Podcast we’d take a deeper dive into some of these recordings. I’ve picked out five of them pretty much at random, except number one. We go deeper into Khruangbin’s Con Todo El Mundo, Solomon Grey’s Human Music, Meridian by Ian Boddy and Erik Wøllo, Klaus Schulze’s Silhouettes and our number one album, so far, Talitha Rise’s An Abandoned Orchid House. Hear what John Diliberto has to say about these recordings in the Echoes Podcast. See the complete list here.

Talitha Rise's Sacred Progressive Pop in Echoes Podcast

Talitha Rise’s debut album, An Abandoned Orchid House, was the Number One album in The Best of Echoes 2018. . . So Far. Imagine early Genesis with a more pastoral sound, a dash of Fleetwood Mac and a female singer of folk-like purity and you have the sound of Talitha Rise. That’s the recording persona of Jo Beth Young, an English musician who has found her voice in the middle of her life with an unlikely collaborator, drummer Martyn Barker of the new wave band, Shriekback.  We talk to Jo Beth Young and Martyn Barker about Talitha Rise in the Echoes Podcast.

We search for Loreena McKennitt's Lost Souls on the Echoes Podcast

Loreena McKennitt has been an icon of world music since her fourth studio album, The Visit, in 1991. Since then, the Canadian musician has taken her Celtic roots and exploded them into a vibrant world fusion. Never an overly prolific artist, it’s been 12 years since her last album of original music. But now she has a recording of new songs – except they aren’t quite new. It’s called Lost Souls.

Lost Souls gathers songs that go so far back that one of them, the instrumental “Manx Ayre,” is from before McKennitt released her debut, Elemental, in 1985. That was an album she sold in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market while she busked. That song, like others that span her 33-year career, had never been recorded, until now.

Lost Souls is a slightly more eclectic collection than usual for McKennitt, given that her music is internally diverse to start with. For instance, “A Hundred Wishes” taps a side you don’t often hear from McKennitt: the personal singer-songwriter. It’s a song that undoubtedly comes from the time of The Visit in 1991. Draped in rippling Spanish acoustic guitar, arcing cello lines and piano, it’s a song of love across distances of both time and place that you don’t usually hear from the singer. “Spanish Guitars and Night Plazas” also casts back to The Visit, with rippling bouzouki from Brian Hughes against McKennitt’s vividly-painted recollection of Spanish evenings and Moorish moods.

McKennitt has always had a penchant for adapting poetry and words from older sources, most famously on The Visit  with “The Lady of Shalott” by Lord Tennyson. Poets and authors like William Shakespeare, St. John of the Cross, William Blake and Alfred Noyes have had their words cast in McKennitt’s music. On Lost Souls William Butler Yeats’  “The Ballad of the Fox Hunter,” is caressed by Mckennitt’s sound. Compositionally, it dates back to 1988 and it’s classic Loreena, bringing drama to a narrative song, letting her powerful soprano voice go into its full range, from whisper to clarion call, low ruminations to siren highs. Even though it was written 30-years ago,  the arrangement comes from McKennitt’s current working band with cellist Caroline Lavelle, violinist Hugh Marsh and guitarist Brian Hughes. In fact, one way you can tell these are newer recordings, is there isn’t much harp on the album, a McKennitt trend since her The Mask and Mirror album.

Even when she writes her own lyrics, McKennitt can often sound like the poets she loves. “Ages Past, Ages Hence”, is a beautifully lilting waltz. The opening sounds like it could have come from The Mask and Mirror or Book of Secrets with its moody introduction of nyckleharpa over a drone. But when she moves into the waltzing body of the song, it evokes that Renaissance mood that McKennitt is known for.

One of the few new songs on the album is “Breaking of the Sword”, written in 2016 for a celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, France in World War I. It’s a song in the older English ballad style as McKennitt tells the tale of a mother sending her child off to war. It begins sparse and moody and while it never gets raucous, McKennitt does bring in the concert choir of her hometown, Stratford, as well as highland bagpipes and The Canadian Central Forces Band. That’s something you can do when you’re an Honorary Colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

For most artists, an album like Lost Souls would be a collection of left-overs. But, these are truly lost gems, largely unheard across Loreena McKennitt’s career, and now given life with these new recordings. She’s packaged the album in a beautiful book-like case with lyrics and the kind of visual presentation that has marked all of McKennitt’s releases over the years. Loreena McKennitt’s lost souls have been found.

We talk with the Australian artist who records as All India Radio

We revisit an interview with All India Radio, a great ambient artist from Australia. He’s just put out a great album called Space, so we thought we’d go back to our 2010 interview with this musician, who just puts out one great album after another. 

Khruangbin talk about their trans-global psychedelic sound.

Khruangbin is a Thai word for airplane, and it’s used by a group making a trans-global psychedelic sound. Khruangbin talks about their sound, which mixes Thai pop, gospel, acid rock and krautrock.

Lost compositions from Loreena McKennitt in the Echoes Podcast

Loreena McKennitt is an icon of world music.  The Canadian musician started with Celtic influences, and later expanded into a vibrant world fusion, incorporating instruments and styles from across the globe. It’s been 12 years since her last album of original music, but now she has a recording of new songs – except they aren’t quite new.  Loreena McKennitt discusses her latest recording, called Lost Souls, the June CD of the Month, on the Echoes Podcast.

Ambient Composer Jeff Greinke in Echoes Podcast

Composer Jeff Greinke has moved from deep ambient expanses to deep ambient chamber music. He’s been recording since the mid-1980s and has released over 20 solo albums plus collaborations. His latest is an ambient chamber music work called Before Sunrise. Apparently, it all began when he was listening to Echoes’ John Diliberto  on the radio in the 1970s. He sat in on John’s radio show 40 years ago. He talks about his evolution from those early days.

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.