Another Christmas episode from Soundscape with an attempt to present only new material (well at least previously not in a Soundscape Christmas episode). The music is a mostly mellow cache of holiday bits and pieces. Your DJ was exhausted and anxious but I stand by my choices. 

Suzi and I would like to take a moment here and express our gratitude that you continue to explore our episodes. It is our heartfelt wish that we can continue to provide you with new and interesting episodes in the coming year. Some of the upcoming episodes will feature a focus on drums, a look back through the years, a celebration of the music and finds of 2024, and of course a return to Norway- with perhaps a sidequest to Switzerland. Either way you slice it, we are looking forward to the next year with you all and we wish you happy holidays and a new year of meaning making and peace. 

Many of us live in a sense of conflict with others. It would be easy enough to pick a pack of songs that further sowed division, but I thought, why not instead focus on values. The goal then was to pick songs that expressed values of hope, kindness, empathy, compassion and understanding. We can surely agree that these are the lofty goals of our humanity rather than the daily division sewn into the fabric of our world right now. Hopefully this set of music will bring some sense of salve to the wounds you feel.

In a previous episode, we were so taken by the presence of the piano, that I decided to devote an episode to just piano. I of course unearthed a treasure trove of piano music from the progsphere and my listening tastes. There was no way to include it all, so stay tuned to our Instagram page for songs from the cutting room floor. 

There was also a desire to add AI as a podcast host, but that did not turn out as planned. I am still working on that setup, but I think it will be a lot of fun when we get there. 

Greetings fellow travelers,

After much gnashing if teeth I present to you The Hell Rail- our newest episode of Soundscape ready in time for your Halloween listening pleasure. 

The next episode of Soundscape will air on November 20, and we look forward to seeing you as you peruse your afterlife options. 

It turns out that the music from Norway is so good that we made a part 2, and indeed part 3 is to come in some future episode. The exploration of this music has been so much fun and turned over so many new stones that there is still a plethora of progressive tuneage to mine for Part 3. Live listeners said that they really enjoyed Part 1 and Part 2 but you be the judge.

Next time we meet here it will be for the first Soundscape Halloween episode in about 3 years. This means that the dig has been very successful and that you will likely hear some new music to get your bones rattling and your feet tapping, just ignore the chill up the spine- but that is next time. For now, here is the set list from this week's episode. 

In this week's episode part 1 of our exploration of Norwegian Prog. This was a very enjoyable exploration of progressive rock and other musics from Norway. I really had no idea how deep the rabbit hole was going to go, but once I realized how much enjoyment I was getting out of the exploration, I knew that I would need 2 episodes to do this all justice. Although there is some modern prog, the set seemed to lean more towards the psychedelic and the strange. That's pretty normal for us, but I imagine many people will say we missed a lot. Well, we did, because there is too much to explore here. I imagine the next episode will lean more towards the symphonic and neo-prog- but as I say, the journey continues. 

Here we are, finally back on track. Our newest episode of Soundscape features a great many prog-rock fairy tales. There were so many to choose from, and likely we did not even play most of the expected songs, or even come close to exhausting the theme. This means that part 2 will probably happen at some point. Nevertheless, we think you will enjoy the collection we have made for you here. 

We wanted to identify what makes Generation X different from other generations. Many books that lay bare this question, but the one that informed most of my thoughts about Generation X was the book Generations by Jean M Twenge. Twenge did not make any real statements about the music of the generation. Instead, she identified differences mostly based on how we interacted with different technologies. For instance, Generation X is the last generation to grow up on analog music and the first to experience digital. We were the first generation to experience MTV which changed the face of music as we knew it. There are many more data points that Twenge pointed out that provide the parameters for Generation X. However the questions I wanted to answer were more related to the content we listened to.

What music defined Generation X? When we started creating our music, what were the trends we created? What impact did Generation X have on our beloved prog rock? Some of the answers may be contained here in this episode, in short, the results of my findings in this all-too-brief exploration of generational music were:

Regardless of the generational divide that seems to show up in culture wars, there is no escaping that the music we listened to growing up came from the previous generation.  Progressive rock itself is a Boomer genre of rock music. We grew up on Classic Rock, Punk, and 80s pop.  When Generation X did start speaking musically, we developed Grunge, and Hip-Hop. However, on the prog side, we had prog metal and post-rock. The earliest rock music from Generation X appears to have been Gun's and Roses (although some members just miss the identified cutoff). The earliest band to speak prog that was a Generation X fronted band, was either Majesty (later known as Dream Theater) or Echolyn. 

The episode provided here is not even close to answering all of the questions, but the research and theme did make for some enjoyable listening. We hope you enjoy this all-too-brief dive into this question.

This week Soundscape moved to its new time and place. We now broadcast on Wednesday evenings every two weeks at 5-8 pm CST. This episode is not themed at all. It is a grab bag of new music (at least to us). We will return with our Generation X theme in 2 weeks on 6/19.

Wow, what a journey! Over the last few weeks, I perused and listened to bunches of albums. I was seeking a particular sound, a psychedelic sound. When I started I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I even had extreme stress in trying to curate what was right for this show. I wanted to both offer some ethereal journeys and yet still provide enough landing spaces that it wouldn't overwhelm the passenger. Amidst chuggernauts, cosmic tinged distortions, and typical psychedelic poetry, I found the path. If there are bumpy moments I apologize. Most flights have some level of turbulence. I just know that we seem to have landed safely. Enjoy the ride and look out for the next exciting adventure in the Soundscape.