New Celtic music was a rarity when Echoes began, but inspired
by the likes of Clannad, Enya and Nightnoise a new Celtic sound
emerged in the early days of Echoes and shows no signs of abating.
Musicians from Ireland and Scotland as well as musicians who have
never set foot outside of America have been inspired to create
a Celtic music that owes a debt to Celtic Bard Turlough O'Carolan,
but this sound is far from shamrocks and leprechauns.
Essential Albums:
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Various Artists "Celtic Twilight" |
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Ambient is that sub-genre of music spawned by Brian Eno in
the mid 1970s and reborn in the late 1980s as the spacy side of
Techno. Ambient pioneer Brian Eno lays the groundwork and disciples
Steve Hillage, The Future Sound of London, The Orb, Aphex Twin
and David Toop pick up the threads.
Essential Albums:
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Brian Eno "Music for Airports" |
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The Orb "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" |
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Global Communication "76:14" |
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Until a few years ago, the sounds of Native America were relegated
to Pow-wow chants and kitsch versions of the tribal drum beat.
R. Carlos Nakai changed all that, first bringing the Native flute
into the modern world, then collaborating with musicians of all-strips
to create an organic native fusion. We have explored the results
of that fusion with Nakai, Douglas Spotted Eagle, Jim Wilson,
and others.
Essential Albums:
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R. Carlos Nakai/ William Eaton/Will Clipman "Feather, Stone & Light" |
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In many ways, Techno-Tribal is a sub-genre of World Fusion,
but these musicians explore a darker, more rhythmic and electronic
sound world. Steve Roach initially coined the term, before it
was usurped by ambient and techno musicians. Steve Roach, Robert
Rich, Jorge Reyes, Tuu, Loop Guru and others are taking primal
sounds and using technology to turn them into modern soundscapes.
Essential Albums:
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Steve Roach "Dreamtime Return" |
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Jon Hassell "Power Spot" |
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Early on in Echoes it seemed like a Middle Eastern fusion might
be emerging, and over the last few years it has reappeared. Musicians
are entranced by the sensual rhythms and sinewy melodies that
come out of the Middle East. Purveyors of Middle Eastern fusion
including Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Jamshied Sharifi, Vas, and Sussan
Deyhim & Richard Horowitz have been taking an ancient music
into the modern world.
Essential Albums:
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Omar Faruk Tekbilek & Brian Keane "Beyond the Sky" |
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Jamshied Sharifi: "A Prayer for the Soul of Layla" |
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The world was caught by surprise when monks from an obscure
monastery in Santo Domingo, Spain had a world-wide hit doing what
monks have been doing for millennia: chanting. But many musicians
weren't content to simply intone ancient hymns. They heard a new
music in these ancient sounds. Several artists have created a
Chant Fusion, re-inventing hymns from Abbess Hildegard von Bingen
and Anonymous. Richard Souther and Sister Germaine Fritz of Vision,
Jocelyn Montgomery and David Lynch, Sheila Chandra, the Hilliard
Ensemble and others are making a new music rooted in traditional
practices.
Essential Albums:
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Richard Souther "Illumination" |
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Jan Garbarek & the Hilliard Ensemble "Officium" |
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In recent years, electronic musicians have been going back
to the future, reinvestigating the sounds and instruments of the
space music that emerged in the 1970s out of places like Berlin
with Tangerine Dream. The space music sound they created still
sounds fresh today as artists like Red Shift, Ian Boddy, Ron Boots,
and more are traveling the spaceways again.
Essential Albums:
| Red Shift "Ether" | |
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Spacecraft "Hummel" |
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With the advent of modern instrumental music came a new sound
for old instruments. It was a style that was neither folk nor
classical, but emerged out of both to breath new life into traditional
instruments. New Acoustic Music revitalized the acoustic guitar,
gave a new avenue of expression for solo pianists and conjured
up a world of unusual ensembles working an acoustic chamber sound.
George Winston, Michael Hedges, Nightnoise, and many others have
created a New Acoustic Music.
Essential Albums:
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George Winston "Autumn" |
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Nightnoise "The Parting Tide" |
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Michael Hedges "Oracle" |
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In the over ten years of Echoes, we've been hearing voices.
Voices singing in forgotten tongues, voices singing in a dialect
of the imagination. We have heard the myth and meaning behind
the voices of Lisa Gerrard and Dead Can Dance, Vas, Adiemus, Sheila
Chandra and Cocteau Twins' Elisabeth Fraser: women who sing in
mysterious ways.
Essential Albums:
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Lisa Gerrard "Duality" |
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The Cocteau Twins "Victorialand" |
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The World fusion trend was peaking just as Echoes was launched
and continues strong, over ten years later. World Fusion is the
sound of our times, a collision of cultures and technology, the
ancient and the modern, the primitive and the computerized.
Essential Albums:
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Paul Winter "Greatest Hits" |
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Ancient Future "Dreamchaser" |
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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Michael Brook "Night Song" |
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