An Echoes Earth Day Sonic Celebration
It’s the sound of the planet on the next Echoes as we celebrate Earth Day 2026. We could plant a tree or save a whale, but instead, we’re going to play music born from the earth. We’ve got a soundscape of music that will carry you through natural landscapes, the creation of music emerging from the sounds of nature and the electricity of the earth transformed in synthesizers. There is a strand of Japanese ambient music that is deeply woven with nature. We’ve got three of those artists. Jalan Jalan was a Japanese project that only released two albums, both of them wonderful. We’ll hear from the debut, Bali. Hiroki Okano has been merging electronics with conventional and traditional instruments for nearly 4 decades. We’ll hear an excerpt from an album with a 50-minute composition, Quantum Leap Breeze. Finally, there is Hiroshi Yoshimura, who remained underground despite around 20 releases since his 1982 debut, making him a pioneer in the field. He died in 2003, but we only just discovered him several years ago. Like a lot of Japanese artists we play his work is infused with the sound and spirit of nature, as well as Brian Eno.
We’ve got that as well as Jake Shimabukuro, Max Richter and Erik Wollo in music inspired by the vistas and life on earth as well as music made from the sounds of the earth. Join John Diliberto for an Earth Day Soundscape on Echoes from PRX.