From Digitonal to the Dandy Warhols, John Diliberto’s Top Ten CDs for 2008. While you’re pondering the Echoes 2008 Listener Poll, I’ve already been solicited for a few year-end lists. I usually give a different list to different outlets. My (uncredited) Amazon.com list is pretty strictly New Age and limited to titles that are actually on…
Reviews & Commentary
Echo Location: John Gregorius “Heaven and Earth”
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http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20081126.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS On his latest album, Heaven and Earth, John Gregorius finds a meeting ground between Windham Hill fingerstyle guitar and ambient music. Progressive rock was known for it’s synthesizer and organ orchestrations and furious electric guitar runs, but a lot of musicians were attracted to a more pastoral…
Program Highlights
Brian Eno on This I Believe
Brian Eno Essay to air on NPR’s This I Believe From NPR Promo: This week, This I Believe features an essay by British musician and record producer Brian Eno. He says singing together in a group is good for the mind,body, spirit and community. “I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, it…
Reviews & Commentary
Ludovico Einaudi-New Age Fodder or Classical Elegance
Ludovico Einaudi is in the midst of a short US tour. Echoes and WFUV will be presenting him in concert in New York City on Tuesday November 25th. He just played Los Angeles in Largo at the Coronet Theater and two reviews from that show point up the dichotomies in Einaudi’s music. Writing in the…
Reviews & Commentary
Echo Location: The Sound of Freedom with Marcin Wasilewksi Trio
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http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20081119.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSPolish musicians find freedom in American Jazz You can hear an audio version of this blog with music. The Marcin Wasilewski Trio is one of those young bands like The Bad Plus that isn’t afraid to cover rock tunes in a modern jazz context. On their two ECM…
Reviews & Commentary
Cluster Converges and The Foundry Founders
Some bands last for the long haul, some labels struggle. Philadelphians got a surprise performance from the legendary German electronic band Cluster this past Saturday at St. Mary’s Parish Hall as part of The Gatherings series. The show was originally billed as a concert by Tim Story, Dwight Ashley and original Cluster member Hans-Joachim Roedelius…
Reviews & Commentary
Another Beat Drops: Mitch Mitchell Dead at 61
Mitch Mitchell, the drummer with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, passed away Wednesday, November 13 in Portland, Oregon. Mitchell, along with The Who’s Keith Moon and Cream‘s Ginger Baker changed the role of the rock and roll drummer from a four on the floor dance beat keeper, to a polyrhythmic dervish that pushed the music into…
Reviews & Commentary
Echo Location: Saul Stokes
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http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20081112.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSIn another time, say the 1950s or 60s, Saul Stokes might have been considered an experimental composer, constructing his own instruments, creating random events, bypassing conventional musical form. But rarely has an experimental composer made music as haunting and soulful as that heard on his new CD, Villa…
Best Of
Echoes 2008 Listener Poll Opens: Seeking the Echoes Core
America went to the Polls in record numbers to vote for the president this year. Isn’t the Echoes 2008 Listener Poll just as important? Probably not, but I bet you spend more time listening to the sounds of musicians than politicians. So why not vote on them as well. There aren’t any smear campaigns, dirty…
Program Highlights
Echo Location: Vic Hennegan, Tangerine Dream’s Space Child
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http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20081105.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSArtists like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze did have musical children and among them is a musician named Vic Hennegan. He makes a music born of technology and reveling in spacious rhythms and layered timbres. (You can hear an audio version of this blog, with music.) Vic Hennegan is…