Category: CD of the Month

Rachel Zeffira – The Deserters – Echoes CD of the Month

Rachel Zeffira’s The Deserters Echoes June CD of the Month Hear Rachel Zeffira’s The Deserters tonight on Echoes. She turns her opera-trained soprano into a caressing hush;  mixes circus organ with a song about suicide; and uses oboe arrangements that sound like the The Left Banke’s “Pretty Ballerina.” That’s only part of the allure in…

Rhian Sheehan’s Ambient Music Box Symphony.

Rhian Sheehan’s Stories from Elsewhere Echoes May CD of the Month Hear Rhian Sheehan’s Stories from Elsewhere featured on Monday May 6 In a music style built on translucent hues, there are many shades of ambient chamber music.  There’s Harold Budd’s minimal austerity and Ludovico Einaudi’s classical melodicism.  Ólafur Arnalds trades in glitchy, haunted moods…

Ólafur Arnalds’ Winter Chill

ÓLAFUR ARNALDS’ FOR NOW I AM WINTER ECHOES APRIL CD OF THE MONTH Hear Ólafur Arnalds talk about For Now I Am Winter on Tuesday May 13 on Echoes Hear this review in the Echoes Podcast  Icelandic artists are subjected to many clichés: most commonly that their music reflects the frozen north, land of glaciers,…

Ulrich Schnauss: Electronic Memories

Ulrich Schnauss’ A Long Way to Fall  is the Echoes February CD of the Month. Hear an audio version of this review with music in the Echoes Podcast. Five years after his stormy, end-of-the-world electro-shoegaze treatise called Goodbye, German downtempo synth scientist Ulrich Schnauss returns with a new CD.  Gone are the layers of distorted…

Enter The Ambient Zone – Echoes January CD of the Month

The Ambient Zone – Just Music Café Volume 4 starts 2013 on a  serene note Within the electronic folds and acoustic shifts of The Ambient Zone – Just Music Café Volume 4, is a sound world that’s both exploratory and serene. Just Music is the UK label whose impeccable roster ranges from deep ambient artists…

Hammock Swings Out 2012 with CD of the Month

Ambient Post-Rock Avatars Transcend their Roots Hear Hammock interviewed on Echoes Tonight 03/06/2013. In an immersive experience where time loses meaning and there is no up nor down, it takes a quantum physicist’s sense of time and an astronaut’s sense of space to navigate.  Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson are neither scientists nor pilots, but…

Top Ten Albums of 2012 by John Diliberto.

Deep moods and a couple of quirky releases highlight John Diliberto’s Top Ten Albums for 2012. 2012 will be a year marked by really good albums, but not necessarily groundbreaking, earth shattering or definitive works that place any one release ahead of the pack.  There are a few albums I could’ve picked as number one,…

CD of The Month Poll Results.

We recently polled Echoes CD of the Month Club members about their favorite club CDs over the last year.  As we get ready to think about our year end Best of Echoes poll, I thought everyone might enjoy reading some of the results. Overall, people seemed very happy with the CD of the Month Club…

Eastern Moods for Echoes October CD of the Month

You can trace many movements in modern music back to The Beatles, and they are at the roots of Hans Christian and Harry Manx.  Not The Beatles of “She Loves You,” but the eastern-influenced Beatles of “Tomorrow Never Knows” and especially “Within You Without You.” Musicians like the German-born Christian and English-born Manx were inspired…