Category: Program Highlights

John Diliberto’s Top Ten Songs for 2008: Alu to Gnarls Barkley

When WXPN, our Philadelphia Echoes affiliate, asked me to submit my Top Ten Albums and songs list, Program Director Bruce Warren said “send us your top ten albums and songs (if you have songs).” I knew what he meant by that parenthetical on a couple of levels. On Echoes, we usually don’t play songs, right?…

Echoes Top 25 for November: Bombay Dub Tops

World music fusions bookend the Echoes Top 25 for November as electronic artists and acoustic revisionists dominate the list.  Bombay Dub Orchestra, our November CD of the Month, tops the list, (read a full review)  followed closely by the independent release from Vic Hennegan, Aqua Vista his homage to space music.  You can find out…

John Diliberto’s Top 10 CDs for 2008

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…

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…

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…

Echo Location: Vic Hennegan, Tangerine Dream’s Space Child

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…

Echoes Top 25 for October: Ambient continues to roll

This month’s Echoes Top 25 continues the roll of ambient music, especially in the Top 10.   Sumner McKane‘s What A Great Place to Be is number one by dint of being the Echoes CD of the Month for October, but even without that honor and extra airplay it entails, it was already #4 the previous…

Echo Location: Suzanne Teng & Mystic Journey

http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20081015.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSSuzanne Teng & Mystic Journey play live on Echoes,  Weds, 10/15/08 You can hear an Audio Version of this blog, with music. If you were among the 15 million or so viewers who watched the finale of Survivor: China, you may have caught Suzanne Teng fronting the on-camera…

Echo Location: Fernwood’s Americana World Chamber Music

http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20081008.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSA progressive rock guitar warrior unplugs when Djam Karet’s Gayle Ellett journeys to Fernwood. (You can hear an audio version of this blog with music.) In an era of computer generated music where even the most folky, downhome pop song is electronically manipulated, a band called Fernwood wants…