Category: Reviews & Commentary

Harold Budd-Post Miles Improvisor

For a totally different side of Harold Budd, check out this YouTube video of him in a fairly free form blowout with Bill Laswell, Jaki Liebezeit, Graham Haynes and Jah Wobble.  This isn’t your father’s ambient chamber music and you wouldn’t hear it on Echoes, but wow!   Harold et al: Put this out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FXshOTaGsg&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f…

Harold Budd-Avatar of Ambient Chamber Music

http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20091209.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSHarold Budd’s Quiet World When Daniel Lanois, the producer of U2, Bob Dylan and Peter Gabriel first heard Harold Budd, he hadn’t yet met him. Daniel Lanois:  For The Plateax of Mirror , I never even met him (laughter), cause he did recordings, like two track piano recordings. …

Portishead Drop new Song for Amnesty International

Portishead are releasing a brand new track – “Chase the Tear” for Amnesty International. Chase the Tear is a slice of deep retro synth pop full of analog drive and of course the serene anguish of singer Beth Gibbon. This isn’t a throw-away track but deeply felt performance with a very moody performance video to…

Grammy Awards Goof Again in New Age

WHO  IS HENTA AND HOW DID SHE GET NOMINATED FOR A GRAMMY? Every year, the Recording Academy has at least one WTF moment and this year it’s again in the New Age category.  Last year Jack DeJohnette inexplicably won for Peace Time, which in a post-Grammy blog I called “a generic New Age album that…

Ablaye Cissoko & Volker Goetze’s Griot Jazz

http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20091125.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSAblaye Cissoko & Volker Goetze at the Crossroads of Griot and Jazz You can hear an audio version of this blog with music. The African kora is an instrument that gently seduces you with it’s sound. Made from a large calabash gourd cut in half, it’s covered in…

Steve Roach: Icon of Echoes

http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20090617.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSSteve Roach has created 20 years of Echoes Soundscapes. You can hear an audio version of this blog with Steve Roach’s music. Steve Roach calls his studio the Time Room and it’s an appropriate name for a place where music plays with concepts of time and perception. STEVE…

Life On Planet Gong: Echo Location

http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20091111.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSGong-The Original Psychedelic Space Gypsies at 40. You can hear an audio version of this blog, with Gong’s music. The voyage of the original Star Trek ended in 1969, but another band of space travelers called Gong launched that year and they’re still wandering the galaxies. Gong is…

Baaba Maal-21st Century Griot

http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20091104.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSEcho Location: Baaba Maal To hear an audio version of this blog with Baaba Maal’s music, go here Senegalese singer Baaba Maal emerges out of the griot tradition, African story-tellers who usually accompany themselves with the kora.  Legendary griot, Mansour Seck was his childhood friend and mentor, but…