Category: Reviews & Commentary

Reviews & Commentary

Echo Location: Bill Frisell

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http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20090715.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSA Different kind of Americana You can hear an audio version of this Blog with Bill Frisell’s music here. Guitarist Bill Frisell is a genre unto himself.  His music flows through interlocking veins of jazz improvisation and harmonies, country melodicism and twang, chamber music strings and electronic dissonances. …

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Reviews & Commentary

R.I.P. WBCN in Boston

A Warrior for New Music finally fades away. The station that made me the music junky I am, for better or worse, has left the airwaves.  WBCN in Boston, the first full-time “underground” rock station in Boston, originally broadcasting from a backroom at the The Boston Tea Party club, will switch to mainstream rock format…

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Reviews & Commentary

Brian Eno Makes 2nd Apollo Moon Landing

Brian Eno Relaunches Apollo, Live. Brian Eno has been extremely busy lately. When he’s not producing U2, Coldplay or some other pop phenom, he’s been staging multi-day festivals in Sydney and now he’s relaunching Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. Apollo is an ionic Eno release, full of atmosphere, never-ending melodies and shimmering lap steel guitar. Originally…

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Reviews & Commentary

Echo Location: Rhian Sheehan’s New Zealand Soundscapes

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http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20090708.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSNew Zealand composer Rhian Sheehan uses synthesizers and music boxes. You can hear an audio version of this blog, with Rhian Sheehan’s music, here. In the attic studio of his New Zealand home, just around the corner from where Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson makes his…

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Reviews & Commentary

Trippin’ Out to Saturn with the Sun Ra Arkestra

The Sun Ra Arkestra made a return to earth this past Wednesday night at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.  The sound was high-school-gym awful, the seating on the floor uncomfortable, the lighting harsh.  It didn’t matter.  The 21-piece Sun Ra Arkestra, led by alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, raised the spirits in a two…

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Reviews & Commentary

NEARfest 09 Part 4-The Rest

NEARFEST 09-The Rest: Oblivion Sun, DFA, Trettioåriga Kriget, Beardfish Echoes‘ John Diliberto wraps up his Nearfest 09 Reviews In what turned out to be a very good Nearfest, I’ve already covered my favorite acts.  You can read about Gong and PFM, Steve Hillage and  Van Der Graaf Generator, and my faves of the festival, Cabeza…

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Reviews & Commentary

NEARFEST 09 Pt.2: Gong and PFM

Someone is dancing in pajama robes and a wizards hat.  It must be Daevid Allen and Gong. In this second part of the Echoes Nearfest 2009 review it’s the Old Guard Part Two. Gong is the rock mirror image of the Sun Ra Arkestra.  Like Sun Ra, Gong is  a free-wheeling eclectic band that wraps…

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