As I put together our Celtic Soundscape for St. Patrick’s Day, I was struck by the dearth of new Celtic music coming out. Now, let me be clear. There is still a vital Celtic music community with lots of discs being released. However, not too much of it is in the Echoes vein. It’s quite…
Category: Reviews & Commentary
Reviews & Commentary
Lisa Gerrard Sanctuary, Tour and Music
Lot’s of news on the Lisa Gerrard front. Look for a US tour in April and May There will be a Best of album in June And the Lisa Gerrard documentary, Sanctuary will be released on April 24 Directed by Clive Collier, it’s more artful meditation than blow-by-blow biography and features a lot of Lisa…
Reviews & Commentary
International Women’s Day–just another day on Echoes?
Well, it’s that time again, for my cameo appearance as host of Echoes. March 8th is International Women’s Day! I’ve been in this spot for decades. Long before we began producing Echoes, John and I hosted various programs on WXPN in Philadelphia. On March 8th, I’d usually pull two or three shifts, ranging from classical…
Reviews & Commentary
Remix Mania-Michael Brook, Azam Ali, Moodswings
Remixes are a blessing and a curse. Do we really need another rendition of a tune, a remixers reinterpretation of another artist’s vision. Sometimes, yes. Just off the top of my head I’m thinking of Solarstone’s remixing of Conjure One’s “Center of the Sun.” It was so haunting, mining the forlorn, but empowered lyrics sung…
Reviews & Commentary
Ex-Love Songs
On Wednesday, February 14, you’ll be hearing Echoes of the Heart, A St. Valentine’s Soundscape. We’ve been doing these shows pretty much since the beginning of Echoes and the movement in time can be marked by relationships memorialized in song, but which no longer exist. How many albums feature dedications to the significant others in…
Reviews & Commentary
NEARfest 2007-Magma, Hawkwind, Robert Rich and more Progressive Sounds
Get ready for NEARfest. The North East Art Rock Festival will be launching on June 23 and 24, with a special, yet to be announced pre-concert show on Friday, June 22. The line-up is the usual, broad-based mix of progressive rock, from symphonic post ELP keyboard bands to the electro-ambiences to slash and burn wrecking…
Reviews & Commentary
The Return of David Helpling Imminent
I bet you probably haven’t been wondering whatever happened to David Helpling, but you should. His two albums on Spotted Peccary, Sleeping on the Edge of the World and Between Green and Blue were Echoes favorites in the 1990s. He’s played a couple of times on the show and also has an unreleased piece on…
Reviews & Commentary
Sultan’s Elephant-Giant Girl Video
I came across a totally enchanting video posted on the site of a recent echoesspace friend, Vespertine. It’s a apparently from a massive street theater production called The Sultan’s Elephant. The video is completely mesmerizing as a giant marionette girl walks the streets, licks a popsicle and gives some children a ride. And she looks,…
Reviews & Commentary
A few thoughts on The Echoes Polls-BT, William Orbit, Rena Jones
We’ve concluded our Year End polls which are sometimes confusing. We have the 2006 Listener Poll and the 25 Essential Echoes CDs of 2006. The Essential poll is determined by the staff of Echoes, and it’s inevitably different from the listener poll. After all, we hear everything and we hear it often, while listeners might…
Reviews & Commentary
A Whirlwind December: Moya Brennan, Loreena McKennitt, Stephen Bennett, BT
December has been a frantic month at Echoes. In addition to all the seasonal shows we produce: Sonic Seasonings, An Echoes Christmas, An Echoes Winter Solstice, Best of Echoes 2006 Listener Poll, Essential Echoes 2006. In the midst of all that, we’ve had a run of live performances and spontaneously picked up two of the…