FEATURES FOR THE WEEK

Tuesday August 16, 2005
ECHOES AT THE MOVIES: BELOW THE BLOCKBUSTERS
Amidst all the blockbuster films, there have been some compelling scores, though perhaps not for those blockbuster films. On the widescreeen of Echoes, we'll be rolling scores from Mark Isham's CRASH (Superb Records), Christopher Hedge's THE NEW HEROES (Artemis), Sally Potter's YES (Edge/Deutsche Gramomophon) and more.

Wednesday August 17, 2005
JEFF OSTER: GABRIEL'S ECHOES
By day, Alameda-based trumpeter Jeff Oster works in stocks. By night he works in a funk band and in the dark glimmer of the morning he makes ambient based, pastoral tone poems. Oster is one of the few trumpeters working in ambient terrain and he got people like Windham Hill founder and guitarist Will Ackerman to produce and artists like Philip Aaberg, Michael Manring and Happy Rhodes to perform on his solo debut RELEASED (Retso Records). We hear Jeff Oster talk about getting down, trading up and chilling out.

Thursday August 18, 2005
A PROGRAM, A PERSON, A PRODUCE
A Produce is the performance name of Barry Craig and for the last two decades he's been making an ambient brand of electronic music on albums like LAND OF 1000 TRANCES and INSCAPE & LANDSCAPE (Tranceport). Those titles give some insight into A Produce's sound, a mixture of ethereal ambiences and primal rhythms. Craig has just released a 3 CD set of A Produce's collected works called BLACK SANDS. We talk with Barry Craig and discuss how he carves out the contemplative spaces of A Produce in his raucous, noisy LA neighborhood.

Friday August 19, 2005
BRIAN ENO: AMBIENT VOCALS
Although Brian Eno is esteemed as the Godfather of ambient music, he began by crafting witty, knotty and idiosyncratic songs, first with Roxy Music and then on solo albums like HERE COME THE WARM JETS and TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN BY STRATEGY. Those CDs have been recently re-issued, but Eno also has a brand new recording of songs, his first in over 15 years. It's called ANOTHER DAY ON EARTH (Rykodisc) and it's an excursion into profound melancholy, tinged with Eno's whimsy. We talk with Eno about his return to singing.