In the 1970s and early 80s, Vangelis was synonymous with orchestral electronic music the way another Greek, Yanni, is synonymous with the New Age music. Whether it’s his film soundtracks forChariots of Fire and Blade Runner, or his epic albums Albedo 0.39 and Voices, the sound of Vangelis has shaped much of Echoes‘ first 20…
Tag: echoes
Reviews & Commentary
5 Essential Paul Winter Albums
Paul Winter lives for two things, the environment and music, although he would say that they are the same thing. “For me, music implies something more than just the artistic combination of sounds,” he patiently explains. “It has to do with a whole way of living, that’s musical, that’s harmonious, that’s resonant with the earth,…
Reviews & Commentary
Echo Location: Rhian Sheehan’s New Zealand Soundscapes
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
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…
CD of the Month
Echo Location: Moby’s Wait for Me-July CD of the Month
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20090701.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSMoby releases his best album in a decade, and it’s the July Echoes CD of the Month It’s been ten years since Moby put out his multi-platinum selling album, Play. it became ubiquitous in films, TV, and commercials. You’ll hear echoes of Play in Moby’s new album, Wait…
Reviews & Commentary
NEARFEST 2009 REFLECTIONS and 10 Classic Progressive Rock Albums
Is Progressive rock progressing? Another year, another NEARFEST and the 2009 edition was as good as any, and much better than 2008, which, as I wrote then, was overlong and overwrought. In ’09 I rarely looked at my watch, there were several acts that excited and you heard nothing but brilliant musicianship. Van Der…
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…
Reviews & Commentary
Echo Location: Matthew Schoening’s Looped Cellos
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20090624.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSEchoes finds a lapsed classical cellist who is looped. You can hear an audio version of this blog with Matthew Schoening‘s music here. Just like Nathaniel Ayres, the homeless cellist at the center of the film, The Soloist, Matthew Schoening was a cellist, in Los Angeles, without a…
Reviews & Commentary
Ali Akbar Khan Plucks His Last String
Echoes remembers Ali Akbar Khan (April 14,1922-June 19, 2009) Ali Akbar Khan is one of the only Indian musicians whose name is spoken in the same breathe as Ravi Shankar. He plays the Indian stringed instrument called the sarod and since his American debut in 1955 playing duets with classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin, he’s been…
Reviews & Commentary
Charlie Mariano-From Bop to Fusion to India to Gone
Saxophonist Charlie Mariano passed at 86 on June 16, 2009 Charlie Mariano was a second tier bop saxophonist with a biting, post-Charlie Parker sound who later showed the influence of John Coltrane and became enthralled with eastern music. In addition to his saxophones, he started playing an obscure, oboe-like instrument from India called the nagaswarum. …
Reviews & Commentary
Echo Location: John Luther Adams
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
http://media.blubrry.com/echoespodcast/www.xpn.org/podcasts/echoes/echoes20090617.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS Echoes from the Alaskan Tundra: John Luther Adams You can hear an audio version of this blog with music here Imagine a place where music changes according to time of day, geomagnetic activity, aurora shimmers, the path of the sun and moon through the sky and seismic…