or I Dropped My Microphone on Ravi Shankar’s Sitar. The word “icon” is tossed around pretty freely these days, and I probably fling it out there more than most. But put the name Ravi Shankar next to “icon” and you reset that bar to stratospheric heights. There are only a few musicians who stand out…
Tag: New Age
Reviews & Commentary
55th Grammy Awards-Return of Pure New Age.
New Age Music reasserts its hold on the Grammy’s New Age Category. I won’t be able to get my chakras in an uproar about the absurdity of the New Age Grammy category this year. (See previous rants & reflections Grammys Goof Again in the New Age) There aren’t any hack New Agers that no one…
Interview Podcast
Bryan Carrigan Washes Electronic Windows.
Bryan Carrigan Completes a Trilogy of Electronic CDs with Windows. Bryan Carrigan has been a journeyman musician, working behind the scenes on Hollywood films. but in 2011, he began releasing his own music and he’s put out three CDs in the last year of his inventive and often ebullient compositions. But towards the end of…
Program Highlights
Reflect on WaterSky: Echoes November CD of the Month.
Hear music from Jeff Johnson & Phil Keaggy’s Watersky and an interview with the artists tonight, Monday 11/5 Jeff Johnson and Phil Keaggy are important figures in different music worlds. Johnson came to renown as a modern instrumental keyboardist with a taste for Celtic music and a long-running partnership with Irish flutist Brian Dunning. Keaggy…
Reviews & Commentary
A New Age Shaman’s Last Dance.
Gabrielle Roth passes at age 71. Gabrielle Roth wouldn’t have won any musician polls. She didn’t really play anything beyond some percussion. Yet she was responsible for nearly two dozen albums over the last 20 years or so. She referred to herself as an urban shaman and with the floating personnel of her ensemble, Gabrielle…
Program Highlights
Thierrry David’s Space Music Opus.
A Veteran French Synthesist Launches the Echoes April CD of the Month Hear an interview with Thierry David tonight July 18, on Echoes. It takes a lot of discipline for a skilled, classically trained keyboardist to put his technique on hold and instead, give in to the mood and atmosphere the music requires. On his…
Reviews & Commentary
It’s 2009 and 2010 All Over As Grammy’s Goof Again in New Age.
In 2009 as the Grammy Awards were announced, I wrote a blog called Who is Henta and How Did She Get Nominated for A Grammy. With just a simple name-replacement and a couple of updates, I rewrote it in 2010 as Who is Zamora and How Did He Get Nominated for a Grammy? I didn’t…
Reviews & Commentary
A Produce is Transported R.I.P.
by John Diliberto 9/10/2011 A Produce A.K.A. Barry Craig Passes Barry Craig passed away on September 4, 2011. You may not have known him by that name, but you might be familiar with the music he produced over the last two and a half decades as A Produce. He was featured heavily on Echoes, especially…
Reviews & Commentary
New Age Music Reborn
It took 22 years, but I knew if I waited long enough New Age would become hip again. The Los Angeles Times has given its code of approval to a new wave of musicians like Animal Collective and Blues Control (Who have a tune called “Paul Winter’s Solstice”), who wave their New Age flags high.…
Reviews & Commentary
5 Essential Harold Budd CDs.
Five Essential Harold Budd CDs for Deep Listening of Pretty MusicSilence Required: The Best of Harold Budd, an Icon of Echoes. Harold Budd is a romantic with a classicist’s soul and an experimenter’s openness to chance. He’s never opted for the obvious ploys for the heartstrings. Instead, Budd explores the geometry of passion, the calculus…