Rhian Sheehan

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

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Here’s the Press Release:

With “Lost In The Humming Air – Music inspired by Harold Budd” oktaf records announces an amazing collection of thirteen exclusive tracks made by a selection of some of todays best known ambient music producers giving their tribute to the outstanding piano legend Harold Budd.

The playlists features names as: Deaf Center, Loscil, Martin Fuhs, Biosphere, Xela, Marsen Jules, Andrew Thomas, Mokira, Christopher Willits, Taylor Deupree, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Porn Sword Tobacco and bvdub feat. Criss Van Wey.

Well known for his spaceful piano playing and his early cooperations with Brian Eno, Harold Budd has inspired a whole generation of modern protagonists of ambient, jazz and especially the so called modern classical genre. With his recent releases on David Sylvians Samadhi Sound label as well as on Darla, he is still showing his outstanding musical genius to the world.

“Lost in the Humming Air (Music inspired by Harold Budd)” will be released on April 9th (March 26th digital) on oktaf records. Exclusively distributed by Kompakt.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

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Air is a really good live band and here they are with a nicely produced live video of “Love.”

Lia Ices cut a very erotic/artsy/spiritual/goofy video for her gorgeous song, “Little Marriage”  from her CD, Grown Unknown.

Pat Metheny recorded a beautiful version of The Association’s “Cherish” on his Grammy winning album, What’s It All About.

Agnes Obel’s Philharmonics was the #1 Echoes album from 2011 and a CD of the Month.  Here she is covering John Cale’s “Close Watch.”

And what the hell, here’s John Cale with his rendition of “I Keep A Close Watch.”

There were only static cover shot versions of  Low Roar’s “Nobody Else” but I liked this solo version of “Help Me.”

I couldn’t find a good video for Fionnualla Sherry’s “My Lagan Love” here’s one for “Our Wedding Day” from the same album, Songs from Before, an Echoes CD of the Month.

Here’s an acoustic version of Anna Ternheim’s “My Heart Beats for You.” Check out the musical saw..

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Hear Echoes of the Heart tonight on Valentine’s Day.  Echoes On-Line Subscribers will get to hear a 3 and 1/2 hour Valentine’s day soundscape. You can create a non-stop, announcer free soundscape for your Valentine’s night by trying a week of Echoes On-Line.

A few of these albums were Echoes CDs of the Month.   You can get great music like this by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club.

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Hear Echoes at the Grammys, tonight February 10, 2012

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 do anything except replace Henta’s name with Zamora’s. 

I decided not to run it because I didn’t want to be negative again.  But I’m not going to pass this up two years in a row, so…………

WHO  IS HENTA ZAMORA AND HOW DID SHE HE GET NOMINATED FOR A GRAMMY?  TWICE!!

Every year, the Recording Academy has at least one WTF moment and in this 54th year it’s again in the New Age category.  Three years ago, Jack DeJohnette inexplicably won for Peace Time, which in a post-Grammy blog I called “a generic New Age album that would’ve been cliched 30 years ago”  and likened it to Yusef Lateef for getting the New Age Grammy in 1987 for his hackneyed Little Symphony and Jethro Tull winning the Heavy Metal Grammy in 1988 for Crest of a Knave (a good album, just not heavy metal).

But all those artists had names and were brilliant in their fields, jazz and rock respectively.  But who the hell is Henta  Zamora?  You don’t know? Someone must.  She’s He’s one of 5 nominees in the New Age category, but I’ve never heard of her him.  It’s not so unusual that an artist slips by me sometimes.   I’m not all-knowing, even in my field.   But it is unusual when that artist can muster enough votes in a Grammy category to make the final five.  She He sits alongside established names like Peter Kater,  and jazz guitar icon Pat Metheny (what he’s doing in this category is another WTF Grammy Moment.) as well as much lesser known artists, Michael Brant DeMaria and Al Conti.   As Ricky Gervais as Andy Tilman as Ray Stokes might say, “Are you ‘avin’ a laugh?”

Henta’s Zamora’s nominated CD, Laserium for the Soul Instrumental Oasis, Vol. 6, is a slice of generic, hard core new age with ethereal vocals syrupy melodies, corny pan-pipe samples and overladen synthesizer pads.  How such a derivative, run-of-the-mill  work from an artist with no apparent profile makes the 5 New Age nominees is beyond me.  Perusing her his website, it’s clear that she’s he’s a working musician with previous recordings, sound library work and more, but it’s nothing that most people, Grammy voters or not,  would know about.  It’s not like New Age doesn’t have enough of a credibility problem.

He does have a Wiki page but Zamora’s Autobody is listed higher in a Google search. Sadly, small categories like New Age are easily gamed in the Grammys.  Even bigger categories like Americana can be manipulated, as it was this year by complete unknown, Linda Chorney, for her album, Emotional Jukebox.  She didn’t break any rules.  She simply optimized her social networking, including the Grammy 360 social network.  But that doesn’t make it the best album.

Hopefully, creativity, integrity and artistic bravery  will win out this year and Pat Metheny‘s What’s It All About will take the New Age Grammy.   He’s already won 18 Grammy awards, most in various jazz categories, but whenever he puts out a solo acoustic album, suddenly he’s New Age.   His presence elevates the genre, and even though it’s not a New Age album, it is the best album in the category.

Overall, this is one of the weakest years for Echoes artists at the Grammys.  You can usually find them in the fringe categories but few are found in 2009′s, 2010′s, 2011′s selection.  But we’ll run down some of our favorites on Friday, February 10 on Echoes at the Grammys.

The Grammys themselves will be broadcast Sunday night, February 12, although most categories, including New Age, are given off-screen during the day.  But you can watch the webcast. See the complete list of nominees.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

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Frankie Rose, previously recording as Frankie Rose and the Outs,  was a singer in Dum Dum Girls and you can hear the Go-Gos-style summer of electro punk joyfulness that group had, but there is a darker more shoegazer edge on her latest album, Interstellar.   It’s not glistening electro-pop.  Rose has an ethereal but powerful voice that stacks up against her big beats.  It’s an evocative combination on songs like “Know Me,” the lead single, which is  both triumphal and yearning.  She loves 80s rhythms, like the alternating electro snare and bass drum 4/4 groove of the contemplative “Daylight Sky.”  But even with the big beats she can drop into a delicate chorale hymn on “Pair of Wings” and the meditation of “Silver Apples for the Sun.”  Could there be a touch of Enya in her listening?

But Frankie Rose always comes back to the new wave dance  sound, even when it’s couched in psychedelic 60s reverb guitar and Joy Division grooves as on “Moon in My Mind.” Interstellar is a trip into Frankie Rose’s cosmic space.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

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Tino Izzo’s Morning Scapes was an Echoes Top 25 CD even before it became the Echoes CD of the Month (read review and hear trax).  It leads our January list as Echoes returned to a more normal mode after December’s holiday programming.  It heads up a top 25 that has no particular rhyme, reason or trend, except there’s some pretty great music there that fits into the chilled mode of Echoes.

Of the new pleasures for this month the best came from a new band and an old friend.  Hans Christian is the old friend.  We played his music when he was recording under his own name in the early 1990s and then followed his beautiful chant-fusion duo, Rasa with singer Kim Waters.  Lately, Hans has been going the solo looping cello route, of which he is a master, but on a new CD called Rumi Symphony he went into electro-global-orchestral mode.  It’s a double CD.  Disc one has Andrew Harvey reciting the poetry of the Persian mystic,  Rumi over Christian’s music.  He takes an authoritative approach to Rumi’s oft-romantic works.  Poetry with music collaborations generally leave me cold.  If you want to merge poetry and song, then sing.  But  the second disc is the music on its own and that would’ve made a brilliant CD.   With beds of electro-Persian percussion loops and orchestral strings, Christian plays cello, sarangi and other stringed instruments in a global dreamscape of four, long epic journeys.

The new group is Liftoff and I’ve been enchanted by this Washington DC quartet that takes some of it’s cues from Thievery Corporation.  Rob Myers has played guitar and sitar with Thievery for years so that makes sense.   The other members play in the dance oriented bands, Fort Knox 5 and Thunderball.  But as Liftoff, they create lysergic dreams dappled in 60s pop pastels with new millennium grooves.  Echoes of Pink Floyd, Lee Hazelwood and the Strawberry Alarm Clock abound in the intricately crafted songs of their impressive and joyful debut, Sunday Morning Airplay.

Look at #12 for next months likely number one album, Pino Forastiere’s From 1 to 8.  We’ll be featuring that on our Monday, February 6 show and you can read a review and hear tracks now right here.

Go here to see the complete Echoes Top 25 for January  list with links.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Hear Forastiere’s  From 1 to 8  featured on Echoes Monday February 6

You get great CDs like Forastiere’s   From 1 to 8 by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club

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Hear Forastiere‘s  From 1 to 8  featured on Echoes Monday February 6

Most instrumental  musicians name their songs after they’re written, but on his new CD, From 1 to 8, Italian guitarist Pino Forastiere skips that exercise entirely. The compositions’ names are simply “Studio n.1,” through “Studio n.8.” But you won’t need the names to tell them apart.  Each composition is a unique journey of impeccable technique and melodic invention.

Pino Forastiere is a scientist of the guitar, but a scientist with soul. Even though he gives his compositions generic names, the music itself is full of melodic exploration and emotional turns.

“Studio n.1” is a delicate pastoral reverie, a walk through trellised gardens and dappled shadows as Forastiere does his finger dance on the guitar. While there’s no doubt that Forastiere is influenced by American finger-style guitarists from John Fahey to Michael Hedges, his sound is also deeply embedded in his own Italian heritage.  There is a signature lilt and passionate depth to his music, as heard on introspective songs like “Studio n. 2.” It deserves a far more evocative title, it could be a song of loss or just reflection.

Forastiere’s playing isn’t all pretty filigree. He whips it out on tracks like “Studio n.3,” aggressively tapping his instrument, creating  percussive effects and rhythmic accents on this road song.  Then he explores his classical side on the multi-themed “Studio n.5,” although there are few nods to jazz as well, as the tune romps like a gazelle.   On the third movement of his mini-epic, “Studio n.8” he creates a kinetic, circular theme that’s rooted in the repetition of minimalism, but with playful melodies spinning like gyroscopes, perfectly balanced but just on the edge of spinning out of control. .

Having watched Forastiere perform in the Echoes living room a few times, it’s easy for me to imagine him hunched over his guitar, bending into notes, arching his thick Groucho Marx eyebrows as if the music was bouncing them on a trampoline.

There are many great acoustic guitar players these days, but Pino Forastiere is one of the few who can match impeccable technique with evocative compositions.   From 1 to 8 is a study in guitar invention.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Hear Forastiere’s  From 1 to 8  featured on Echoes Monday February 6

You get great CDs like Forastiere’s  From 1 to 8 by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club.

Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news.

Do you remember the first time you heard Philip Glass?  It’s something that’s pretty hard to forget.  For me it was Music with Changing Parts, a double LP released on the Chatham Square label in 1973.   I heard it in 1974 at WXPN where it was on the essential listening list put together by Emmett Ryan and Pat Sherbourne.   Nearly 40 years later, this would still be diving into the deep end listening.   The relentless arpeggios and cycles played on Farfisa organs, saxophones and voice would lead me to call Glass the heavy metal of minimalism.  This was Glass at his strict minimalist best.  To the uninitiated, it was a wall of unchanging noise, but deep listening revealed a wealth of changes and detail.  The repetition itself became something of a sonic mandala, taking you deeper in although it wasn’t nearly as repetitive as some would have you believe.  In concert, watching the musicians keeping up with the dervish pace, it was exhilarating to hear.

This video of a live performance from 1982 samples the Glass oeuvre from the strict minimalism of Music in Similar Motion to the more lyrical side he revealed on the album, Glassworks, with “Facade.”

Over the years, the melodies became more expansive, elements of straight classical music emerged, especially in his symphonies.  The operas actually became operatic after Einstein on the Beach and the sound Glass created became imitated and adapted throughout music from rock to electronic to classical. His trilogy of films with Godfrey Reggio, Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi ,  revealed an emotional and evocative core to his music that Hollywood has been ripping off ever since.

At 75, Glass is still churning out works, often pillaging his own materiel, reinventing it for new efforts.  He’s just released his 9th Symphony on iTunes.

Happy Birthday Philip Glass who turns 75 today, January 31.

John Diliberto ((( echoes ))) 

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Reznor & Ross with Oscar: Not This Year!

At least that’s not as bad as the  Music (Original Song) category which nominated only two songs instead of the traditional five nominees.  Something odd with that.  They are “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets, Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie (one half of Flight of the Concordes) and “Real in Rio” from Rio, Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown Lyric by Siedah Garrett.  McKenzie’s tune is cute, but there’s so much rock music in films these days, why is the Academy mired in a 1940s song mentality?

Music (Original Score)
The Adventures of Tintin, John Williams
The Artist, Ludovic Bource
Hugo, Howard Shore
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Alberto Iglesias
War Horse, John Williams

Complete Oscar List of Nominees

John Diliberto ((( echoes ))) 

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Tangerine Dream's Founder Edgar Froese

This might come a bit late but I’ve come across very  little coverage about it since Moogfest 2011 at the end of October.  Tangerine Dream headlined the festival and did a 2 hour show.  Like many fans, I’ve become a bit inurred to the band.  You can understand why with albums like Under Cover – Chapter One, on which they do covers of pop hits that are often faithful (The Eagles‘ “Hotel California”) and sometimes excruciating reinventions (Kraftwerk’s “The Model”).  Either way: This is Tangerine Dream?

But I just found out that they are in the processing of booking a US tour and that made me look online again.  And I discovered this great performance from Moogfest.  NPR put up their entire 2 hour show, and while it’s not classic-era 70′s TD, it is an extension of that sound with a full band.   The sound, probably a board feed, isn’t spectacular, but the performance is actually worth sitting through.  I can’t remember the last time I said that about Tangerine Dream, and I really want too.

Here’s the link: http://www.npr.org/event/music/141658754/tangerine-dream-in-concert-moogfest-2011

Or you can get this set from TD’s site.

Here’s the reported US dates so far:

THE ELECTRIC MANDARINE TOUR IN USA 2012

July 1st – New York, NY / Whitman Theatre

July 6th – Philadelphia, PA / Verizon Hall

July 7th – Washington DC / Warner Theatre

July 11th – Atlanta, GA / Fox Theatre

July 13th – Cleveland, OH / Palace Theatre

July 14th – Detroit, MI / Fillmore Theatre

July 18th – Chicago, IL / Vic Theatre

July 20th – Milwaukee, WI / Pabst Theatre

July 21st – Minneapolis, MN / Orpheum Theatre

July 25th – Madison, WI – Orpheum Theatre (State Street)

John Diliberto ((( echoes ))) 

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