A Long Psychedelic Trip with Zanias: The Echoes Podcast

Screen-Shot-1200x662-1.jpg" alt="" width="818" height="457" class="aligncenter wp-image-100041">

Zanias usually sings words, but on her latest album, Ecdysis, she takes inspiration from Dead Can Dance and Lisa Gerrard and as well as hallucinogenics.

I’m just so incredibly fascinated by consciousness and the human mind and everything that it’s capable of. So I had to explore everything that I read about when I was a teenager. And I was actually very young when I first experienced psychedelics. It was in Asia and it was magic mushrooms. And they made me just think in such an interesting way and feel things in such an interesting way.

Zanias was a member of the band Linea Aspera and Keluar, but on her albums Chrysalis and Ecdysis, she makes her own deeply grooved, psychedelic sound that tunnels into your psyche. We trip out with Zanias’ Allison Lewis when we talk to her in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.

ZANIAS FEATURE PLAYLIST

Artist – Title – Album Zanias – Ecdysis – Ecdysis Zanias – Departure – Chrysalis Linea Aspera – Malrone – Linea Aspera Zanias – To the Core – To the Core Zanias – Swim- Ecdysis Zanias – Duneskipper- Ecdysis Dead Can Dance – Echolalia – The Serpent’s Egg Dead Can Dance – Nierika – Spiritchaser Zanias – Earthborn – Ecdysis Zanias – Bloodwood – Ecdysis Zanias – Lovelife – Ecdysis Zanias – Habenula – Ecdysis Zanias – Closing – Chrysalis

A Journey in Ambient Classical Music with Roger Eno: The Echoes Podcast

Roger-John-1200x964-1.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="600" class="wp-image-99682 size-full">

John Diliberto and Roger Eno

Brian Eno is a giant figure in modern music and certainly here on Echoes. But in Eno’s shadow resides his brother, Roger Eno, 11 years younger. While Brian used to say he was a non-musician, Roger is very much a classically trained musician, and now he’s on the most legendary classical label, Deutsche Grammophon.

Roger Eno: I’m now on Deutsche Grammophon, which to me is a huge accolade. When I was at music college, that was the label, you know, that had these stern Germans doing serious things on it. Well, now they’ve got a giggling little half Belgian on their books.

Roger Eno is one of the pioneers of Ambient Chamber music. But over the last few years his music has become more neo-classical with albums on Deutsche Grammophon. At Big Ears Festival, Roger Eno takes us down his pastoral path when John Diliberto sits down with him in the Echoes Podcast.

ROGER ENO FEATURE PLAYLIST

Roger Eno – That Which is Hidden – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords Roger Eno – Aove and Below (Crepuscular – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords Roger Eno – If Only for a Moment – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords Roger Eno – Japanese Rain Garden – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords Brian Eno – Always Returning – Apollo Roger Eno – Arms Open Wide – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords Roger Eno – Through the Blue (Crepuscular) – The Skies, They Shift Like Chords Roger Eno – The Turning Year – The Turning Year Roger Eno – A Place We Once Were – The Turning Year Morton Feldman – Rothko Chapel – Rothko Chapel Roger Eno – Ringing Glow – Between Tides Roger Eno – Clearly – The Turning Year

An Electronic Life with Le Morte d'Abby: The Echoes Podcat

Morte-Dabby-John-SS-1200x600-1.jpg" alt="" width="838" height="426" class="aligncenter wp-image-99844">

Le Morte d’Abby means “the death of Abby,” but Abigail Lentz, who assumed that artist name, is very much alive and creating some exhilarating electronic music. She was a military brat, but she was also a goth. Now she marshals sequencers, getting them in line. She’s living at the intersection of electronic space music and EDM, modular synthesis and computer synths. IN fact there is much that is in between with this artist, whose real name is Abigail Lentz.  She recently released the album “In Those Days” a melodic sequencer ride. Join John Diliberto when he talks to Le Morte d’Abby on Echoes from PRX.

LE MORTE D’ABBY PLAYLIST

Le Morte D’Abby – In Those Days – In Those Days Le Morte D’Abby – Putting (Up with You)  – Putting ep Le Morte D’Abby – Putting (Things On Top of Other Things mix) – Putting Le Morte D’Abby – Streetlights Reflected – Impermanence Bauhaus – Bela Lugosi’s Dead – Bela Lugosi’s Dead Le Morte D’Abby – Melancholia – Aberrant Le Morte D’Abby – Eclipse – In Those Days Le Morte D’Abby – In the Snow (Both Ways) – In Those Days Le Morte D’Abby – Through the Static – In Those Days Le Morte D’Abby – Woe to Earth- In Those Days Le Morte D’Abby – Ataxia – In Those Days

A Kaleidoscopic View of Kaleida: The Echoes Podcast Interview

Outside-1200x630-1.jpg" alt="" width="828" height="441" class="aligncenter wp-image-99305"> On the next Echoes, the British-American Duo, Kaleida talk about their album, In Arms. It’s an album fraught with biblical, personal and political references.

Christina Wood: It was meant to have a double meaning. It was meant to be like holding babies in arms but also arming yourself to keep on going.

This British-American-German dream pop duo are creating an entrancing sound, much of it emerging from their trans-oceanic separation and from their new born babies. They are millennials who wrote a song criticizing their generation. Cicely Goulder-Levy was scoring films when she got seduced by electronic music. Christina Wood wasn’t really in music at all. She was an environmental engineer.  But they got together, across a couple of continents then, and an ocean now, to create three entrancing albums. Hear their story on Echoes.

KALEIDA INTERVIEW PLAYLIST

Kaleida – Choices – In Arms Kaleida – Hansaplast- In Arms Kaleida – Hollow- In Arms Cicely Goulder – Adjudication – Quirky Underscores Kaleida – Stranger- In Arms Kaleida – Think – Think (EP) Kaleida – Hey Little Precious – In Arms Kaleida – Endless Youth – In Arms Geeshie Wiley – Last Kind Word Blues – Presenting Geeshie Wiley Kaleida – Seagull Nun – In Arms Kaleida – Don’t Turn Me Out – In Arms Kaleida – Kilda – In Arms

Echoes Podcast: The Ministry of Quiet Resonance and Ashley Capps Opens Our Big Ears

fbbanner-1200-600x315.jpg" alt="Quiet Resonance" width="600" height="315" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-98998">

It’s Quiet Resonance on the next Echoes when we talk to Tony Pounders. As Quiet Resonance, he composes guitar orchestrations that range from ambient to pastoral to pure space. He also has another side to his life that might surprise you. He’s from Mississippi, a place with a deep musical heritage but not a fountain of ambient, electronic or new age music. If you love Jeff Pearce, Suss and Lanterna you may want to hear Quiet Resonance.  He made our year end Best of Echoes Top 30 in 2024. He’s just released a new album, Endless Beginnings. John Diliberto goes to church to talk to Quiet Resonance in the Echoes Podcast.

QUIET RESONANCE PLAYLIST

Quiet Resonance – Frostbite – Snow Blind Quiet Resonance – Hialeah – Flight Patterns Quiet Resonance – Days to Months Before – Behave Rush – A Farewell to Kings – A Farewell to Kings Quiet Resonance – Expanse – Someplace Else Quiet Resonance – Schooner – Coastal Def Leppard – Hysteria – Hysteria Quiet Resonance – Prospects for Wisdom – Prospects for Wisdom Quiet Resonance – Managua – Flight Patterns Quiet Resonance – Run – Duck Fat Fries Quiet Resonance – Duck Fat Fries – Duck Fat Fries Quiet Resonance – Falling Upward – Prospects for Wisdom

Banner-2023-1200x630-1-600x315.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="315" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-84701">

It’s Big Ears on the next Echoes. We’ll talk to founder Ashley Capps about the Big Ears Festival 2024, which includes performances from Laurie Anderson, King Britt, Andre 3000, Laraaji, Roger Eno and about 200 more. This is a mammoth festival in Knoxville that ranges from singer-songwriters to avant-garde string quartets to electronic artists to free jazz and multiple intersections of all those things. And you can’t see all of the 200 or so acts so leave FOMO behind.

Ashley Capps: That to me, John, is the secret of the festival. And it’s kind of an interesting metaphor for our world of distraction that we live in every day, where so many things are pulling you in so many different directions. But ultimately, satisfaction emerges from being in the moment and completely engaged in whatever situation you happen to find yourself in.

If you’ve got big ears, join us in the Echoes Podcast.

Read John Diliberto’s Path Through Big Ears Festival 2024

BIG EARS PLAYLIST

Kronos Quartet – The Cusp of Magic – Terry Riley: The Cusp of Magic King Britt – Beyond the Sun – Fhloston Paradigm Andre 3000 – I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a Rap Album But This is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time – New Blue Sun Andre 3000 – BuyPoloDisorder’s Daughter Wears a 3000 Shirt Embroidered – New Blue Sun King Brit – Back2Black – Back2Black Carl Craig – Return by Victoria Fleet Remix – Single Laurie Anderson – O Superman – Big Science Laurie Anderson – From the Air – Big Science Brad Mehldau – Paranoid Android – Largo Charles Lloyd – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow -The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow Herbie Hancock – Maiden Voyage – Maiden Voyage Herbie Hancock – Chameleon – Headhunters Herbie Hancock _Court and Spark – River: The Joni Letters Tord Gustavsen – The Gift – Extended Circle Henry Threadgill’s Very Very Circus – Hope A Hope – Sprit of Nuff . . .Nuff Suzi Analogue – Time To – Boom Secret Chiefs 3 – Vajra – Book M Adrianne Lenker – Cradle – abysskiss Charles lloyd – Booker’s Garden – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow Colleen – The Crossin – The Tunnel and the Clearing

Big Ears Festival Founder Ashley Capps Exploding Music Show!

ears-2024-post-v2-776x1200.jpeg" alt="" width="229" height="351" class="alignright wp-image-98971">Today in the Echoes Podcast we explore Big Ears Festival 2024. This is the annual new music extravaganza in Knoxville, Tennessee of bleeding edge sounds, free jazz, deep ambient and very much more since 2009. This years festival features Andre 3000, Herbie Hancock, Laraaji, Laurie Anderson, King Britt and about 200 other performers across four days from March 21-24. I’ve been talking to founder Ashley Capps annually about the festival since 2015. We’ll go a little deeper not just about who is playing the festival, but why.

Ashley Capps may be one of the most innovative concert promoters of the last 20 years. He founded the Bonaroo Festival in 2002 and produced the two best Moogfests as well as the Mountain Oasis Music Festival. But Big Ears is his passion project, so much so that he gave up those other gigs to form a non-profit to produce it. Big ears is one of the most ear challenging, as well as one of the most civilized, taking place in downtown Knoxville in multiple, enclosed venues from large concert halls to small clubs and a few odd locations as well, like a cathedral. Every year, Ashley and I sit across from each other on screen and survey the Big Ears landscape. Hear it now in the Echoes Podcast

The 50th anniversary of Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra and The Tangerine Dream Documentary

In the Echoes Podcast, head into psychedelic space on the 50^th anniversary of Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra. This is a seminal album of electronic music that essentially launched the whole sequencer school of electronics. We’ll hear a meditation on Phaedra with Moby, Mark Shreeve, Ian Boddy, Steve Roach, and Ulrich Schnauss as well as most of the Phaedra album. 

Dream-Cathedral-1200x630-1.jpg" alt="" width="670" height="357" class="aligncenter wp-image-98568">Then as a bonus, we’re putting up our documentary on Tangerine Dream which includes interviews with all the members the classic line-up, Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann and Christoph Franke. We also hear from later members Thorsten Quaeschning and Ulrich Schnauss as well as Moby, Mark Shreeve, Ian Boddy, Steve Roach and Jah Wobble,

Read John Diliberto’s Meditation on Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra. Hear our complete 1982 interview with Edgar Froese here. See our list of Ten Tangerine Dream Albums to Blow Your Mind. Hear our interview with the current edition of Tangerine Dream here.

21st Century Mediaeval Hymns; Kevin Keller-The Echoes Podcast

Hildegad-Sexy-Keyboard-Dall-e-600.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="600" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-96311">

In the Echoes Podcast, we go to the monastery when Kevin Keller talks about his album, Evensong. It’s partly based on the chants and hymns of 12^th century Abbess Hildegard von Bingen.

kevin-evensongcover-600-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-95986">You might recall the chant craze of the 1990s when The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo singing gothic hymns were topping the charts, and artists like Enigma were adapting chants into their music. But rising above them all were the 12th century compositions of Abbess Hildegard von Bingen. Her music was recreated by artists like Gothic Voices, Sequentia and Anonymous 4 and adapted for 20th century ears by Richard Souther, Vox, and David Lynch with Jocelyn Montgomery. Now composer Kevin Keller has created his own beautiful renderings of her music on the album Evensong, a CD of the Month in November.

Today we might call Hildegard a polymath. She was a writer, philosopher, mystic, and medical practitioner. But she is best known for her music: heavenly plainchant hymns that call to the heavens in the most sensual way. Many of these came to her in visions, and that’s how Kevin Keller’s album, Evensong arrived.

Kevin Keller: At the risk of sounding a little too mystical, this album did sort of come to me in a vision. It arrived fully formed in my brain two years ago in October of 21. And just in like the space of a couple of hours, I had the album title, the concept, and I knew right from the beginning that it was going to involve songs by Hildegard of Bingen and that there would be eight songs.

We talk to Kevin Keller about bringing these gothic sounds into the 21^st century.

Hear it tonight or Right Now at Echoes On-Line. Read John Diliberto’s CD of the Month Review of Evensong

PLAYLIST FOR KEVIN KELLER FEATURE

Sequentia – O Virdissima Virga, Ave – Canticles of Ecstasy Sequentia – O Vis Aeternitatis – Canticles of Ecstasy Richard Souther – Vision – Vision: The Music of Abbess Hildegard von Bingen Kevin Keller – Evensong 7 – Evensong Kevin Keller – Evensong 4 – Evensong Kevin Keller – Evensong 3 – Evensong Kevin Keller – Evensong 1 – Evensong Kevin Keller – Evensong 7 – Evensong Kevin Keller – Evensong 8 – Evensong Kevin Keller – Evensong 4 – Evensong Kevin Keller – Evensong 5 – Evensong

Riding the Storm with Russel Walder: The Echoes Podcast

John-SS-10-19-2023-1200x619-1.jpg" alt="John Diliberto & Russel Walder Remote interview Screenshot" width="970" height="508" class="aligncenter wp-image-96202">

Our CD Of The Month in November was Speak to the Storm by Russel Walder.  It was so compelling we had to talk to the oboe player who we first knew as one half of the duo Ira Stein and Russel Walder on Windham Hill Records.  The music he makes on his own in his adopted home of New Zealand, is quite a bit darker than anything he recorded with the duo. When he says speak to the storm, he means it.

Russel Walder: I absolutely believe that the internal conscious state of existence is a storm that never ends, ever.

Russel Walder. We’ll be talking to him and weathering the storm in the Echoes Podcast.

Read John Diliberto’s review of Speak to the Storm .

RUSSEL WALDER FEATURE PLAYLIST

Ira Stein & Russel Walder _ The Underground – A Door in the Air Russel Walder – The Longer Journey – Speak to the Storm Russel Walder – Walk on Water – Speak to the Storm Ira Stein & Russel Walder – Engravings – Transit Russel Walder – Trusting the Invisible – Speak to the Storm Russel Walder – The Time Finds Us – Speak to the Storm Russel Walder – Path to Path – Speak to the Storm Russel Walder – Conception – Speak to the Storm Russel Walder – Hidden But Seen – Speak to the Storm Russel Walder – Beyond Doubt- Speak to the Storm

russel-speaktothestormcover-600.jpg" alt="" width="425" height="425" class="aligncenter wp-image-95201">

Tim Story, Michael Rother, Roedelius and Neu!: The Echoes Interviews

story-teaser-rodelius-cells.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="495" class="wp-image-97798 size-full">

Tim Story and Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Tim Story used to be the ultimate melodicist with albums like The Perfect Flaw and Beguiled. But now he’s mutating sounds, often with German icon, Roedelius.

Tim Story is something of a legend in electronic and new age circles. He’s been recording since 1981 and was a pioneer in ambient chamber music with albums like Shadowplay.  But he also has an edgier side that has come out in his work with the avant-garde German electronic duo Cluster and especially the elder member of that group. Hans-Joachim Roedelius. He’s pretty much abandoned his signature sound.

Tim Story: I have a lot of people that say boy, I love Beguiled or I love Shadow Play, it’s one of my favorite records — and you know, are you gonna make another record like that?  And I feel bad in a way, but, but I can’t in some ways because I mean I could and I might actually still.

I talk to Tim Story and Roedelius about Tim’s shift from a melody maven to a dissonant dreamer in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.

1200x630-1.jpg" alt="" width="804" height="422" class=" wp-image-97857">

NEU! from Left Klaus Dinger, Michael Rother

Echoes looks at Neu!, the 1970s German duo that is still influencing bands like Stereolab and more today. The duo celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2022 and their album, Neu! 2 turned 50 last year.

In the early 1970s, a host of LSD-washed malcontents from Germany created a hypnotic brand of electronic music, with roots in Karlheinz Stockhausen as much as The Velvet Underground.  Kraftwerk, Faust, Cluster and Can were among the first wave, as was Neu!, Guitarist Michael Rother, electronic twiddler and drummer Klaus Dinger, and phantom third member, producer, Conny Plank, constructed a sound of relentless rhythms and metronomic drums that are still influencing music. We’ll hear guitarist Michael Rother talking about their gestation as part of Kraftwerk and we’ll hear music from Neu! 2. It’s all new with Neu! in the Echoes Podcast from PRX.