Revenge of the Oscars-Take That Reznor

The Oscars take their revenge this year on Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross for winning the Music (Original Score)  category with their innovative and beautiful score to The Social Network. This year, no electronics, no creative and emotional use of sound, nothing that might for a moment be considered contemporary.  Instead, Oscar whore (and I say that with the utmost respect) John Williams gets two nods, while soundtrack cipher and perennial awards nominee (and winner for Lord of the Rings) Howard Shore gets another.  The remaining slots go to Ludovic Bource for his quaint early 20th century approach to The Artist and Alberto Iglesias.  Iglesias has composed some lovely scores, but Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is strictly by the numbers.   Reznor and Ross were left completely out in the cold for their dark wall-to-wall score of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Jónsi was left in the cage for his beautiful soundtrack for We Bought A Zoo.

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

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Tangerine Dream Live at Moogfest

Is It Safe To Listen To Tangerine Dream Again?

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)

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McCartney does Bennett

Do I really need Paul McCartney singing the music from the Ratpack generation?  Sometimes I think it’s a sign of my growing lack of maturity that I can still never completely relate to the music my parents listened too.  Intellectually I can dig Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Mel Torme, and I actually like Tony Bennett, especially in his later years.  But that music never speaks to me the way music I actually grew up with does, from The Beatles to Moby.   That music was supposed to be a revolt against Tin Pan Alley, Moon-in-June sentimentality and cliches.   Yet, singers I like and/or admire, including Rod Stewart, Elvis Costello, Boz Scaggs, Linda Ronstadt and Sheryl Crow have been tackling standard tunes, usually to unmemorable effect.  (In the case of Costello, excruciating effect).

Now Paul McCartney, part of a group that revolutionized music in the 1960s, has an album coming called  Kisses On The Bottom, a rendering of standards produced by Tommy LiPuma with Diana Krall’s band and guests like Eric Clapton.   No one’s been looking to McCartney for musical innovation  since Abbey Road, although his classical works and his electronica as The Fireman with Youth certainly showed a creative spark.  But as an American songbook style crooner, McCartney’s limitations as a singer and interpreter are fully revealed.   He is no Tony Bennett, although judging from the first single, “Get Yourself Another Fool.” He wants to be.    He doesn’t inhabit this music, he acts it out.  I’m sure McCartney isn’t looking for a career on the Vegas strip, but if he was, this could be his audition.  Kisses On The Bottom looks to be another forgettable vanity project.

Hear a sample for yourself with the song, “Get Yourself Another Fool.”

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Orbital Never Say Never

After supposedly calling it quits back in 2004 with the release of Blue Album, the U.K. electronica duo, Orbital are on the verge of completing the inevitable comeback they began back in 2008.  A new album, Wonky, is set for April and they’ve already released a teaser single, a light, effervescent bit of alka-synth-pop called, appropriately, “Never.”  Orbital was one of the first groups to emerge out of techno with a sense of melody and a sense of humor.  Snivilisation remains one of my favorite electronic albums.  The 1994 release has been in my iPod since I had one.   Here’s a video for “Never” that drives home the already obvious link to Kraftwerk‘s “Autobahn.”  And there’s a link for a free download.

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Lola Dutronic Does Suicide (the band, not the act)

I came across this charming video of Lola Dutronic singing Suicide‘s “Keep Your Dreams.”  It’s a long way from “Ghostrider” and “Frankie Teardrop.”

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Darshan Ambient’s Other Life.

Hari Kari w/Michael Allison on left

Most of the musicians you hear on Echoes lead double lives.  Many have straight jobs.  Others work in different capacities in the music industry as engineers, studio wonks or in working bands.  Michael Allison records as Darshan Ambient and since the mid-1990s he’s been releasing atmsopheric albums of electronic music.  His latest, Dream in Blue, was the Echoes CD of the Month in December.  I always knew that Michael had colorful musical past.  In the 1980s he played with punk pioneer Richard Hell (“Blank Generation”) and former Labelle singer, Nona Hendryx when she was in her experimental alt-funk phase.  But I didn’t realize until my recent interview with Michael that he was a member in the band called Hari Kari that plays rock covers and originals.    And it wasn’t until I discovered a couple of videos on YouTube that I saw just how much of a hair-band rocker he could be, albeit, without the hair.  He leaves that to the guitarist and singer. Who would have thought that the guy responsible for Dream in Blue had this in him?  So much for the reclusive and introverted ambient artist stereotype. Check out these videos for another side to Darshan Ambient’s Michael Allison.

You can hear an interview with Darshan Ambient tonight 1/10/2012 on Echoes.

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Progressive Rock Returns WXPN 7-Hour Marathon

I’m just hours away from WXPN‘s Progressive Rock Marathon.  I’ll be joining Dan Reed, Biff Kennedy and Star’s End pilot Chuck Van Zyl  bringing Progressive rock to the airwaves of Philadelphia, Central PA and the world Saturday, January 7 from 10AM-5PM.   Since the show is a special segment of XPN’s “Highs in the 70s,”  it will be strictly 70s Prog.   Between 1974-1989, WXPN was home to Diaspar, one of the most expansive Prog shows ever.   So fans of that show still dialed in should be in heaven. I’ve got some Eloy up on my turntable now, (yes, turntable) to pick a good track from them to play on the show.

The marathon rocks in that progressive way from 10AM-5PM and I’ll be on air live from about 11AM-2PM.  Some of the artists I hope to spin include Van Der Graaf Generator, Groundhogs, Magma, Badger, Michael Rother, SFF, and lots more.  And I can pretty much guarantee you’ll Prog’s Holy Trinity: ELP, Genesis and Yes not to mention Gentle Giant, Camel, and many more from the Prog Attic.  Any last minute suggestions, drop me a comment.

While you wait, here’s an entertaining, sometimes snarky BBC Documentary on Progressive Rock.  Did you know that Carl Palmer once toured with an all-steel drum kit that weighed a few tons?

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

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Oster/Manring/Weingarten in Echoes Living Room

They call themselves Blue Eternity now, but we know them as trumpeter Jeff Oster, bassist Michael Manring, and electric slide guitarist Carl Weingarten.  They are all familiar to listeners of Echoes.  Michael Manring was a founder of the group Montreux, recorded many solo albums and was the house bassist for Windham Hill Records in the 1980s and ’90s.   Carl Weingarten first came to renown with the progressive rock group, Delay Tactics before striking out from St. Louis to San Francisco where he immersed himself in the dobro, slide guitar and world music with a few other stops in between.  He’s been a fixture on Echoes for years.  Jeff Oster is the trumpet/flugelhorn playing investment specialist who also makes albums that hover between jazz and ambient music, including his Echoes CD of the Month Club selection, Surrender.

A couple of months ago they came into the original Echoes Living Room to perform a set of Oster’s music and then a set of improvisations they’ve been playing as an ensemble.  Oster’s set ran already.  The concert by the ensemble, now known as Blue Eternity, runs on January 17 on Echoes.

We don’t usually film Echoes performances, but they did and here’s a clip from one of the songs.  Footage includes their live performance and some shots of my neighborhood.

Hear Jeff Oster with Michael Manring and Carl Weingarten live  on Echoes 12/17 and the following weekend. Details.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

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On the Road Scapes & Morningscapes from TIno Izzo

Echoes January CD of the Month

Tino Izzo’s Morning Scapes

Hear Tino Izzo’s Morning Scapes tonight on Echoes.

Tino Izzo is a musician you may not know but you’ve probably heard his work over the last two decades because he’s recorded with popular artists like Celine Dion.  But those sounds  will not prepare you for the music he makes under his own name.  I first heard Izzo in 1994 when we started playing Blue Desires by an artist calling himself One.  One was just that: a single artist, Tino Izzo, playing everything.  He started recording under his own name shortly after that but the modus operandi remained the same: lushly melodic compositions built around a lattice-like interplay of multi-tracked electric and acoustic guitars.

That’s what you’ll hear on his latest album, Morning Scapes.  He says it was composed for quiet Sunday mornings, but it’s much more expansive than that, its sound  reflecting his secondary influence, Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.” With cinematic landscapes laced by touches of folky Americana and electric guitar bliss, it’s a soundtrack for a cross country road trip.

You can hear the influence of Mike Oldfield in much of Izzo’s music, especially his intricate guitar overdubs and siren electric leads. The folk quality of it reminds me of Mark O’Connor’s album False Dawn, which likewise shows the influence of Oldfield.  There’s certainly a touch of English folk on songs like “The Light of Other Days” with echoes of Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London.”  But it’s American folk that pervades much of this music, from the bluegrass arpeggios of “Homeward Bound” to the forlorn harmonica of “Grapes of Wrath,” which rests on the bittersweet imagery of that John Steinbeck reference.

Morning Scapes is not all pastoral reveries. There is a triumphal exultance on  “St. Elziar” with chugging acoustic guitar strums and slide guitar straight out of The Eagles’ “Take It Easy” that isn’t going to keep you in bed on Sunday mornings.  It’s going to send you down Kerouac’s Route 66 of the spirit.  “The Orange Line” recalls one of Jan Hammer’s Miami Vice vamps with a flashy electric lead and shredding melodies that turn back on themselves.  He rips it up again on the album closer, “And the Sun.”

I’ve cited a lot of influences and references here for Tino Izzo, but the guitarist has created his own fusion of these elements, orchestrating a soundtrack that’s rooted in folk music and reaching towards the skies.  Morning Scapes is a masterful album from a veteran who should be much more widely known.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Hear Tino Izzo’s  Morning Scapes featured on Echoes Monday January 2

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Top 25 CDs for December

 DARSHAN AMBIENT’S DREAM IN BLUE

Leads December Top 25 CDs on Echoes.

It was our December CD of the Month so it’s no surprise that Darshan Ambient’s Dream in Blue topped our Echoes Top 25 for the month.  You can read a review and hear tracks here.

The first four releases on the list all come from electronic realms, be it Krusseldorf‘s melodic downtempo electronica on From Soil To Space, Jon Durant’s electronically processed guitars and violin on Dance of the Shadow Planets, or Northcape’s ambient Captured from Static.  But that’s followed up by a couple of acoustic guitarists, Sergio Altamura and Keith Medley.  There are lot’s of former CD of the Month selections on this list including Jeff Oster’s Surrender,  Akara’s Extradimesional Ethnography and Patrick O’Hearn’s Transitions.   Look for January’s CD of the Month club selection with Tino Izzo’s Morning Scapes, in at #12.  You can see the complete Top 25 here.

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GET THAT LAST MINUTE TAX DEDUCTION! 

THERE’S STILL TIME TO DONATE TO ECHOES.

Echoes is a non-profit 501(c3) organization which means, just like your local public radio station,  we depend on the kindness of strangers and Echoes listeners for our support.  Our member station fees cover much  less than half of Echoes’ production costs, so we greatly appreciate the financial support of grantors, corporate sponsors and individual listeners like yourself.  And it’s all tax deductible. Thanks for keeping the soundscape of Echoes flowing. GO HERE TO DONATE NOW