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 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 latest album, Stellar Connection, any one of Thierry David’s musical lines would be simple to the point of boredom on its own.  But when interlocked with other lines and cast over gently pulsing rhythms and undulating textures, the result is as vast as the imagery that guides this album. It’s a different kind of minimalism, one that isn’t cyclical or repetitive, but that uses simple melodic and rhythmic material to create expansive and sometimes opulent spacescapes.

The French synthesist has been on the scene for over a quarter century, releasing music on his own K-Vox label in Europe before signing on with California’s Real Music.  He used to be a “chops” player, whipping out post-Miami Vice, Jan Hammer-style keyboard orchestrations and world music amalgams.  But on his latest album, he engages space age imagery without resorting to retro-space music clichés.  Instead, he builds his sound out of inventive designs, dark textures and shimmering melodies.

“Portal Quest”  sets the scene with slowly arching sounds floating like gas clouds in space, gradually coalescing as a tribal rhythm echoes and  tremulous guitar and keyboard do a slow motion ballet.

David has been a world music explorer for years and you can hear that influence in his timbral palette.   On “A Long Crossing,” a morphing duduk opens with a  mournful wail before moving towards an elegant, time-stepping cycle of synthesizer and piano echoing each other.  That duduk sound returns, hybridized into a yearning violin timbre on “Breathing the Harmonic Mandala.”

Global percussion also works its way into David’s work, whether electronic or acoustic. “Surfing the Blue Orbit” is a seductive piece of percolating electronic rhythms, cast against echoes of Balinese gongs. He kicks the percussion into high gear with longtime associate and global percussion master Steve Shehan on “Feeling a Stellar Pulse.”  When he hits these grooves, like the ritual groove of “Magnetic Spiral,” you can hear the influence of Robert Rich’s techno-tribal moods.

Thierry David

Over the course of an hour, Thierry David carries you on a journey that sometimes dips into the luxurious Pink Floyd-in-a-lounge trance of “A Familiar Blue Stranger” or drops into the magnificent void of “A Silent Voice Answers” with growling harmonics worthy of Karlheinz Stockhausen or Steve Roach.

Stellar Connection is a defining work that comes late in the career of a musician who balances accessibility and experimentation.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Hear Thierry David’s  Stellar Connection featured on Echoes  Sunday, April 8. 

You get great CDs like Thierry David’s  Stellar Connection  by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Follow the link and see what you’ve been missing.

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It’s 2009 and 2010 All Over As Grammy’s Goof Again in New Age.

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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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.   Of course, the Times is behind the curve because tons of acts have been lifting form New Age discs for years.  More later.  Here’s the article. John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Five Adventures from David Arkenstone

A Symphonic Story Teller: David Arkenstone, #18 of 20 Icons of Echoes

David Arkenstone has released over forty albums in the last quarter century, although many of them aren’t recorded under his name like his Ah*Nee*Mah project with his ex-wife, Diane Arkenstone.  He’s an eclectic and prolific multi-instrumentalist and composer with classical aspirations, a rockers energy and a world traveler’s curiousity.  He’s the sultan of symphonic new age music.  While he shares Yanni’s penchant for orchestral grandeur, he also has a love of more intimate sounds: plucked strings, earthy flutes and folk-like melodies.  The fact that he plays many of these instruments himself, from Native flute to Turkish saz, always gave his music a deeper texture and real playing feel.  David Arkenstone will be featured tonight, August 12.  on Echoes as #18 of 20 Icons of Echoes.   Click here for a complete list of the 20 Icons of Echoes.

Top 5 David Arkenstone CDs

1 MYTHS & LEGENDS
This is the most recent of Arkenstone’s orchestral oriented CDs, but with deeper moods than a lot of Arkenstone’s music.  “Tree of Life” is one of his most beautiful and dynamic songs, and “Song of Scheherazade is one of his darkest.  He layers  wordless female vocals over a drone of doom before segueing into a Middle Eastern theme with flute, dumbek and santoor. “Daughter of the Sun” mixes Native American flute, a Moroccan groove interwoven with electronica accents and a heroic theme.  The original release contained two discs.  The second was an ambient CD laced with narrations, sound effects and atmospheres, and was meant to be played simultaneously with the first disc.  Ambitious, but impractical.  There was also a DVD with some mostly cheesy videos.  But musically, one of Arkenstone’s strongest releases.

2 ECHOES OF LIGHT AND SHADOW
On this 2008 release, Arkenstone brings many instrumental colors to bear with influences from classical to mainstream rock, world music to electronica.  With its marimba and xylophone cycles,  “On the Wings of Innocence” recalls “Schulwerk,” the songs  Carl Orff wrote for children.   “Dark Star” on the other hand,  creates an air of Middle Eastern intrigue with santoor and bouzouki.  Many of these instruments are triggered by Arkenstone from keyboards although he doubles up by actually plucking oud, mandolin, bouzouki and thumping percussion.  David Arkenstone’s Echoes of Light and Shadow is the work of a veteran master craftsman sometimes sabotaged by a taste for the sentimental.

3 QUEST OF THE DREAM WARRIOR
Except for a couple of unfortunate, though not unpleasant vocal turns, this is one of Arkenstone’s most assured releases.  He mixes orchestral instruments with his synthesizers in dynamic compositions that follow the story created by fantasy author Mercedes Lackey.  “The Magic Forest” with it’s loping rhythm and mix of wordless vocals and string pads alternating with descending pizzacato strings and percussive accents and “The Temple of Vaal,” a desert caravan complete with snake charmer oboe, are among his best works.  He even rocks out, in an Emerson, Lake & Palmer sort of way, on “Wings of the Shadow.”

4 VALLEY IN THE CLOUDS
I suspect Arkenstone’s 1987 debut would be at the top of many lists.  For me, it’s digital synthesized sound pallette has dated quite a bit, but Arkenstone wrote some melodically arresting compositions that now sound like sketches for later work.  But there’s still a charm in the synth strings, chromium harpsichord and percolating percussion of “Ancient Legend” and the electro-percussion and sampled flutes of the title track.

5 CITIZEN OF TIME
Citizen of Time is one of Arkenstone’s most overtly synthesized albums.  Before he had access to acoustic orchestral musicians, he was creating his own ensembles via keyboards.  On Citizen of Time he brings in world music influences including pentatonic Chinese scales and Balinese Gamelan cycles on this journey around the world.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Echo Location: Donna De Lory’s Pop Chants

Donna De Lory turns sacred mantras into ecstatic pop

You can hear an audio version of this podcast with Donna De Lory’s music here.

Up until last year, when she was pregnant with her second child, Donna De Lory had shaked, shimmied and sung back-up vocals on every Madonna tour since 1987.  For Madonna, De Lory gets tarted up in fancy costumes, but right now, she looks like the girl next door, a diminutive woman, with brown hair and no make-up. She’s a singer-songwriter in her own right, tending towards more mystical fare on CDs like Bliss,  The Lover and the Beloved, and her latest, Sanctuary.

Donna De Lory has lived in the pop music world since she was a child.  Her father was Al De Lory, a producer, pianist and member of Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew in the 1960s.

Donna De Lory: I grew up in the studios, running around Capitol Records when he was a producer there. I just remember hanging out under the console of this studio and looking up at my dad and wanting to be a producer.

She got her first paycheck at age eight, for singing a Recipe Dog Food commercial.  But several years ago she heard Buddhist chants sung by Dave Stringer in a kirtan.  Those are group chanting sessions.  De Lory sings one in a dry monotone, the way it might be sung by a traditional performer like Bhagavan Das.

Donna De Lory: There’s a string just droning one note and you’re singing along with that over and over and over again. And I heard that from him, and then put those words in the song “Ganapati Om.”

Donna De Lory @ Echoes

Donna De Lory turns monotone chants into ecstatic pop songs. Even her pop music has spiritual overtones, whether it’s her own songs or an electronica drenched cover of Joseph Arthur‘s “Under the Sun.” She makes his lament a hymn of rapture.

Donna De Lory’s personal music is far removed from the world of Madonna, instead of stadium stages you’ll usually find her in yoga studios.

Donna De Lory: I’m rolling my eyes and making faces as he’s asking me, yeah, it’s a big shift.

Donna De Lory’s latest album is called Sanctuary on Nutone Records.  I’ve got Donna De Lory performing live on Echoes this Monday.  This has been an Echo Location, Soundings for New Music.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

The Five Best George Winston CDs

George Winston in Original Echoes Living Room

George Winston Then & Now

George Winston is both loved and reviled. His impressionistic solo piano albums came to define the Windham Hill sound and he’s among the first musicians most people think of when you say, New Age.  Praised with five and four star reviews from Downbeat and Rolling Stone for his debut album,  Autumn,  in 1980, he’s since come to be synonymous with shlock for many critics.  But those critics are missing the point.   Winston took the lyricism and mood that made Keith Jarrett‘s music so popular and refined them into what he called “folk piano” on his first Windham Hill album, Autumn.  It launched a million solo pianists, yet none of them has attained George Winston’s almost transcendent marriage of melody and atmosphere.

Winston is an eclectic artists who cites The Doors and Tangerine Dream, Fats Waller and John Coltrane,  Philip Aaberg and  Steve Reich as influences.  He occasionally goes off and pays tribute to these artists, doing entire albums of Vince Guaraldi compositions, for instance.  With one exception, he’s less successful playing their music, which often reveals his own limitations as a pianist.  Nothing wrong with limitations, everyone’s got them.  But when he plays inside those limitations, George Winston moves outside the box.
As part of Echoes Then & Now series in our 20th Anniversary celebration, we’re featuring the music of George Winston.  You can hear his show tonight, August 14.  All of Winston’s albums have been reissued in recent years with bonus tracks and illuminating liner notes from the artist.

FIVE BEST GEORGE WINSTON CDS.

1 Forest
Forest is the CD that brought me into the Winston fold.  I liked his earlier albums, but on Forest, George Winston went deeper, extending his ringing, open-air, melodic sound, embracing the minimalist influences of Steve Reich on “Tamarack Pines,” the jazz harmonies of the late-organist Larry Young‘s “The Cradle” and the slow ragtime of William Bolcom‘s “Graceful Ghost.  But whether playing the challenging inside-the-piano effects of his “Forbidden Forest” or the inviting themes of “Cloudy This Morning,” George Winston’s gifted lyricism remains true.

2 Autumn
This is the album that started it all, although it’s techically his second album, it was his first on Windham Hill Records.  The opening “Colors/Dance” rings with the open clarity of the Montana plains where Winston grew up.  “Woods,” with its quasi-classical arpeggios, seems to dance in the air.  And so it goes throughout Autumn as the pianist unfolds his melodies in what sounds like spontaneous reverie.

3 Night Divides the Day-The Music of the Doors
I think this may be the least well-received Winston album by his fans, but I thought there were a couple tracks on here that attained true interpretive brilliance and revealed the depth and breadth of George Winston’s vision.  he reimagined   “My Wild Love” from a drunken stomp into a zen piano koan and his take on “Bird of Prey,” based on a Jim Morrison poem aspires to the imagery Morrison wrote.  His shimmering rendition of “Crystal Ship” is magical and serene.   One of the thrills of Echoes was the Living room concert that The Doors’ Ray Manzarek and George Winston played together, facing each other on twin grand pianos.

4 Winter Into Spring
Never a florid player, Winston’s best music emerges from those spaces where the melody finds its own refractions, unimpeded by the pointless ornamentation and quasi-classical flourishes that tarnish so many pianists who followed in his wake.  song.    Winter Into Spring was Winston’s second album for Windham Hill Records and following up on the themes of Autum, it continues down the seasonal road and includes several of Winston’s signature compositions including “January Stars” and the extended ruminations of “Rain.”

5 December
December is a Christmas album that transcends the season.  Mixing traditional carols, a couple of classical works and his own originals, Winston takes you into winter from the cover photo of a snow blanketed field to his final invocation, “Peace.”  Winston’s piano drops notes with icy clarity into a winter silence, rippling through “Carol of Bells” and coaxing dark introspective moods from his own suite, “Night,” which includes Winston playing inside the piano like a harp. Who would’ve thought that the gentle melodies of “Peace” were inspired by the soundtrack to TV’s The Outer Limits?

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000000NKL/echoes

B00005NNDO december

George Winston is both loved and reviled. His impressionistic solo piano albums have come to define the Windham Hill sound and he’s among the first musician most people think of when you say, New Age.  Praised with five and four star reviews from Downbeat and Rolling Stone upon his debut album Autumn in 1980, he’s since come to be synonymous with shlock for many critics.
But George Winston, despite his continued popularity, is still an underrated pianist.  He took the lyricism and mood that made Keith Jarrett’s music so popular and refined them into what he called “folk piano” on his first Windham Hill album, Autumn.  It launched a million solo pianists, yet none of them has attained George Winston’s almost transcendent marriage of melody and atmosphere.
Winston is an eclectic artists who cite’s The Doors and Tangerine Dream, Fats Waller and Phillip Aaberg, Steve Reich and Alex De Grassi as influences.  He often goes off and pays tribute to these artists, doing entire albums of Vince Guaraldi compositions.  With one exception, he’s less successful there playing music that often reveals his own limitations as a pianist.  Nothing wrong with limitations, everyone’s got them.  But when he plays inside those limitations, George Winston moves outside the box.
As part of Echoes Then & Now series in our 20th Anniversary celebration, we’re featuring the music of George Winston.  You can hear his show tonite, August 14.  All of Winston’s albums have been reissued in recent years with Bonus tracks and illuminating liner notes from the artist.

Five Best George Winston CDs

GEORGE WINSTON
Forest
Forest is the CD that brought me into the Winston fold.  I liked his earlier albums, but on Forest, George Winston went deeper, extending his ringing, open-air, melodic sound, embracing the minimalist influences of Steve Reich on “Tamarack Pines,” the jazz harmonies of the late organist Larry Young’s “The Cradle” and the slow ragtime of William Bolcom’s “Graceful Ghost.  But whether playing the challenging inside-the-piano effects of his “Forbidden Forest” or the inviting themes of “Cloudy This Morning,” George Winston’s gifted lyricism remains true.

Autumn
This is the album that started it all, although it’s techically his second album, it was his first on Windham Hill Records.  The opening “Colors/Dance” rings with the open clarity of the Montana plains where Winston grew up.  “Woods,” with its quasi-classical arpeggios, seems to dance in the air.  And so it goes throughout Autumn as the pianist unfolds his melodies in what sounds like spontaneous reverie.

Night Divides the Day-The Music of the Doors
I think this may be the least well-received Winston albums by his fans, but I thought there were a couple tracks on here that attained true interpretive brilliance and revealed the depth and breadth of George Winston’s vision.  His interpretation of My Wild Love as a zen piano koan is brilliant and his take on Bird of Prey, based on a Jim Morrison poem aspires to the imagery Morrison wrote.  And you can beat his shimmering rendition of “Crystal Ship.”  One of the thrills of Echoes was the Living room concert that Ray Manzarek and George Winston played together, facing each other on twin grand pianos.

WINTER INTO SPRING
Never a florid player, Winston’s best music emerges from those spaces where the melody finds its own refractions, unimpeded by the pointless ornamentation and quasi-classical flourishes that tarnish so many pianists who followed in his wake.  song.    WINTER INTO SPRING was Winston’s second album for Windham Hill Records and following up on the themes of AUTUMN, it continues down the seasonal road and includes several of Winston’s signature compositions including”January Stars” and the extended ruminations of “Rain.”

December
December is a Christmas album that transcends the season.  Mixing traditional carols, a couple of classical works and his own originals, Winston takes you into winter from the cover photo of a snow blanketed field to his final invocation, “Peace.”  Winston’s piano drops notes with icy clarity into a winter silence, rippling through “Carol of Bells” and coaxing dark introspective moods from his own suite, “Night,” which includes Winston playing inside the piano like a harp. Who would’ve thought that the gentle melodies of “Peace” were inspired by the soundtrack to TV’s The Outer Limits?

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Echo Location: Steve Roach & Erik Wollo

Steve Roach & Erik Wollo: A Norwegian ambient artist descends in the Arizona Desert.

You can hear an audio version of this blog, with music.

Steve Roach lives on a horse ranch in Arizona, surrounded by saguaro cactus and 100 degree plus heat.  Erik Wollo lives in Norway surrounded by mountains, snow and nights that can last the entire day.  Their musical landscapes aren’t that similar either. Erik Wollo, composes plaintively melodic music, conceived around his guitars and electronics.  Steve Roach on the other hand, has built his reputation on expansive, slowly evolving works, with roiling textures usually free of obvious melodies. Yet, the two musicians got together on a  CD called , Stream of Thought, on which they’ve found a meeting ground between melody and mood.
“I mean I love melodic music,” confesses Roach, speaking from his Timeroom studio in Arizona.  “I don’t necessarily want to be creating it at that level like the way Erik’s music is really constructed from very strong melodic senses.”

Erik Wollo Echoes Studio

“And for me it’s probably one of the most non-melodic albums,” counters Erik Wollo from his Frederikstad studio.
Roach and Wollo have been mutual fans for years.  Wollo remembers first hearing Roach’s Dreamtime Return release.
“It was very inspiring,” he admits.  “I had it on the whole day, I remember, for a longtime.”
Roach was already familiar with Wollo’s music, tracking down obscure import releases like Traces.  “I heard Traces on vinyl back in the early 80s,” he recalls. “It is still one of my top 10 albums.  There is just an elegant really efficient and emotional quality about it that just holds up to me right now.  A timeless kind of feeling to it.”
You might not pick it up on first listen, but the initial inspiration for Stream of Thought came from driving.  After their first meeting in 2004, the musicians spent a couple of years sending music ideas back and forth to each other.
“Erik had sent me materiel for an album originally called “Music for Cars,” says Roach.
“I have his music in my car and he has my music in his car,” says Wollo.
That driving music evolved into Stream of Thought.  It is at once expansive and detailed.  In a fashion atypical of Roach, it’s composed of short vignettes and motifs that crossfade into a continuous work.  It launches with Wollo plucking multiple mandolins in a rapid, Reichian fashion as Roach brings in swirling pads and before you know it, your off into a work that swerves from rhythmically driving acid drops in “Part Two” to gently floating guitar arpeggios in “Part 9.”   The fact that Wollo is a guitarist as well as a synthesist lends Stream of Thought more melodic contour than you’ll usually hear from Roach.  And Roach brought in his reignited passion for analog synthesizers and sequencer patterns. Although Steve Roach and Erik Wollo travel in different music spheres, they each pass through space, electronic and ambient terrain.  When they got together in Roach’s Arizona studio for the final sessions of the album, they fell into synchronous orbits.
“It was great working together because we have a similar kind of approach it feels,” enthuses Roach.  “Just the way we focus in and really, not a lot of words and really focusing on the sound.”
“Actually we felt very free,” says Wollo. “We became one brain over there.”
You can hear the merged minds and music of Steve Roach and Erik Wollo on their album, Stream of Thought from the Projekt label.  We’ll hear an interview with the two musicians on Echoes Monday 3/23/09.  This has been an Echo Location, Soundings for New Music.  To listen to an audio version of this blog with music, go here.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Forastiere, Antoine Dufour and Craig D’Andrea: An Invasion of CandyRats Guitarists

Forastiere at Echoes 2006

It was an international guitar morning here at Echoes as three virtuoso guitarists played live on the show.  Echoes has always been a home to finger-style guitarists.  Michael Hedges, Will Ackerman, Alex De Grassi, Kaki King and Preston Reed are among those who have graced the Echoes Living Room.  Today we had three players from three points in the world, Pino Forastiere from Italy, Antoine Dufour from Quebec and Craig D’Andrea from Connecticut.  They’re all on  Candy Rat Records, which, though you might not suspect it from the name, is the home to many of the best young finger-style musicians around.  Along with the Tompkins Square label, they’re leading the charge in new music for acoustic guitar.

The musicians are all post-Michael Hedges players, musicians who tap the bang their instruments as often as they pluck them.  But they all integrate this technique into intricate and evocative  music.  Forastiere’s compositions, heard on his new CD, Live, are woven journeys that sound like he’s having a five way conversation with his guitar. We play a lot of musicians who employ digital looping in their performance, often setting up grooves and ostinatos, but Forastiere does it without electronic enhancements, weaving circuitous, contrapuntal melodies simultaneously over ostinato patterns.  You can see how he does it on the accompanying DVD to Live, or in this YouTube video.

Forastiere has grown a Lincolnesque goattee since this was shot.

Antoine Dufour likes to play percussion and melody simultaneously, often rapping rhythms with his finger nails and fist on the guitar’s body while executing finger-ballets on the strings.  You can hear his music on his latest CD, Existence, but he’s another guitarist you have to see to believe.

BTW, the bandana isn’t a fashion statement. He uses it to dampen resonance on the headstock and to wipe his sweaty palms.

Craig D’Andrea is the youngest of the three artists.  A scant 24 years old, technical expertise seems to ratchet up exponentially with each succeeding generation.  I kept trying to hear the Emo influences he mentioned but he seemed to be pure bred Hedges-influenced to me.  His new album, Getting Used to Isolation is a step forward in his development as a composer.

I recently got an email from a listener who, after insulting me, requested “ “less motonotous [sic] guitar show-off finger work.”

This listener wanted more electronic music, but I think they’re not hearing the elements that these players and electronic music share. Finger- style guitar has evolved immensely in the last 30 years.  Leo Kottke was the leading edge of the old school if you will, but players like Michael Hedges and Don Ross (who Dufour and D’Andrea both cite extensively) altered the paradigm with their tapping approach.  They are the second wave of acoustic guitarists who are post-electronic music and you can hear that influence spinning through acoustic guitarists  more and more each year.  No one in this crew cited electronic music, but I think its influence in terms of cycling patterns and interwoven melody lines is there nevertheless.

These three guitarists are currently touring together with gigs in Philadelphia at the Tin Angel, Wednesday March 11 as as well as performances in New York, Cambridge, MA and  Bridgeport, CT.

Forastiere’s Echoes’ concert is already scheduled to air on Echoes March 24.  Antoine Dufour and Craig D’Andrea will soon follow.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Andreas Vollenweider Announces New CD: AIR

After an absence of a couple of years, Swiss harpist Andreas Vollenweider has announced his return with a new CD call Air. Not much info yet on release dates. But Andreas has a very charming video up on his site.

Andreas Vollenweider at Echoes

Here’s the press release:

We are very exited to present to you AIR, a very special new album with a very special history; it came as a surprise, even for Andreas himself! For 2008/9 he had planned to take time off to focus on other projects than music.

Andreas: “I actually was going to make room for my passion for storytelling and I was already in the midst of an intense writing process, when suddenly an unbridled desire to play music was rising. So I ended up writing during the day and at night I went to my studio, to completely lose myself in the playing, for hours, very much the same way as in the very beginning, no strategy, no concrete purpose, no plan. After some time it became very obvious; something wanted to come out and I should follow its ‘calling’. I love the line ‘man makes plans for the amusement of the gods…’, how true this many times is “.

Andreas began to call his friends and invited them for a spontaneous gathering in his studio… and in less than two weeks AIR was recorded.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Echo Location: David Darling’s Ambient Cello

Cellist David Darling, the avatar of ambient chamber music returns with Prayer for Compassion, Echoes March CD of the Month.

You can hear an audio version of this blog with music.

David Darling is the Lord of Largo, the Maestro of Melancholy. Classically trained and jazz converted, he played cello with the Paul Winter Consort in the 1970s including the landmark Icarus album. Since then, He’s released several albums on the ECM, Narada, and the Hearts of Space labels and in the process, has become a leading exponent of ambient chamber music. His new album, Prayer for Compassion, continues his mastery of melancholy.

It’s a soulful, heartrending sound that Darling gets from his cello and it has attracted people like film director Wim Wenders to his music. ECM svengali Manfred Eicher fell in love with his sound and invited Darling to record his debut CD on the label, Journal October.

David Darling: So I get to Stuttgart, Germany and he says okay, do anything you want and so I started playing goon-goon-bat-che-goon-gon, set the gon-gon-bah, and he walked out of the studio and said well, “I’m not so interested in that, scheise, you know,” but he said this mantra which has been with me all my life, he said, “I want you to go as deep as you can go.”

Darling has been diving deep for years, although if you see him in concert, he’ll still whip out his improvised blues howls. But it’s in the zone of pensive mood pieces, playing electric and acoustic cello that he has made his mark. His new CD, Prayer for Compassion, is born from Darling’s spiritual faith, his battle with drug and alcohol addiction and his world view. You might think David Darling is a morose, brooding musician, but that’s not the case at all.

David Darling: When it comes right down to playing the cello, my fingers seemingly will not go to major, I like some other modality. But you know I feel extremely exalted and happy in that minor place, to me it’s not sad.

David Darling’s Prayer for Compassion is a bath of textures and deep moods, with Darling’s cello arrangements accompanied by some key guests and environmental recordings from Mickey Houlihan. It’s the Echoes CD of the Month for March and I’ll be featuring it on next Monday’s show.   Watch for a full review in the Echoes Picks page.

If you want to taste some of Prayer for Compassion, you can liten to an audio version of this blog.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))