Transmissions: Echoes Living Room Concerts V19

INCOMING MESSAGE:

TRANSMISSIONS: THE ECHOES LIVING ROOM CONCERTS VOLUME 19

TRANSMISSIONS is a collection of live Echoes performances that shows Echoes moving into the future in our 25^th year.  It’s a merging of electronic, new acoustic, dream pop and ambient chamber music.  This is the center of Echoes. In Transmissions, you’ll hear the atmosphere laden songs of Azure Ray, Julia Holter, Still Corners and Una.

There are haunting singer-songwriters with Hem and SHEL, and virtuoso guitarists Jesse Cook and Kaki King.  Ambient chamber music is heard in the illuminating performances of Ólafur Arnalds, Ludovico Einaudi and Helen Jane Long.  Electronica plugs in with  the sound of Tycho and Ulrich Schnauss and space music orbits with Ian Boddy, Radio Massacre International and Vic Hennegan.

TYCHO launches the album with one of his best known tracks, “A Walking” from his 2011 CD, Dive. He brought a bassist and drummer into Echoes to realize the slightly off-centered and buoyant groove of this track which has Tycho’s Scott Hansen playing synths and guitar.

Ulrich Schnauss on Echoes

Tycho is a cousin in musical ways to ULRICH SCHNAUSS.  This is Ulrich’s second appearance on an Echoes CD and he surprises us with this complete makeover of “A Long Way to Fall,” the title piece to his latest album, which was an Echoes CD of the Month.  I actually pulled this segment out of a 28 minute continuous set he performed as he reconfigured the melancholy themes of this song, rendering it almost completely new.

Azure Ray on Echoes

We’ve been loving the new wave of Dream Pop artists on the show and several of them came through this year.  AZURE RAY, the duo of Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor were as entrancing live as they are on their CDs.  These mavens of melancholy can bring you to tears and they do with this darkly hued, electronically throbbing song, “Scattered Like Leaves” from their EP, As Above So Below.   I love the Moog bass accent on it.

Tessa Murray & Greg Hughes of Still Corners on Echoes

STILL CORNERS has a lighter, more exuberant touch with singer Tessa Murray voicing the romantic theme of guitarist Greg Hughes.  “Fireflies” in particular, from their album Strange Pleasures, is a buoyant track even though Tessa has never seen fireflies.

Una on Echoes

UNA are an LA trio that brings a bit more of a jazz and trip-hop sound to their music.  They were scheduled to perform in my living room, but on a 95 degree summer day, the air conditioning failed an hour before their arrival.  We scrambled to my girlfriend’s house where the band assembled their turntables, effects and Wurlitzer electric piano to play songs from their The Laughing Man EP.  They played a beautiful version of “We Are the Lonely” with Jennifer Nice’s coolly arch  vocal and  Eddie Barajas’ live turntable samples and manipulations.

Julia Holter on Echoes

JULIA HOLTER is a singer-songwriter with ambient moods and an avant-gardists heart.  Her albums, including Ekstasis and the recent Loud City Song, feature heavily layered vocals, so we thought she’d come in with backing tracks.  But Holter decided to do it all live with herself on keyboards, a cellist and drummer. The wistful themes of “In the Same Room” were beautifully served by this approach. She created a version as melodically beguiling as the album track, but different, live and present.

On the acoustic singer-songwriter side, we have two bands that follow the unconventional path.

Hem on Echoes

HEM is a band from New York who almost broke up under the weight of one member’s drug addiction.  But pianist and composer Don Messé got clean and wrote several beautiful, heartbreaking songs for their album, Departure and Farewell.  It started as a swansong but became something bigger.  We took their performance of the title track for Transmissions with that amazing vocal from Sally Ellyson.

Shel: Eva, Hannah, Sarah and Liza on Echoes

While the member of Hem are hovering around the 40 year old mark, the members of SHEL hover around 20.  They are four sisters from Colorado, Sarah, Hannah, Eva and Liza Holbrook and they play violin, piano, mandolin and percussion and also have beautiful, sisterly harmonies when they sing.  “Paint My Life” from their debut album is full of melancholic, youthful reflections but also has a sense of whimsy.

Two great guitarists appear on this CD, Jesse Cook and Kaki King.  Both have been on previous Echoes collections.

Jesse Cook on Echoes

JESSE COOK came stripped down this time, just him and another guitarist as they played music from across Cook’s career.  But we really wanted to hear him play music from his latest album, The Blue Guitar Sessions and “Broken Moon” is one of them.

KAKI KING has been on Echoes many times, and every time, it’s different.  On the heels of her album, Glow, she came in with her acoustic guitar and koto guitar and proceeded to show why she’s one of the most highly regarded finger-style guitarists of our time.

Kaki King on Echoes

Ambient chamber music, that meeting ground of classical and ambient electronics, has been an important part of Echoes for years. In fact, we coined the term.  We have two of the leading figures in the genre, Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi and Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds.

Ludovico Einaudi on Echoes.

LUDOVICO EINAUDI is the more traditional of the two, coming from a traditional classical background.  His music is marked by its soaring melodicism.   He’s been on four previous Echoes CDs, but this is the best example of his work, playing with a small chamber ensemble he performed music from his CD of the Month, In a Time Lapse.  This performance of the title piece is a trance-like excursion of minimalist modalities.

Ólafur Arnalds on Echoes

ÓLAFUR ARNALDS is much younger by half, than Einaudi and his music is more deeply embedded in an ambient sound.  His 2013 album, For Now I Am Winter was an Echoes CD of the Month, but perhaps ironically, this track, “Near Light”, originally appeared on his Living Room Songs album.  He composed a song every day, played it in his living room and uploaded it to the web.  Recording with just a piano, electronics, violin and cello, it’s a work of pensive moods suspended in space.  It was recorded at The Oven Studio in New York, which is owned by Alicia Keys and he played her Yamaha grand piano.

English composer HELEN JANE LONG isn’t quite ambient chamber music since she doesn’t employ electronics, but she composes in that mode with serenely sculpted melodies that sound like that came from an earlier, more elegant time.  She brought a string quartet into Echoes to play music from her albums and we picked this beautiful rendition of “To Dust” originally from her Embers album.  She recently rerecorded tracks from her Porcelain album at Air Studios in London.  The Music Centre where this was recorded isn’t Air, but it still sounds pretty good.

Transmissions may have the most space music selections of any previous CD.

Radio Massacre International At Echoes

RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL is the only performance on this disc recorded in the actual Echoes Living Room.  Duncan Goddard, Steve Dinsdale and Gary Houghton gathered, literally on the floor, surrounded by synthesizers, computers, effects pedals and cables and spun out this rendition of an older track called , “Organ Harvest” the title piece to a long out-of-print album.  Note the Pink Floyd “Echoes” homage at the end from Houghton’s guitar. Their latest album is The Clouds of Titan.

Ian Boddy on Echoes

IAN BODDY has been on a few previous Echoes CDs, but only once before as a solo artist.  He stepped into Echoes’ black booth and surrounded himself in a cockpit of synthesizers to play this piece “Open Door” from his album, Liverdelphia, which, coincidentally was also a live recording.  Ian actually cut two takes of this piece.  He played a beautiful lead line on the first version, but he intentionally buried it in his mix.  Since it was a two track, direct to stereo recording, I asked him to do a second take with the lead more prominent, which he reluctantly consented to do.  I like it.  It’s a classic space music track, replete with Mellotron vocal choirs.

Vic Hennegan on Echoes.

Finally, VIC HENNEGAN.  The only reason he’s the last track is because “Desert Vortex”is the longest, clocking in at over 9 minutes.  Vic has not only a great sense of sequencing and sound design, but he also has a talent for musical structure as he builds this track to a momentous climax.  This piece was originally supposed to be on a compilation album, but that never happened, so this is the only version of this “Desert Vortex.”

Transmissions is dedicated to Ravi Shankar 1920-2012

As we move through our 25th year, I can’ think of a better way to launch than with Transmissions.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Pick up you copy of Transmissions in the Echoes Store.  Current members of the Echoes CD of the Month Club will be getting Transmissions with their next CD.  You can join them in getting a great CD every month by signing up for the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  New members will get Moby’s Innocents album, our November CD of the Month and a BONUS CD of Bombay Dub Orchestra’s Tales from the Grand Bazaar.  You’ll get great CDs and help support Echoes at the same time.  You can do it all right here.

Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line. Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7 wherever you are on your iPhone, iPad or Droid.

Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind when Dead Can Dance appear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours or Brian Eno drops a new iPad album. Or Follow us on Twitter@echoesradio.

Post-Rock Dominates Echoes Top 25 for October.

Hans Christian & Harry Manx’s You Are the Music of My Silence leads the Echoes Top 25 for October.  Their dreamy Indian evocations, the Echoes CD of the Month for October, floats like a seagull above a roiling ocean of post & alt-rock bands in the Top Ten.

Tycho, All India Radio, Balmorhea, Hammock, The American Dollar, Azure Ray and The Album Leaf are all artists that hail from the rock side of things, creating variations on ambient rock and dream pop.   Yet it’s still music with roots in the sound of Echoes.   In fact all those artists grew up listening, in varying degrees, to the sounds of space music, Windham Hill Records and ambient music.  You can hear those sounds in the bottom half of the list with Dead Can Dance still holding on after their September CD of the Month with Anastasis, Paul Avgerinos with his new age designs, Kevin Keller’s ambient chamber music and the return of Michael Stearns with his score to Samsara.

THE ECHOES TOP 25 FOR OCTOBER

1. Hans Christian and Harry Manx – You Are the Music of My Silence (Allemande)
2. Tycho – Dive (Ghostly International)
3. All India Radio – Red Shadow Landing (Inevitable)
4. Balmorhea – Stranger (Western Vinyl)
5. Hammock – Departure Songs (Hammock)
6. The American Dollar – Ambient Three (Yesh Music)
7. Azure Ray – As Above So Below (Saddle Creek)
8. Darshan Ambient – Falling Light (Lotuspike)
9. Kaki King – Glow (Velour)
10. The Album Leaf – Forward/Return (The Album Leaf)
11. Paul Avgerinos – Lovers (Round Sky)
12. Kevin Keller Ensemble – The Day I Met Myself (Kevin Keller)
13. Little People – We Are But Hunks of Wood (Youth & Progress)
14. Slow Dancing Society – Laterna Magica (Hidden Shoal)
15. Dead Can Dance – Anastasis (Pias America)
16. Sounds From the Ground – Widerworld (Waveform)
17. Michael Stearns/Various Artists- Samsara OST (Varese Sarabande)
18. Nicholas Gunn – Thirty-One Nights (Spring Hill Music)
19. Janel and Anthony – Where is Home (Cuneiform)
20. Julia Holter – Ekstsasis (RVNG International)
21. Nik Bartsch’s Ronin – Live (ECM)
22. Lymbyc Systym – Symbolyst (Western Vinyl)
23. Jesse Cook – The Blue Guitar Sessions (Entertainment One)
24. Jeff Johnson and Phil Keaggy – WaterSky (Ark Records)
25. Ooze – Where the Fields Never End : Revisited (Aleph Zero)

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

SPECIAL OFFER FOR NEW CD OF THE MONTH SUBSCRIBERS

For a limited time only new subscribers to the Echoes CD of the Month Club will not only receive the November CD pick, Jeff Johnson & Phil Keaggy’s WaterSky, but an additional THREE previous CD of the Month picks absolutely free!  With the Echoes CD of the Month Club, you get great CDs like  WaterSky coming to you each month.  Join now and you’ll get Watersky plus three additional CDs.  Follow the link to the Echoes CD of the Month Club  and see what you’ve been missing.

Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line.  Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7 wherever you are on your iPhone, iPad or Droid.

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Azure Ray’s Blue Moods-Echoes Podcast

Hear a podcast of the Echoes Interview with Azure Ray.

In another time, Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink could’ve been conventional singer songwriters plucking guitars, but since their debut album as Azure Ray in 2001, there’s always been a richness to their arrangements that perfectly matched the wrap-around harmonies of their voices.

“We’re feminists, so we can never just be chicks with guitars,” says Maria Taylor with her electric guitar slung around her neck. “We’ve gotta always you know, push ourselves to way more than that.

“Singing with just acoustic guitars would just I think be a little limiting to the way our songs can ultimately end up being,” chimes in Orenda Fink, also adorned by an electric guitar.

Azure Ray Live on Echoes

Azure Ray occupy the serene side of alternative rock. In fact, you might say that they are mavens of melancholy with songs full of abandonment, yearning, and regrets.  nothing expresses that more than “November,” possibly one of the saddest songs ever.

Although it  sounds like a hymn of heartbreak, its source is more poignant.

“Well it’s actually really sad and tragic,” reveals Taylor. “My boyfriend at the time passed away, so I was kind of in that state for a while and yeah, this was just therapy for me and for all of us because we were all close to him.”

It’s a song that is often interpreted as hymn of heartbreak and can bring an audience to tears.

“I’ve seen it, yeah,” says Taylor.

Maria Taylor & Orenda Fink of Azure Ray

Maria Taylor And Orenda Fink met in school in Birmingham, Alabama and they probably don’t look much different in their mid-30s than they did in their teens.  Both have long brown hair and are so petite that their guitars are almost bigger than they are.  they started out in a rock band called Little Red Rocket who released two albums on a major label in the late 1990s.  You might wonder how they got from this exuberant, driving rock sound to the painfully introspective and contemplative music of Azure Ray.

“I think it was really when we played a memorial show,” recalls Taylor. “We wrote these songs that were therapeutic for us when my boyfriend passed away.  And one of our friends just said you know, you guys should play them and we’ll have everyone get together and it’ll feel great.  And I think that was the pivotal moment where we just realized that we really love playing songs that meant so much to us and were from the heart.  And you know, it wasn’t necessarily about just getting drunk and you know, rocking out like Little Red Rocket was.  It was cathartic for us and it seems like for other people.”

You can hear more about Azure Ray in the Echoes Interview, available now as a free podcast on iTunes.

Here’s a previous EchoesBlog on Azure Ray.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

With Echoes On-Line you can hear an exclusive live performance with Azure Ray.   Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7 on you iPhone, iPad or Droid.

You get great CDs like our October CD Club selection,  Hans Christian & Harry Manx’s  You Are the Music of My Silence  by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Follow the link and see what you’ve been missing.

Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind Dead Can Dance appear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours the states or Eno releases a new album.

The Soft-Focus Glow of Azure Ray.

Azure Ray’s Maria Taylor & Orenda Fink at Echoes

Hear Azure Ray talk about their music on Echoes Tuesday October 23.

The Dream Pop duo know as Azure Ray came into the Echoes Living Room yesterday and put on a breathless and enchanting performance playing music from their new CD, As Above So Below as well as some older songs including “November.”  Their’s is the music of hushed murmurs, whispered secrets, silent yearnings given fragile voice.   Their new CD takes a more minimal electronic approach than previous albums with hints of earlier Brian Eno, Gary Numan and a few more obscure electronic artists like Apparat, but the songs and voices have the same introspective spell as any of the music they’ve released

Azure Ray Live on Echoes

in the last 11 years.

Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink were childhood friends in Birmingham, Alabama where they grew up essentially listening to their parent’s record collections.   And in the case of Maria, her parents listened to Echoes on Birmingham’s WBHM-FM, so you might hear some of that influence as well.

The two musicians could’ve been conventional singer songwriters, plucking guitars and plunking piano, but since their debut album in 2001, there’s always been a richness to their arrangements that perfectly matched the wrap-around harmonies of their voices.  Although going electronic, Azure Ray performs their music live.  Maria and Orenda strap on guitars and play keyboards and are joined by cellist/bassist Heather McIntosh (another Echoes listener on WUGA, Athens, GA) and Andy LeMaster on keyboards, guitar and bass.  LeMaster, who also co-produced the album and along with Todd Fink, Orenda’s husband and member of the electronica band, The Faint, brought the electronic arrangements to As Above So Below.   Only some of the rudimentary rhythms pump out from a laptop.

Azure Ray with John Diliberto on Echoes

In the list of “Saddest Songs Ever,” Azure Ray’s “November” has to be near the top.  For most of us, it’s a song of loss and broken relationships, because that’s the universality that Maria Taylor brought to the writing and performance.  But the story she shared on Echoes is far more tragic.   But that same level of hopeless hope can be found in songs like “”Scattered Like Leaves,” only now their serene vocals have a dark, throbbing electronic undertow.

And if you think their vocals are quiet on CD, you should hear what it’s like once I took my headphones off.  Maria and Orenda, like a lot of modern singers,  are barely above a whisper in voices that would be inaudible without microphones and amplification.

Although the two women rock out on their solo albums, when they come together as Azure Ray, it’s like they’ve entered a warm and safe cocoon where the deepest emotions and most hurtful pain can be released.

Azure Ray’s Echoes Living Room Concert to broadcast on October 8, and a very deep interview to run later.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

For further review: Here’s a nice piece on their Philly show last night with some great shots from WXPN’s The Key and John Vettese.

You get great CDs like Dead Can Dance’s  Anastasis  by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Follow the link and see what you’ve been missing.

Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line.  Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7 wherever you are on your iPhone, iPad or Droid.

Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind Dead Can Dance appear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours, or Brian Eno releases a new CD.