May Top 25 Echoes CDs

World Fusion, Dream Pop and Ambient Americana in Echoes Top 25 for May

The Echoes Top 25 for May continues a trend towards chilled out vocal music but the top three slots are held by three CD of the Month picks, one vocal, two instrumental.  Lyla Foy is a relatively new artist who used to record as Wall.  Her Mirrors the Sky album, the first under her own name, was a CD of the Month in March.  But surrounding her are two veteran Echoes artists, one of who goes back even further than the show.  Carl Weingarten’s beautiful chamber Americana journey, Life Under Stars is our current CD of the Month in June.   And leading the pack is Hans Christian’s Hidden Treasures, our May CD of the Month selection, an album of cross-cultural ecstasy.  You can read about all of those and hear tracks by following the links above.

Newcomers to the Echoes Top 25 include Stumbeleine, 9Bach, Phox, Hauschka, Ben Cosgrove and Michael Barry-Rec.  Here’s thecomplete list.

ECHOES TOP 25 FOR MAY 2014

1. Hans Christian – Hidden Treasures (Allemande Music)
2. Lyla Foy – Mirrors the Sky (Subpop Records)
3. Carl Weingarten – Life Under Stars (Mutiphase Records)
4. Tori Amos – Unrepentant Geraldines (Mercury Classics)
5. S. Carey – Range of Light (Jagjaguwar)
6. Eno & Hyde – Someday World (Warp Records)
7. 9Bach – Tincian (Real World)
8. Beck– Morning Phase (Capital)
9. v/a – Passages – Framed by Nova (Ultimae)
10. Stumbleine – Dissolver (Monotreme Records)
11. Ian Boddy & Erik Wollo – EC12 (DiN)
12. Thus Owls – Turning Rocks (Secret City Records)
13. Marissa Nadler – July (Sacred Bones)
14. Tom Kerstens’ G Plus Ensemble – Utopia – (Real World)
15. Phox – Phox (Partisan Records)
16. Erik Scott – And the Earth Bleeds (Erik Scott)
17. Hauschka – Abandoned City (Temporary Residence)
18. Michael Barry-Rec – Continuum (Michael Barry-Rec)
19. Ben Cosgrove – Field Studies (Ben Cosgrove)
20. Deepernet – Impossible Landscape (Spotted Peccary)
21. Ludovico Einaudi – In a Time Lapse (The Remixes) (Ponderosa Music & Art)
22. Jennifer Zulli – Goddess Rising (Jennifer Zulli)
23. Cinema 12 – Cinema 12 (Cinema 12)
24. Bluetech – Cosmic Dubs (Native State Records)
25. Sylvan Esso – Sylvan Esso (Partisan)

 

Lyla Foy Plays Live on Echoes

Lyla Foy Brings her Haunting Songs to Echoes Live. 

Lyla Foy on Echoes

A lot of modern singers can’t bring it live.  They need backing tapes, ghost vocals, and rhythm tracks, if not more.  I remember one live Echoes session where the only sound in the studio was a lone voice, barely.  Everything else, vocal harmonies, bass, guitar, drums and key was coming off a computer even though a drummer, bassist and keyboardist were in the studio. The result was a performance that aspired to the perfection of a CD, but was ultimately lifeless; an imperfect artifact of a perfect moment.

But I knew that English singer Lyla Foy could bring it live when I saw her crammed with two bandmates into the back of a London taxi for the renowned and quirky  “Black Cab Sessions.” She was recording as Wall then, but she lost nothing of the atmosphere or vulnerability of her music in this stripped down situation.

Lyla Foy’s Feet on Echoes

When she came to Echoes to play music from her Mirrors the Sky album, it was still just a guitarist/bassist, drummer and Foy singing and playing lead.  No phantom voices or rhythm loops.  And the performance is powerful.   Standing barefoot with a black Fender Stratocaster slug around her neck,  Foy probed deep into her  songs of loss, longing and love.  There was a reason we picked her album as the  Echoes CD of the Month in April, and you can hear it tonight.

Read a review and hear tracks of Lyla Foy’s April CD of the Month, Mirrors the Sky.

WHERE & HOW TO LISTEN TO ECHOES

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You can listen locally or stream-live from our many stations’ websites.
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John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club. and get Hans Christian’s Hidden Treasures, the May CD of the Month. You’ll get great CDs and help support Echoes at the same time. You can do it all right here.

OR
Pick Up  TRANSMISSIONS:
THE ECHOES LIVING ROOM CONCERTS VOLUME 19

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.

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.

 

 

Lyla Foy Mirrors the Sky

Lyla Foy’s Mirrors the Sky Echoes April CD of the Month

Hear it tonight on Echoes.

We first met Lyla Foy in 2013 when she was recording under the guise of Wall. I was seduced by the austere, yet atmospheric songs of her EP Shoestrings, which touched a deep and resonant chord of melancholy and beauty. Now she’s recording under her own name and has released a full-length album on the Sub Pop label. But Lyla Foy’s “Mirrors the Sky” delivers on the promise of Wall.

Lyla Foy manages to be waif-like and sultry at the same time singing in voice of fragility and soul. You can hear that on the first track, “Honeymoon,” a song about love and separation that Foy delivers with mournful longing over a dirge-like groove.

Mostly co-written with Oli Deakin, Foy’s arrangements are minimal, yet full of atmosphere with creaky electronic keyboards and trash can drum machines bathed in reverb. It doesn’t appear she’s used her advance money from Sub Pop to buy more instruments since it sounds like she’s still using an ancient Casio Tone MT200 keyboard for most of her songs. It fits in perfectly with the shuddering, cracked and dusty sounds that shroud her songs as if they emerged out of a long-abandoned home. There are ghosts in this music.

Foy alternately sings about falling in and out of love. In the former category she reveals the yearning quality of country singer Loretta Lynn on “Honeymoon.” But unlike many Loretta Lynn’s songs, it’s not about heartbreak. That comes on “Easy,” a song of parting, a theme that seems to be in the air for female singers lately. Like Priscilla Ahn’s “Remember How I Broke Your Heart” it’s about the woman packing it in, but unlike the braggadocio and anger of male break-up songs, Foy and Ahn find the truth in the words of Neil Sedaka: breaking up is hard to do.

Many of the songs sound like holdovers from Wall and “No Secrets” was originally recorded as Wall as her first single. Other than some remastering, it sounds little changed with a simple bass riff that alternate its two notes every four bars. Yet, from this simple bare-bones architecture, Lyla Foy finds a well of emotion.

The English born singer, still in her mid-20s, has a rustic Americana sound to some of her songs. “Rumour” is simply strummed guitar waltz riff that could be a backwoods lament as Foy’s voice spins up in almost yodeling arcs in a song of goodbyes, farewells and regrets. Like a lot of her songs, the hooks are subtle, but insistent.

“Impossible” is one of the few songs that might be called buoyant but even that has a bittersweet tone. In an Echoes interview, Foy stated that “I don’t think there’s anything that inspirational about being content and happy, so, I think that’s probably why you get a lot of heartache.”

It’s a beautiful heartache though, one for long nights and quiet contemplations. Lyla Foy’s Mirrors the Sky will have you looking at your own reflections of love and life.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club. and get  Lyla Foy’s Mirrors the Sky, the April CD of the Month.  You’ll get great CDs and help support Echoes at the same time.   You can do it all right here.

OR
Pick Up  TRANSMISSIONS:
THE ECHOES LIVING ROOM CONCERTS VOLUME 19

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.

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.

Guitar Splendor in Echoes Top 25

Erik Wøllo and Mark McGuire bring guitars back to Echoes Top 25

Erik Wøllo’s February CD of the Month, Timelines,  leads Echoes Top 25.  It’s a brilliant recording of layered guitar dreamscapes.  Following close behind is our soon-to-be March CD of the Month, Mark McGuire’s Progressive Rock epic, Along the Way.  You’ll be hearing more about this album soon.  No fewer than seven vocal albums populate the top ten slots including Priscilla Ahn’s This is Where We Are; Warpaint‘s self-titled album; Linnea Olsson’s cello songs, Ah!; the return of Aurah with  Summon the Sky; Gem Club’s hazy In Roses and Simon Emmerson’s Fresh Handmade Sound reinvention of The Beatles on A Hard Day’s Night Treatment.  That last one, sadly, is not actually out yet.  The rebroadcast of Pure Bathing Culture’s live set boosted their return to the top 25.  See the complete list below.

ECHOES FEBRUARY TOP 25

1. Erik Wollo – Timelines (Projekt Records)
2. Priscilla Ahn – This is Where We Are (SQE Music)
3. Linnea Olsson – Ah! (Universal UK)
4. Mark McGuire – Along the Way (Dead Oceans)
5. Fresh Handmade Collective – Fresh Handmade Sound: A Hard Day’s Night Treatment (Lush)
6. Krusseldorf – Fractal World (Krusseldorf)
7. Aurah – Summon the Sky (Very Music)
8. Warpaint – Warpaint (Rough Trade Us)
9. Gem Club – In Roses (Hardly Art)
10. Pure Bathing Culture – Moon Tide (Partisan Records)
11. Lost in the Trees – Past Life (ANTI Records)
12. Blow Up Hollywood – Blue Sky Blond (Blow Up Hollywood)
13. All India Radio – Fall Remixes (All India Radio)
14. Larkenlyre – Music of the Extraordinary Voyages (Cynelic Gast Music)
15. Kristin Hoffmann – The Human Compass (Starr Records)
16. Olivier Libaux – Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age (Music For Music Lovers)
17. Darkside – Psychic (Matador Records)
18. Tonight Sky – Tonight Sky (Tonight Sky)
19. Juliette Commagere – Human (Aeronaut Records)
20. Muriel Anderson – Nightlight Daylight (Muriel Anderson)
21. David Helpling & Jon Jenkins – Found (Spotted Peccary)
22. Bluetech – Spacehop Chronicles Vol. 1 (Native State Records)
23. James Hood – Ceremony (Edible Sounds)
24. Banco de Gaia – Maya (Disco Gecko Recordings)
25. Divine Matrix – Hydrosphere (AD Music)

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Erik Wøllo’s Timelines is our February CD of the Month.  You’ll get great CDs and help support Echoes at the same time.   You can do it all right here.

TRANSMISSIONS: THE ECHOES LIVING ROOM CONCERTS VOLUME 19

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.

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.

 

25 Essential Echoes CDs for 2013

Some years are better than others and 2013 was much better than most.  Right now, you can Vote in the Best of Echoes 2013 Listener Poll.   But, this list is different.  This is compiled by the brain trust of Echoes.  These are the CDs we played on the show in 2013 that we thought represented the best, and most innovative aspects of the Echoes soundscape in this past year.  If your favorites aren’t on here, I’m not surprised.  This was one of the most outstanding years ever for Echoes music.  A lot of the albums left off could just as well have been put on.  But we had to pick 25 so here they are. You can see a straight list at the end.

25 ESSENTIAL ECHOES CDS FOR 2013

NUMBER ONE
1  Ludovico Einaudi  In a Time Lapse
Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi is a giant in Europe but still just lapping at America’s shores.  But he swept over Echoes years ago. The Echoes CD of the Month in March, In a Time Lapse is a defining album on which Einaudi pulled out all the stops, synthesizing a 21^st century classicism that is all-embracing in its musical influences, and all-enveloping in its emotional sweep.

2  Rhian Sheehan   Stories from Elsewhere
New Zealand composer Rhian Sheehan may have created one of the most sublime shadings of ambient chamber music on his 7th album, Stories from Elsewhere.  It’s a magical CD of soaring strings, surging rhythms, childlike music boxes and ambient expanses that sounds both familiar and timeless. It was a CD of the Month in May.

3  Olivier Libaux  Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age
Why this album wasn’t more popular is one of the mysteries of 2013.  I suspect that confusing branding, poor distribution and limited marketing kept this CD under the radar.  Olivier Libaux is part of the New Wave/Punk cover band Nouvelle Vague but he stepped out on his own to record an entire CD of tunes by Queens of the Stone Age.  All the high priests of hip at Pitchfork, Stereogum and Popmatters completely missed this album where Libaux, accompanied by singers including Emilianna Torinni and Inara George, accomplishes a sublime re-imagining of this alt-metal band’s music. It was a CD of the Month in July.

4  Moby   Innocents
The hipsters missed Libaux, but many called this Moby’s best album since Play.  I think it’s just a continuation of his atmospheric, introspective trilogy that began with Wait for Me and Destroyed.  A CD of the Month in November,  Innocents is the most soothing melancholy.

5 Ólafur Arnalds   For Now I Am Winter
Both sophisticated and edgy, Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds inhabits his own sonic universe, balancing emotions and mood on a laser’s edge of strings echoing out of frozen skies and electronics trawling the substrata.  For Now I Am Winter is his most mature work to date and a CD of the Month in April.

6  Jeff Greinke Scenes from a Train
Ambient music veteran Jeff Greinke reveals a grasp of orchestration never evident in his music before in this album of exotic chamber music with acoustic horns and strings.

7  Jah Wobble & Marconi Union Anomic
Although Anomic only came out in early 2013, I feel like I’ve been listening to it for years.  It has that sense of the classic about it. Bassist Jah Wobble brings his deep dub bass lines to Marconi Unions haunting electronic themes.

8 Hammock Oblivion Hymns
Following up their 2012 CD of the Year, Departure Songs, Hammock goes deeper into their ambient chamber music with children’s choirs emerging out of swirling deeply processed guitars.  It will be the first CD of the Month of 2014.

9 Bombay Dub Orchestra  Tales from the Grand Bazaar
Despite the presence of reggae rhyhm legends Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare on some tracks,  this is actually the most serene and melodically driven album yet of BDO’s merging of eastern music, electronic grooves and Bollywood strings.

10 Azam Ali & Loga Torkian   Lamentation of Swans-A Journey Towards Silence
The leaders of Niyaz released a deeply intimate and personal album with Azam Ali returning to her wordless vocals in this album of slow, sensual rhythms and darkly arabesque melodies.

11 Ulrich Schnauss A Long Way To Fall
A wonderfully melodic, groove driven album of synthesizer wonder as Ulrich Schnauss explores childhood memories with electronic dreams.

12 Agnes Obel Aventine
For her sophomore album, Danish singer Agnes Obel turns in another gem of haunting chamber pop.

13 Rachel Zeffira  The Deserters
And speaking of chamber pop, Rachel Zeffira turns her opera-trained soprano into a caressing hush; mixes circus organ with a song about suicide; and uses oboe arrangements that sound like The Left Banke’s “Pretty Ballerina.” The Deserters was the CD of the Month in June.

14 Sigur Ros  Kveikur
Sigur Ros kick out the jams on this album of delirious, roiling textures and Jonsi’s falsetto melodies of prayer.

15 William Tyler   Impossible Truth
Tyler takes John Fahey into the 21^st century, weaving fingerstyle guitar melodies that are like long epic tapes.  He’s known as an acoustic player but has lots of electric on Impossible Truth.

16 Akara  The World Beyond
With the heaven sent voice of Femke Weidema and the elaborate orchestrations of Joshua Penman, Akara creates a transglobal progressive sound that is out of this world on The World Beyond, the Echoes CD of the Month in October.

17 Mree   Winterwell
Serene dream pop from a 19 year old singer who comes from a singer-songwriter tradition but creates Enya like choirs with her voice on this lush and powerful album.

18 Colin Edwin & Jon Durant  Burnt Belief
Timed for release on December 21, the day after the Mayan calendar stopped and the world ended, Porcupine Tree bassist Colin Edwin and prog guitarist Jon Durant unleashed this album of post progressive rock moods.  We’re still here and thankfully, so is Burnt Belief.

19 David Helpling & Jon Jenkins   Found
David Helpling and Jon Jenkins’ bring an orchestral approach to electronic music, where the orchestra is completely plugged-in, the timbres otherworldly, and the percussion tracks swept in on storms.  It was a great CD of the Month to end 2013.

20 Jeff Johnson, Brian Dunning & Wendy Goodwin  Winterfold
This trio of keyboards, flutes and violin creates a music full of snow brushed melodies and lush arrangements with a hint of Celtic aire.

21 Syriana    Road to Damascus
This record came in under the radar from Real World.  It’s an exuberant mix of music from the Middle East to Ireland with musicians from Algeria, Ireland, Jordan, UK, Palestine but with hints of surf guitar and film noir scores.

22 Juliette Commagere   Human
Singer Juliette Commagere creates a beautiful and introspective electronic song cycle framing her sonorous soprano with a sound that recalls 80’s synth-pop but darker.

23 Anoushka Shankar Traces of You
With sister Norah Jones and producer/instrumentalist Nitin Sawhney, sitarist Anoushka Shankar creates a tribute to her father Ravi Shankar that continues his eclectic approach to east-west fusion.

24 HEM   Departure & Farewell
When you’re contemplating loss, betrayal and redemption, put on Hem’s introspective album about their own break-up and reunion with the caressing voice of Sally Ellyson.

25 Tonight Sky Tonight Sky
Tonight Sky is Jason Holstrom and he’s taken The Beach Boys’ harmonies and sent them into electronica space on this album of songs that manage to make you feel good while still being full of dark atmospheres.  Surf’s up again.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))
See below for a Spotify playlist of songs from all 25 albums save one.

25 ESSENTIAL ECHOES CDs FOR 2013

1. Ludovico Einaudi – In a Time Lapse (Ponderosa Music & Art)
2. Rhian Sheehan – Stories from Elsewhere (Darla Records)
3. Olivier Libaux – Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age (Music for Music Lovers)
4. Moby – Innocents (Mute)
5. Ólafur Arnalds – For Now I Am Winter (Mercury Classics)
6. Jeff Greinke – Scenes From A Train (Infectious Music)
7. Jah Wobble & Marconi Union – Anomic (30 Hertz)
8. Hammock – Oblivion Hymns (Hammock Music)
9. Bombay Dub Orchestra – Tales from the Grand Bazaar (Six Degrees)
10. Azam Ali and Loga R Torkian – Lamentation of Swans (Terrestrial Lane Productions)
11. Ulrich Schnauss – A Long Way to Fall (Domino Records)
12. Agnes Obel – Aventine (Pias America)
13. Rachel Zeffira – The Deserters (Paper Bag)
14. Sigur Ros – Kveikur (XL Recordings)
15. William Tyler – Impossible Truth (Merge Records)
16. Akara – The World Beyond (Merkaba Music)
17. Mree – Winterwell (Mree Music)
18. Jon Durant and Colin Edwin – Burnt Belief (Alchemy Records)
19. David Helpling & Jon Jenkins – Found (Spotted Peccary)
20. Jeff Johnson Brian Dunning & Wendy Goodwin – Winterfold (Ark Records)
21. Syriana – The Road to Damascus (Real World)
22. Juliette Commagere – Human (Aeronaut Records)
23. Anoushka Shankar – Traces of You (Deutsche Grammophon)
24. Hem – Departure and Farewell (Redeye)
25. Tonight Sky – Tonight Sky (Tonight Sky)

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

GIVE THE GIFT OF THE ECHOES CD OF THE MONTH CLUB

Nine of the CDs in this list were Echoes CDs of the Month, and the other three could’ve been on this list. Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club now and you can put David Helping and Jon Jenkins’ Found under somebodies Christmas tree.  It’s our December  CD of the Month.  You’ll get great CDs and help support Echoes at the same time.   You can do it all right here.

OR

GIVE THEM THE GIFT OF TRANSMISSIONS:
THE ECHOES LIVING ROOM CONCERTS VOLUME 19

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.

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.

Here’s a Spotify Playlist of tracks from all 25 CDs.  Jeff Johnson, Brian Dunning & Wendy Goodwin’s Winterfold isn’t on it, so I put a previous recording by Jeff Johnson in as a placeholder.

12 Echoes CDs of the Month Tonight

WE LOOK BACK AT ECHOES CD OF THE MONTH PICKS FROM 2013

November: Moby – Innocents

Every month on Echoes we pick out the CD of the Month. It’s the album we think best represents the sound of Echoes and simply, the best album in that sound.  This year has been a great one for CD of the Month  selections, so I thought we’d do an entire show looking back at those albums. We’ll be going from our current December pick, David Helpling & Jon Jenkins’ Found, all the way back to our January pick, The Ambient Zone-Just Music Café Volume 4.

January: The Ambient Zone – Just Music Cafe Volume 4

They aren’t necessarily the best albums of the year, but they were all the best album of their respective months and I would be surprised if they all weren’t in our year end top 25.  It can be hard picking the albums. The selections are either slim or abundant.  This year fell on the abundant side as we had our best stretch of Echoes CD of the Month picks in a while.  As we head toward the end of the year and best of lists, I thought I’d look back at our twelve picks.  Maybe these are albums you voted for in the Best of Echoes 2013 poll going on right now at echoes.org.

Prepare for the show with reviews and tracks from all the CDs

March: Ludovico Einaudi – In A Time Lapse

January: The Ambient Zone – Just Music Café Volume 4
February: Ulrich Schnauss – A Long Way to Fall
March: Ludovico Einaudi – In A Time Lapse
April: Òlafur Arnalds – For Now I Am Winter
May: Rhian Sheehan – Stories from Elsewhere
June: Rachel Zeffira – The Deserters
July: Olivier Libaux – Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age
August: Melorman – Waves
September: Darshan Ambient – Little Things
October: Akara – The World Beyond
November: Moby – Innocents
December: David Helpling & Jon Jenkins – Found

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

GIVE THE GIFT OF THE ECHOES CD OF THE MONTH CLUB

Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club now and you can put David Helping and Jon Jenkins’ Found under somebodies Christmas tree.  It’s our December  CD of the Month.  You’ll get great CDs and help support Echoes at the same time.   You can do it all right here.

OR

GIVE THEM THE GIFT OF TRANSMISSIONS:
THE ECHOES LIVING ROOM CONCERTS VOLUME 19

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.

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.

Echoes November Top 25

Moby’s not that innocent, but Innocents leads the Echoes Top 25 for November.

Haven’t voted in the Best of Echoes 2013 Poll yet?  You could do worse than any 10 CDs from November’s Top 25.  Of course, Moby’s CD of the Month, Innocents leads the way, and just 3 away from the top is December’s pick, David Helpling & Jon Jenkins epic Found.  You’ll hear that album featured on Monday, 12/2 on Echoes.  Juliette Commagere’s entrancing electro-song-cycle, Humans comes in at number 2.  Did you hear her incredible performance on Echoes this past Monday? While veterans like Hammock, Vic Hennegan and Bombay Dub Orchestra are high up on the list, there’s a lot of new names.  Among them, London Grammar, Dream Koala, Minor Alps, Darkside and Cosmo Frequency.

VOTE in BEST OF ECHOES 2013 POLL

Don’t forget to vote in the Best of Echoes 2013 Poll where you can win some great Echoes prizes, and contribute to the best year end list on the planet.  Here’s the top 25.

ECHOES TOP 25 FOR NOVEMBER 2013

1. Moby – Innocents (Mute)
2. Juliette Commagere – Human (Aeronaut Records)
3. David Helpling & Jon Jenkins – Found (Spotted Peccary)
4. London Grammar – If You Wait (Metal & Dust)
5. Gary Numan – Splinter: Songs from a Broken Mind (Machine Music USA Inc.)
6. Hammock – Oblivion Hymns (Hammock Music)
7. Julianna Barwick – Nepenthe (Dead Oceans)
8. Bombay Dub Orchestra – Tales from the Grand Bazaar (Six Degrees)
9. Dream Koala – Odyssey (Splendid Music)
10. Vic Hennegan – Journey to Sirius (Alien Tribes Music)
11. Still Corners – Strange Pleasures (Sub Pop)
12. Desert Dwellers – Night Visions: Desert Dwellers Selected Remixes (Black Swan Sounds)
13. Eklipse – Electric Air (The End)
14. Anoushka Shankar – Traces of You (Deutsche Grammophon)
15. Euphoria – E4:Instrumental (Euphoria)
16. Agnes Obel – Aventine (Pias America)
17. Minor Alps – Get There (Barsuk)
18. Darkside – Psychic (Matador Records)
19. Mazzy Star – Seasons of Your Day (Ingrooves)
20. Cosmo Frequency – Soundtrack to Life (Good Moves Music)
21. Mary Fahl – Love & Gravity (Mary Fahl)
22. Matt Borghi and Michael Teager – Convocation (Matt Borghi & Michael Teager)
23. Moby – Everyone is Gone – EP (Mute)
24. Bryan Carrigan – Below Zero (Peonies Music)
25. zerO One – sOnar (Waveform)

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

ECHOES CD OF THE MONTH CLUB SPECIAL

New members of the Echoes CD of the Month Club 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’ll also get the new Echoes CD, Transmissions: The Echoes Living Room Concerts V19, 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.

Rachel Zeffira – Chamber Pop Live on Echoes

Hear Rachel Zeffira play live tonight on Echoes.

Rachel Zeffira Live on Echoes

She turns her opera-trained soprano into a caressing hush;  mixes circus organ with a song about suicide; and uses oboe arrangements that sound like the The Left Banke’s “Pretty Ballerina.” That’s only part of the allure in Rachel Zeffira’s debut album, The Deserters.  Tonight you can hear her do it live on Echoes.

Zeffira was born and raised in Canada but comes to us via England where she moved to study classical opera singing. There,  she fell-in with Faris Badwan, front man for the post-punk band The Horrors.  He turned her on to modern rock and psychedelic music.  They formed an aggressive duo called Cat’s Eyes, but on her own, Zeffira takes a more contemplative approach with songs that yearn like gothic angels in tears.

Most of The Deserters hovers in that melancholy zone.  The title track’s classical piano motif and chorus of oboes frame  Zeffira’s lyrics of lost connections sung in a breathy voice that belies her operatic training; more lullaby than aria.  Even on a relatively buoyant song like “Here On In,” Zeffira’s voice hangs suspended like a ghostly projection.

Zeffira is not afraid of the darkness.  “Letters from Tokyo (Sayonara)” is a song about suicide whose heartbreaking lyrics reveal a tortured mind waffling between anguish and cruel spite.

You won’t hear from me anymore
I told many lies and hid many more
And now you’ll never know what they were for

She intones those words in distant, dispassionate voice, layered  over a circus organ, before dropping into a swooning chorus that shudders on the shoals of heartbreak.  For all its sorrow, “Letters from Tokyo” is the most devastating and beautiful song on an album full of them.

Zeffira ups the rhythm on “Break the Spell,” starting out as another classically-themed piece with a string quartet, before launching the driving drum loops and sequencers.  But even here, melancholy reigns because:

She always knows the sad songs best
So she’ll think of things she’d rather forget

Sixties references abound on The Deserters like a viewing of “Hullabaloo – a 60’s Flashback” on PBS.  On “Front Door,” she evokes “Johnny Angel,” a 1962 hit song for Shelley Fabares from The Donna Reed Show.  While her other lyrics are draped in hidden meanings and shaded nuance, this is an unabashed love song without a trace of irony, except possibly that it exudes the pre-Beatles naiveté of the early sixties. It serves as a bas-relief for her cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “To Here Knows When.” In a song that was originally a cacophony of distorted guitars, she locates the one pretty element buried in the noise: a minimalist fugue that she brings to the fore in her restrained and nuanced rendition of this shoegaze haiku.

Rachel Zeffira’s The Deserters is an album that Brian Wilson might have played “In My Room.” It’s a CD for when it’s dark and you’re alone, but you won’t be afraid because Rachel Zeffira is there to soothe you, in your room.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club. With the Echoes CD of the Month Club, you get great CDs like Rachel Zeffira’s The Deserters.  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.

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

Rachel Zeffira – The Deserters – Echoes CD of the Month

Rachel Zeffira’s The Deserters Echoes June CD of the Month

Hear Rachel Zeffira’s The Deserters tonight on Echoes.

She turns her opera-trained soprano into a caressing hush;  mixes circus organ with a song about suicide; and uses oboe arrangements that sound like the The Left Banke’s “Pretty Ballerina.” That’s only part of the allure in Rachel Zeffira’s debut album, The Deserters.

Zeffira was born and raised in Canada but comes to us via England where she moved to study classical opera singing. There,  she fell-in with Faris Badwan, front man for the post-punk band The Horrors.  He turned her on to modern rock and psychedelic music.  They formed an aggressive duo called Cat’s Eyes, but on her own, Zeffira takes a more contemplative approach with songs that yearn like gothic angels in tears.

Most of The Deserters hovers in that melancholy zone.  The title track’s classical piano motif and chorus of oboes frame  Zeffira’s lyrics of lost connections sung in a breathy voice that belies her operatic training; more lullaby than aria.  Even on a relatively buoyant song like “Here On In,” Zeffira’s voice hangs suspended like a ghostly projection.

Zeffira is not afraid of the darkness.  “Letters from Tokyo (Sayonara)” is a song about suicide whose heartbreaking lyrics reveal a tortured mind waffling between anguish and cruel spite.

You won’t hear from me anymore
I told many lies and hid many more
And now you’ll never know what they were for

She intones those words in distant, dispassionate voice, layered  over a circus organ, before dropping into a swooning chorus that shudders on the shoals of heartbreak.  For all its sorrow, “Letters from Tokyo” is the most devastating and beautiful song on an album full of them.

Zeffira ups the rhythm on “Break the Spell,” starting out as another classically-themed piece with a string quartet, before launching the driving drum loops and sequencers.  But even here, melancholy reigns because:

She always knows the sad songs best
So she’ll think of things she’d rather forget

Sixties references abound on The Deserters like a viewing of “Hullabaloo – a 60’s Flashback” on PBS.  On “Front Door,” she evokes “Johnny Angel,” a 1962 hit song for Shelley Fabares from The Donna Reed Show.  While her other lyrics are draped in hidden meanings and shaded nuance, this is an unabashed love song without a trace of irony, except possibly that it exudes the pre-Beatles naiveté of the early sixties. It serves as a bas-relief for her cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “To Here Knows When.” In a song that was originally a cacophony of distorted guitars, she locates the one pretty element buried in the noise: a minimalist fugue that she brings to the fore in her restrained and nuanced rendition of this shoegaze haiku.

Rachel Zeffira’s The Deserters is an album that Brian Wilson might have played “In My Room.” It’s a CD for when it’s dark and you’re alone, but you won’t be afraid because Rachel Zeffira is there to soothe you, in your room.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club. With the Echoes CD of the Month Club, you get great CDs like Rachel Zeffira’s The Deserters.  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.

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

Ludovico Einaudi’s 21st Century Classicism-Echoes CD of the Month

Ludovico Einaudi’s In A Time Lapse
Echoes March CD of the Month

Hear an audio version of this review with music in the Echoes Podcast.

Hear In a Time Lapse featured this weekend 3/8-10/2013 on Echoes.

You could pretty much stop listening to Ludovico Einaudi’s new album In a Time Lapse after the second track and that would be enough for a perfect CD.  The piece is called “Time Lapse” and it’s a perfect sculpture of minimalist ostinatos and Arvo Pärt-like sustains, with ambient electronics hanging off the edges like shimmering specters.  It’s one of those pieces, like Pachelbel’s “Canon,” that builds without ever resolving itself.  And you don’t want it to.

If you do want resolution, go to the next track: “Life.”  This is a surging cinematic foray that harkens back to earlier Einaudi compositions like “Divenire” with its grand crescendo and heroic cadence.  It’s the kind of song that has put Einaudi at the top of the European charts.

Ludovico Einaudi is an artist who treads a delicate line.  His music isn’t classical with a capitol “C” but neither is it classical-lite.  He studied with Italian avant-garde icon, Luciano Berio and came of age during the age of minimalism.  Because of those influences, his themes are emotionally charged without resorting to sentimentality.  And unlike most classical composers, he uses ambience as part of his compositions, whether it’s quirky electronics, or the open spaces between notes.  He actually lists a guy, Alberto Fabris, in the musicians’ credits for playing “reverb.”  On the composition “Walk,” piano, celesta and kalimba glisten like distant stars glowing in a dark sky of viola and cello.

Ludovico Einaudi Live on Echoes

Of all the neo-classical contemplative solo pianists out there, Einaudi has the broadest range, and the most tightly controlled technique.  Listen to the heart breaking pensiveness of “Discovery at Night,” one of two solo tracks, and you’ll realize that you can just toss out almost every other solo piano album you’ve heard lately. While most of them go for the rhapsodic sentiment, Einaudi, in just a few notes, taps right into the soul of emotion.  You’ll find no better example of this than this video of his recent on-line live performance, playing all of In A Time Lapse solo.   It’s 75 minutes long so it takes a minute or so to load.

Einaudi has often been called a minimalist composer, but that never seemed quite accurate.  However, on In a Time Lapse, he employs many minimalist techniques: cyclical themes, loops and grooves lend his works a modal, spiritually introspective repose. Nowhere is that used to better effect than on “Newton’s Cradle.” It’s an epic track with insistent electronic ostinatos, shuddering electronic bass tones and ringing vibes, bells, and percussion creating a mood of tense apprehension.

For In a Time Lapse Ludovico Einaudi has pulled out all the stops, synthesizing a 21^st century classicism that is all-embracing in its musical influences, and all-enveloping in its emotional sweep.

~John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club.  With the Echoes CD of the Month Club, you get great CDs like In A Time Lapse   Club members will get this album 10 days before release.  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.

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.