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

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Darshan Ambient on Echoes.

Darshan Ambient Talks about Little Things Tonight on Echoes.

In the days before YouTube, iTunes and most other on-line music sources, Darshan Ambient was a minor star at mp3.com, the renowned legal music download site.  He released his music there and garnered nearly 100,000 listens.  That’s not much in terms of YouTube‘s multi-million-viewer hypes, but it was a lot in the fledgling days of on-line music.    Darshan Ambient outlived mp3 and has released several beautiful albums in the last decade.  His latest is Little Things and it was the Echoes Cd Of The Month in September.  Michael Allison is Darshan Ambient he whispers little things in my ear.

Darshan Ambient:  Growing up with the Beatles and progressive rock, I’m always trying to be progressive with the music that I’m doing and that’s really what I, what I consider myself doing is more progressive music than anything else.  And that could be anything.  Progressive music could have jazz elements, classical rock, you know, that sort of thing.

Hear Darshan Ambient’s interview tonight on Echoes.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Last months picks was Darshan Ambient’s Little Things.  This month,  CD of the Month Club members will be getting Akara’s The World Beyond.  Follow the link to the Echoes CD of the Month Club and see what you’ve been missing.

Support Echoes by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Think of the great artists you love on Echoes. Think of the informative interviews and exclusive live performances. Then, think of a world without Echoes. You can make sure that never happens by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Echoes is a non-profit 501(c3) organization just like your local public radio station. And all donations are tax deductible. You can support Echoes with a monthly donation that will barely disturb your credit card.

Join the Echoes Sound Circle and keep the soundscapes of Echoes flowing!

Echoes September Top 25

Darshan Ambient Leads Echoes Top 25 for September

Little Things does big things on Echoes Top 25 as Darshan Ambient’s CD of the Month rises to the head of the pack in September.   Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkian aren’t far behind with the Lamentation of Swans, an album that is still revealing itself after several months.  Mree’s Winterwell pops back up.  She is definitely the new artist of 2013. And yes, she had a previous CD in 2011 but no one heard it and Winterwell is clearly a breakthrough work of beautiful songs and harmonies that are like sinking into satin sheets.  There’s  lot of newcomers to this list like Eklipse, Emiliana Torrini, Endless Tapes, Gungor, and the The Joy Formidable.  And there are 15 vocals on the list, even if some of those vocals are imaginary languages from Azam Ali and Akara, and wordless voices from Julianna Barwick.  Check out the top 25 below.

ECHOES TOP 25 for SEPTEMBER

1. Darshan Ambient – Little Things (Lotuspike)
2. Azam Ali and Loga R Torkian – Lamentation of Swans (Terrestrial Lane Productions)
3. Mree – Winterwell (Mree Music)
4. Eklipse – Electric Air (The End)
5. Akara – The World Beyond (Merkaba Music)
6. Emiliana Torrini – Tookah (Rough Trade Us)
7. Olivier Libaux – Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age (Music for Music Lovers)
8. Raygun Ballet – Big California (Mars Arcana)
9. Clannad – Nadur (Arc Music)
10. Endless Tapes – Endless Tapes EP (Endless Tapes)
11. Gungor – I Am Mountain (Hither & Yon)
12. Ane Brun – Songs 2003-2013 (Balloon Ranger Recordings)
13. Clara Hill – Walk the Distance (Tapete Records)
14. v/a – Little Darla has a Treat for You Vol. 28: Lucky 2013 (Darla Records)
15. The Joy Formidable – Silent Treatment EP (Canvasback/ATL)
16. Tired Pony – The Ghost of the Mountain (Universal UK)
17. Naming Ghosts – Naming Ghosts (Penfield Music)
18. Jeff Greinke – Scenes From A Train (Infectious Music)
19. Shambhu – Dreaming of Now (Acoustic Shine)
20. Agnes Obel – Aventine (Pias America)
21. Acoustic Eidolon – Ancient Lovers (Acoustic Woods Records)
22. Julianna Barwick – Nepenthe (Dead Oceans)
23. Austra – Olympia (Domino)
24. DIANA – Perpetual Surrender (Jagjaguwar)
25. v/a – Possibilities of Circumstance (Projekt)

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club.   CD of the Month Club members will be getting Darshan Ambient’s Little Things 10 days before its released.  Follow the link to the Echoes CD of the Month Club and see what you’ve been missing.

Support Echoes by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Think of the great artists you love on Echoes. Think of the informative interviews and exclusive live performances. Then, think of a world without Echoes. You can make sure that never happens by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Echoes is a non-profit 501(c3) organization just like your local public radio station. And all donations are tax deductible. You can support Echoes with a monthly donation that will barely disturb your credit card.

Join the Echoes Sound Circle and keep the soundscapes of Echoes flowing!

Darshan Ambient’s Little Things

Darshan Ambient’s Little Things – The Echoes CD of the Month for September

Hear it featured Labor Day Evening on Echoes

In the days before YouTube, iTunes and most other on-line music sources, Darshan Ambient was a minor star at mp3.com, the renowned legal music download site.  He released his music there and garnered nearly 100,000 listens.  That’s not much in terms of YouTube’s multi-million-listen hypes, but it was a lot in the fledgling days of on-line music.

Listening to Darshan Ambient you might not suspect that Michael Allison, the man behind DA, spent years playing edgy R&B with Nona Hendryx and punk with Richard Hell. That’s not an overt influence in Darshan Ambient’s music, and that’s especially true on his new CD, Little Things. But it’s there: in the musicality of his sound, the hook of his melodies, and the gentle tug of grooves that range from Jon Hassell-like rhythmic amalgams to jazz syncopations.

On “UnUsual Thursday,” Darshan Ambient seduces with unmoored ambiences before locking you in with an ambiguously ethnic percussion groove.  Is it Indian? African? Does it matter in the cross-cultural world where digital sound objects are available to anyone? In this digital ethnic world a sarangi lick can open a track like “Slow Drum”. Allison doesn’t play the Indian bowed instrument, but someone did somewhere at some time, and Allison uses that phrase to lead-off his piece, employing the signifiers of Indian music to create an ethnic music from culture that doesn’t exist.

That’s one of the questions posed by Michael Allison on his most mature and sublime album too date.  It features a seamless flow of sounds that are sometimes eastern, sometimes African, sometimes urban.  “The Mystery of Sleep” harkens back to Robert Rich’s techno-tribal moods, as Allison employs spare, picked  electric guitar timbres, cello and lap steel guitar in this slowly throbbing piece.  Rich uses lap steel as well, usually as a snaky Middle Eastern wail, but Darshan Ambient taps its country affinity to take middle eastern grooves into the west on “Shadow Country”, a new twist on Ambient Americana.

Michael Allison is a musical omnivore, so it’s not surprising when references to Miles Davis with a trumpet and tamboura drone turn up on the corner of Darshan’s “52nd St.”   After all, Darshan’s 2011 album, Dream In Blue, was an homage to Miles.   It’s even less surprising when Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” is sound-checked on “Fields.” One might also hear Reich’s “Violin Phase” on “There!” or maybe it could be The Penguin Café Orchestra.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1E6dlbAktA

Little Things is as dark as it is dreamy, as melodically inviting as it is atmospherically enveloping, and it’s Darshan Ambient’s best album to date.

Hear Darshan Ambient’s Little Things featured tonight on Echoes.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club.   CD of the Month Club members will be getting Darshan Ambient’s Little Things 10 days before its released.  Follow the link to the Echoes CD of the Month Club and see what you’ve been missing.

Support Echoes by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Think of the great artists you love on Echoes. Think of the informative interviews and exclusive live performances. Then, think of a world without Echoes. You can make sure that never happens by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Echoes is a non-profit 501(c3) organization just like your local public radio station. And all donations are tax deductible. You can support Echoes with a monthly donation that will barely disturb your credit card.

Join the Echoes Sound Circle and keep the soundscapes of Echoes flowing!

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.

John Diliberto ((( echoes ))) 

You get great CDs like Darshan Ambient’s Dream In Blue by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club.

Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news.

Darshan Ambient: December CD of the Month

It’s a Spacey December with Darshan Ambient’s

Dream in Blue

You can hear an interview with Darshan Ambient tonight 3/15/2012 on Echoes.

You can’t go wrong with Miles Davis as an influence but you can go wrong paying tribute to the jazz giant with fawning recreations or banal interpretations.  Michael Allison, recording as Darshan Ambient, doesn’t go wrong.  With a title that references Miles’ Kind of Blue, Darshan Ambient’s Dream in Blue succeeds in paying homage while maintaining fidelity to his own unique voice.

The opening track, “Upon Reflection” begins with the kinds of synth pads, bass lines and electronica grooves we’ve come to expect from Darshan Ambient, ever since his days of releasing his music on MP3.com.  Then, at two minutes he introduces us to the concept of the album with an ostinato bass line and ride cymbal drive that take this into the terrain of electric Miles.  Yet there’s no doubt  this is Darshan Ambient, as electric piano tolls against guitar triplets and melodic synth hooks.

This is a brave recording for Darshan Ambient, who has matured with each album, releasing some melodically arresting and texturally deep albums over the last few years including A Day Within Days, From Pale Hands to Weary Skies and Autumn’s Apple.

Change is what you might expect from a guy who started out playing bass with artists like Nona Hendryx and Richard Hell.  Despite those credits, Allison was no member of the “blank generation.” His sources were more like Patrick O’Hearn, Steve Roach, King Crimson and Brian Eno.

Dream in Blue alternates more typical Darshan tracks with his jazz-inflected moods.  “Mirage” may be the most haunting  piece, with a delayed bass line thudding though a landscape of yearning slide guitars, whirling synths, pizzicato strings and echoing duduk.  It’s a track that shows you the promised land, but the trip is dark and ominous.

It’s Miles Davis’ tone-painting that’s the biggest influence on Darshan Ambient’s Dream in Blue, but he includes a few more overt nods to the iconic artist.  “When Will My Someday Come”, a play on “Someday My Prince Will Come,” a tune famously covered by Miles Davis, uses trumpet over a jazz-tinged rhythm section.  “Silent Smile” uses a gospel-hued piano theme to stage a soulful trumpet interlude.

Dream in Blue is an album that plays with expectations.  “A Letter from Home” could be from one of Darshan Ambient’s more ambient recordings, with pensive piano over textures that hover like fog.  Then jump to “Sahara Sun,”a very stylistically different track with a progressive rock rhythm and a ripping guitar solo that recalls Steve Hackett.

Many electronic artists who came from the same traditions as Darshan Ambient tend towards the monochromatic in tone, with careers, let alone albums, that don’t vary much over the years.  But Darshan Ambient has created a CD of wide-ranging stylistic scope while still maintaining a coherent voice.  Whatever color you dream in, Dream in Blue might be your perfect soundtrack.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

You can get great CDs like  Darshan Ambients’s  Dream in Blue by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club.

For the “Other Side” of Darshan Ambient, check out this.

Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news.

Echoes Top 25 for September-Ambient Leads the Way

Digitonal tops the Echoes Top 25 for September, and will no doubt be near the top for the next several months. But right behind is Marconi Union, topping their own record as the highest placing digital download recording on Echoes. October’s CD of the Month, Sumner McKane’s nostalgia-tinged ambient americana masterpiece, What A Great Place to be, is already near the top in September at #4. New Entries include Darshan Ambient, Jeff Pearce, General Fuzz, Anja Lechner & Vasillis Tsabropoulos , Peter Kater, and Wolfert Brederode.  Over-all, another month of chilled moods and exotic grooves from across the Echoes spectrum. It’s been a good year, and it’s not over yet.  You can read print reviews and hear audio reviews with music from several of them,  including Sumner McKane, Digitonal, Marconi Union, Ron McFarlane, Michael Brook & Djivan Gasparyan,  Ottmar Liebert, Solas, and General Fuzz.

John Diliberto

ECHOES TOP 25

SEPTEMBER 2008    

1.	Digitonal	Save Your Light for Darker Days	Just Music	Read the Review!
2.	Marconi Union	A Lost Connection	MU Transmissions
3.	Ronn McFarlane	Indigo Road	Dorian
4.	Sumner McKane	What A Great Place to Be	Don’t Hit Your Sister Records
5.	Darshan Ambient	From Pale Hands to Weary Eyes	Lotuspike
6.	Michael Brook/Djivan Gasparyan	Penumbra	Canadian Rational
7.	Ottmar Liebert	The Scent of Light	Spiral Subwave Records Int’l
8.	Solas	For Love and Laughter	Compass Records
9.	William Ackerman	Meditations	Compass Productions
10.	Fernwood	Almeria	Self Released
11.	Hans-Joachim Roedelius & Tim Story	Inlandish	High Wire Records
12.	Niyaz	Nine Heavens	Six Degrees
13.	Jeff Pearce	Rainshadow Sky	Jeff Pearce Music
14.	Jesse Cook	Frontiers	Koch Records
15.	David Cullen	Guitar Travels	Solid Air
16.	General Fuzz	Soulful Filling	Self Released
17.	California Guitar Trio	Echoes	Inner Knot
18.	Peter Kater	Cloud Hands	Point of Light Records
19.	David Arkenstone	Echoes of Light and Shadow	Gemini Sun Records
20.	Joan Jeanrenaud	Strange Toys	Talking House Records
21.	Anja Lechner and Vasillis Tsabropoulos	Melos	ECM Records
22.	Michel Banabila	Traces	Tapu Records
23.	Forastiere	Why Not?	Candyrat Records
24.	V/A	Harp Guitar Dreams	Harp Guitar Music
25.	Wolfert Brederode Quartet	Currents	ECM Records

Digitonal’sSave Your Light for Darker Days was the Echoes CD of the Month for September 2008 Read the Review!

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www.echoes.org

Echoes Top 25 For August: Ottmar Liebert Leads and Electronica Returns

Ottmar Liebert’s The Scent of Light, our August CD of the Month tops the Echoes Top 25 for August, but electronica and ambient music make a comeback after a few months off. They include Marconi Union who repeats their Top 5 performance with A Lost Connection, a download only release.  Joining them are Klaus Schulze and Lisa Gerrard’s Farscape, Darshan Ambient’s obviously ambient From Pale Hands to Weary Eyes and Sumner McKane’s What A Great Place to Be, are all electric/electronically based albums that debut in the Top Ten this month.   There are nine new entries this month in the Top 25.  Go to the Echoes Blog to read reviews and hear audio reviews of many of these recordings, including Marconi Union, Klaus Schulze & Lisa Gerrard, Biomusique, California Guitar Trio, Sacred Earth and David Pritchard.

ECHOES TOP 25 FOR AUGUST 2008

1.	Ottmar Liebert	The Scent of Light	Spiral Subwave Records Int’l	Read the Review!
2.	Jami Sieber	Unspoken: The Music of Only Breath	Out Front Music	CDBaby
3.	Marconi Union	A Lost Connection	MU Transmissions
4.	Don Peyote	Peyote Dreaming	Don Peyote Recordings/Interchill
5.	Gerry O’Beirne	The Bog Bodies and Other Stories	Self Released
6.	Joe Euro	Souvenir	Joe Euro Music	Buy From CDBaby
7.	Klaus Schulze & Lisa Gerrard	Farscape	SPV Recordings
8.	Darshan Ambient	From Pale Hands to Weary Eyes	Lotuspike
9.	Biomusique	The 10,000 Steps	Kosmic Music
10.	Sumner McKane	What A Great Place to Be	Don’t Hit Your Sister Records
11.	California Guitar Trio	Echoes	Inner Knot
12	Kevin Bartlett	Glow in the Dark	Aural Gratification
13.	Sacred Earth	Wind of the East	Red Feather Music
14.	Rodrigo Rodriguez	Beyond the Times	KZN Records
15.	V/A	Perceived Distances	Dataobscura
16.	Steve Roach	Empetus	Projekt
17.	Ronn McFarlane	Indigo Road	Dorian
18.	Hans-Jaochim Roedelius & Tim Story	Inlandish	High Wire Records
19.	David Cullen	Guitar Travels	Solid Air
20.	David Arkenstone	Echoes of Light and Shadow	Gemini Sun Records
21.	David Pritchard	Vertical Eden	Morphic Resonance Music
22.	Niyaz	Nine Heavens	Six Degrees
23.	Joan Jeanrenaud	Strange Toys	Talking House Records
24.	Forastiere	Why Not?	Candyrat Records
25.	Fernwood	Almeria	Self Released

Ottmar Liebert’sThe Scent of Light was the Echoes CD of the Month for August 2008