Did you miss out on the 1980s? A band called The Big Bright has a CD of covers from the new wave decade called I Slept Thru the 80s. We’ll hear a surprisingly mellow Duran Duran track from that. But if you want to stay in the 21st century, get ready for new music from Bluetech and his albumCosmic Dubs. It’s coming up tonight on Echoes.
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 CD of the Month Club. and get Lyla Foy’sMirrors 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.
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I first heard of Garry Hughes back in the 1980s when he was making space music albums like Ancient Evenings and Sacred Cities for the Audion label. He gone on to be a top producer and session musician in England. Andrew T. MacKay is also an English session artist playing keyboards and arranging orchestras. In the mid 2000’s they created a concept called Bombay Dub Orchestra, mixing electronic moods, Bollywood strings, Indian instruments and reggae dub strategies. Their two previous CDs, Bombay Dub Orchestra and Three Cities were both Echoes CDs of the Month. They’ve just released their third full-length album, Tales from the Grand Bazaar and it should have been a CD of the Month pick. The album takes them from India to Istanbul to Jamaica where Reggae rhythm legends Sly Dunbar & Robbie Shakespeare recorded with them. It’s an album of serene and soaring strings, seductive rhythms, and gorgeous melodies spun from eastern instruments and voices. Hear tales from Bombay Dub Orchestra when I interview them ECHOES PODCAST
Join us on Facebookwhere you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind whenDead Can Danceappear 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.
Hear Bombay Dub Orchestra talk about their wonderful new CD, Tales from the Grand Bazaar tonight on Echoes.
I first heard of Garry Hughes back in the 1980s when he was making space music albums like Ancient Evenings and Sacred Cities for the Audion label. He gone on to be a top producer and session musician in England. Andrew T. MacKay is also an English session artist playing keyboards and arranging orchestras. In the mid 2000’s they created a concept called Bombay Dub Orchestra, mixing electronic moods, Bollywood strings, Indian instruments and reggae dub strategies. Their two previous CDs, Bombay Dub Orchestra and Three Cities were both Echoes CDs of the Month. They’ve just released their third full-length album, Tales from the Grand Bazaar and it should have been a CD of the Month pick. The album takes them from India to Istanbul to Jamaica where Reggae rhythm legends Sly Dunbar & Robbie Shakespeare recorded with them. It’s an album of serene and soaring strings, seductive rhythms, and gorgeous melodies spun from eastern instruments and voices. Hear tales from Bombay Dub Orchestra when I interview them tonight on Echoes.
Join us on Facebookwhere you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind whenDead Can Danceappear 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.
Bombay Dub Orchestra & Emiliana Torrini Release first new albums in five years.
It’s been a longtime waiting for new music by east-west-electronica mavens, Bombay Dub Orchestra. The team of Garry Hughes & Andrew T. MacKay created some of the definitive world fusion music of the new millennium with their self-titled debut and 3 Cities, both of which wereEchoes CD of the Month picks. With electronics and Indian music as the core of their sound, they travel to further flung climes with Tales from the Grand Bazaar bringing in middle eastern elements from Turkey and living up to the “Dub” part of their name with appearances by Sly Dunbar & Robbie Shakespeare, rhythm icons of Jamaican reggae. Their seamless blending of orchestra, electronics, global instruments and modern grooves makes them true inhabitants of the 21st Century global village. We’ll hear music from them today.
Emiliana Torrini – Tookah
We’ve also got new music from Emiliana Torrini, the Icelandic singer with the un-Icelandic name. Her father is Italian and Emiliana currently lives in Italy. Like Bombay Dub Orchestra, it’s been five years since her last album of new music although we’ve heard her quite a bit this year on Olivier Libaux’sUncovered Queens of the Stone Age. After moving into abstracted terrain with Me and Arini in 2008, Torrini returns to melodic form with Tookah, a word that looks and sounds like hookah, but has nothing to do with that, I think.
So lighten up yourself and take a toke on the Tookah tonight on Echoes.
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.
Jamie Crossley & Richard Talbot of Marconi Union Live on Echoes 2006
In a surprising collaboration, English ambient band Marconi Union teams up with dub bassist Jah Wobble, best known for his work with Public Image, Ltd. They talk about their album of deep-dub space music called Anomic.
Highlights include:
Jah Wobble on Marconi Union: I was surprised how romantic some of the vibes were, you know, for me it’s a romantic record. It reminds me of some of the John Barry compositions, Ipcress File and stuff like that.
Jah Wobble
Jah Wobble on Tangerine Dream: I know you’re a Tangerine Dream fan, aren’t you? And I was. I discovered them because I heard them when I was on Virgin Records with PIL Tangerine Dream were the antidote for me then to the great big groove music, you know.
Jah Wobble on Classical music in Dub: I’m not joking, really. I’d love to make an orchestration with some classical music with dub.
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.
Bombay Dub Orchestra have been fusing eastern and electronic music for several years now and doing it with a grace and elegance that is unparalleled. I still go back to their 2006 eponymous debut album which sounds as fresh now as it did then. Their mix of eastern modes and musicians, with lush strings channeled through electronica and dub transformations, forged a sensual, seductive and enraptured east-west exotica.
So why was I struck with dread when I saw the release of BDO’s album, The New York Remixes? It’s because so many remix albums are just an excuse to use a name and a few exotic touches of an artist’s music to create dance floor grooves that by and large are generic. I still cringe when I think of the Patrick O’Hearn remix album, Mix Up. So does O’Hearn.
So often remix artists take music that is delicate in melody and subtle and complex in rhythm and strip it down to four on the floor tom hits and handclaps. I remember Thrash, then of The Orb, telling me that when they remixed Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, he wanted to speed it up so fast that it would be just a blip that he would use as a drum hit. Inveterate hippie Alex Patterson wouldn’t have it.
“I’m thinking, this is semi-sacred sort of thing. It’s got to be put on. We eventually came to an agreement where we could have a backward one as opposed to a forward one.”
Still, you’d be hard pressed to find any of Mike Oldfields melody in their remix.
There are exceptions. Solar Stone always seems to tap into a more serene aspect of any artist and the album of Ulrich Schnauss remixes, Missing Deadlines, is a wonder of anthemic drive and euphoric ecstasy.
But from the opening thud of Bombay Dub Orchestra’s “Compassion – Pivotal Movement Remix,” it’s clear that subtle will go out the window. Three remixers take a whack at brutalizing this song. They all have something of merit. Pivotal drops in swooning bass, loops several voices of the song into a canon and has some startling pressure drops, but the beauty of the original is lost. For point of reference, here’s the original:
Likewise Force of Change makes some interesting dubstep moves on “Monsoon Malabar”, but in the process ruins everything that was beautiful about that song. With “Junoon,” remixed by EarthRise SoundSystem, The New York Remixes hits its nadir, with a generic hip-hop groove and forgettable raps by no less than three MCs. Why does anyone think this is a good idea?
Sound Shikara seems to understand the moods of “The Berber of Seville” for a minute. Not surprisingly perhaps, he’s from Oman, not New York. But it isn’t long before he launches into a ferocious dub-step groove of doom. The original “Berber” strings have little to do with the rhythms he’s created making it almost a Cagian “Indeterminacy Music” effect. But I don’t think that was the intent.
Of course, you can go the other way. Moby frequently, if not always, creates remixes of his music. And frequently, if not always, he strips out everything that made the song interesting and turns it into vaporous ambience. We went 5 or 6 songs deep into his Wait for Me album, but I could barely find a piece to play off Wait for Me, Ambient. Same thing with DestroyedRemixed, even though both original releases were Echoes CD of the Month selections.
When you’re handed someone else’s music to remix, I think there should be an obligation to respect the original spirit of the song, to draw upon the best elements of the composition and production, but also bring something new or discover a hidden facet. Just turning a song into a dance tune just isn’t enough, and is not interesting.
Surprisingly Bombay Dub Orchestra have done some cool remixes themselves like their take on Juno Reactor’s “Pistolero,” Miklós Rózsa’s “Love Theme from Ben-Hur” and Azam Ali’s “Abode.” You can hear several of these on the BDO website.
And completely aside from its intrinsic artistic merits, there’s no Echoes on this disc. Where are the chill mixes guys? Meanwhile, I eagerly await a new Bombay Dub Orchestra album.
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.
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.
Join us on Facebookwhere 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.’
Did you miss out on the 1980s? A band called The Big Bright has a CD of covers from the new wave decade called I Slept Thru the 80s. We’ll hear a surprisingly mellow Duran Duran track from that. But if you want to stay in the 21st century, get ready for new music from Bluetech and his album Cosmic Dubs. It’s coming up tonight on Echoes.
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.
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.
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.
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