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

General Fuzz: Ambient Chamber Trip-hop, for Free

James Kirsch is a classically trained pianist who decided to plug in. For the last few years he’s been releasing albums that have down-tempo moods and jazzy improvisations under the name of General Fuzz. Kirsch is part of an eclectic generation of electronic musicians who might see a jam band one night and go to a techno-rave the next and that makes for a music that defies easy categories and expectations. Cool Aberrations was a favorite Echoes CD from 2007. (Kirsch likes wordplay. Read Cool Aberrations as Collaborations).   Cool Aberrations was #5 on our 25 Essential Echoes CDs for 2007. Our audience placed it at #20 on our 2007 listener poll. 

He’s just followed that up with an album that taps his classical side, while maintaining the quirky trip-hop grooves of his earlier work. It’s called Soulful Filling (read: So Fulfilling)  

General Fuzz - Soulful Filling

It’s a more elegant affair than Cool Aberrations, starting out with catchy grooves and funky keyboard, but each track starts getting less groovin’ and more classical, culminating in the final piece, “Goodbyes,” a serene classical chamber piece based on a piano theme. 

But it’s in that deliciously impure zone where Deodato-like jazz, chilled trip-hoppy glitched beats and classical ambiences converge that General Fuzz operates best. Tracks like “Eye Heart Knot,” “Comfort Zone” and “Warm Steel,” get toes tapping and heads floating.

James has released a beautifully packaged conventional CD, but you can also download his disc for free off his website.

He also has a detailed analysis of the composing process for each song on his site, complete with audio of early versions laid out in a custom, multi-track player. It’s pretty phenomenal actually, to hear individual elements that often sound diametrically opposed to each other, yet General Fuzz finds a convergence. He likes musical games as much as word games. You can also hear that James is a player as much as a programmer.  

General Fuzz Live on Echoes

You can hear an interview with General Fuzz here.  General Fuzz has a track he recorded live for Echoes that appears on our CD,  Resonance: The Echoes Living Room Concerts Volume 13.  You can stream it off our myspace page at echoesspace.

 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))