From Oblivion to Euphoria in Echoes Top 25

Two Takes on Modern Guitar Lead Echoes Top 25 for January.

You couldn’t get much different than the two guitar sounds at one & two in the Echoes Top 25.  You’ve got the ambient guitar orchestrations of Hammock’s Oblivion Hymns, the Echoes CD of the Month for January followed at number 2 by E4 (Instrumental)  the Americana Electronica album from Euphoria.  Those musicians are both longtime inhabitants of this list, but some newcomers include the dream pop band, Elika,  English singer-songwriter, Fink, Seattle psychedelic folkie Damien Jurado, Swedish singer and cellist Linnea Olsson and Brazilian singer and cellist Dom La Nena. See the complete listing here.

ECHOES TOP 25 for JANUARY 2013

1. Hammock – Oblivion Hymns (Hammock Music)
2. Euphoria – E4 (Instrumental) (Euphoria)
3. Tonight Sky – Tonight Sky (Tonight Sky)
4. Juliette Commagere – Human (Aeronaut Records)
5. Elika – Always the Light (Saint Marie)
6. Fink – Fink Meets the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Ninja Tune)
7. Bombay Dub Orchestra – Tales from the Grand Bazaar (Six Degrees)
8. Damien Jurado – Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son (Secretly Canadian)
9. Darkside – Psychic (Matador Records)
10. David Helpling & Jon Jenkins – Found (Spotted Peccary)
11. Fresh Handmade Collective – Fresh Handmade Sound: A Hard Day’s Night Treatment (v/a) (Lush)
12. London Grammar – If You Wait (Metal & Dust)
13. Moby – Innocents (Mute)
14. Jeff Johnson Brian Dunning & Wendy Goodwin – Winterfold (Ark Records)
15. Linnea Olsson – Ah! (Universal UK)
16. Mary Fahl – Love & Gravity (Mary Fahl)
17. Bryan Carrigan – Below Zero (Peonies Music)
18. zer0 0ne – s0nar (Waveform)
19. Desert Dwellers – Night Visions: Desert Dwellers Selected Remixes (Black Swan Sounds)
20. Eamonn Karran – Distant Sun (Real Music)
21. All India Radio – Fall Remixes (All India Radio)
22. Shearwater – Fellow Travelers (Sub Pop)
23. Adam Hurst – Nightfall (Adam Hurst)
24. Matteo Palmer – Out of Nothing (Matteo Palmer)
25. Dom La Nena – Golondrina (Six Degrees)

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Hammock’s Oblivion Hymns is our January   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.

Hammock From Abyss to Revelation.

In a world of dance beats, rapid fire sequences and songs devolving into little more than hooks, Hammock takes a deeper, darker more textured approach.  They are the Mark Rothko of ambient music with sheets of sound shifting beneath each other like tectonic plates, but with the hint of melody and the feel of spirits rising toward the heavens. Oblivion Hymns lives up to its foreboding name in this extended tone poem to the end of life.

Hammock is operating in a classical dimension. The references to Arvo Pärt are obvious, but you might find their tone more heavily reflected in the “sacred minimalism” of the recently departed English composer, John Tavener. Inspired by the Russian Orthodox Church, Tavener’s music aspired to the heavens through the use of orchestras and choirs.  Hammock’s Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson achieve the same effect with Dali-stretched guitars and whole-note string pads, moving slowly through a shrouded landscape.

Darkness is only a superficial impression of Oblivion Hymns . Within their circumscribed sound world, Hammock creates uplifting, moving themes that are more edge-of-the-world than end-of-the-world.  Children’s choirs are deployed on a couple of tracks, notably on the gentle lament, “Then the Quiet Explosion” and “I Could Hear the Water at the Edge of All Things”

This is a follow-up to their 2012 opus, Departure Songs.  That was a monumental album, but could become oppressive over the course of its two CD length.  Maybe because of the children’s choir, Oblivion Hymns feels more hopeful, promising transcendence more than demise.

Hammock’s heavily processed guitar sound remains at the center of their music, but when an instrument like the piano turns up on “Holding Your Absence,” with spare, pensive chords it seems to wrap their ambient electric swirl around it, pulling all the elements together.

The cover of Oblivion Hymns is a Rorschach of ink blots by Amy Pleasant, and like the cover, you can read many things into Hammock’s music.  You might find yourself descending into the abyss, or after hearing the concluding vocal hymn, “Tres Domines,” sung by Timothy Showalter, you might see heaven’s gate.  But I keep finding myself rising up, floating through a celestial expanse, which might be the same thing.

With Oblivion Hymns Hammock’s Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson have created a magnificent and important work that will become a reference point for those working in ambient classical and post-rock modalities, and those looking for music that takes us beyond.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Hammock’s Oblivion Hymns is our January   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.

The Echoes Discovery of 2013: Mree

Hear Mree interviewed on Echoes tonight.

Technically, Mree isn’t a new artist.  She released her debut album, Glow,  in 2011 when she was all of 17 years old.  But it’s her sophomore release, Winterwell, that revealed an artist of intoxicating depth and studio virtuosity.    Mree is not your typical singer song-writer.  Even though she started out playing acoustic guitar in her bedroom and recording alt-rock songs in her bathroom on YouTube,  she’s evolved her sound into something closer to dream pop than folk, embracing influences from the New Age, Alt-Rock and ambient into a music that is both intimate and atmospheric.  As a child Mree listened to Mariah Carey, but now the 20 year old musician is more likely to cite, Sigur Ros, Hammock and Bon Iver as influences.  She talks about Winterwell, listening to Enya and looping her voice tonight on Echoes.

Mree: The Girl with the Red Guitar – Live on Echoes

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.

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.

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.

A Fanfare to Oblivion with Jonathan Wilson & Hammock

New Music from Hammock & Jonathan Wilson tonight on Echoes

Hammock is one of those bands that is consistently name-checked by artists we interview on Echoes. Rhian Sheehan, Mree, All India Radio and more have cited them in recent months.  They return with a new CD that follows on the heels of 2012’s Departure Songs.  That album was an Echoes CD of the Month and was judged the Best Echoes CD of that year.   You might recall that Departure Songs contained a physical train ticket to “Oblivion,” so Oblivion Hymns was already in the works as an extension of Departure Songs.  It continues that sound of dark, slowly shifting guitar ambiences, but this time there are more acoustic strings and even a children’s choir.  We’ll hear a track from Oblivion Hymns tonight.

I also have new music by Jonathan Wilson, the North Carolina born singer-songwriter who has been transplanted to Laurel Canyon.  The Guardian said his new album, Fanfare is “an epic shrine to softer 70s rock: balanced on a sixpence between Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, John Lennon’s Mind Games and namesake Dennis Wilson’s exquisitely weary Pacific Ocean Blue.  Sounds good to me.   Echoes affiliate WXPN called him the Artist to Watch for November.  We’ll hear that and more, tonight on Echoes.

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. You

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.

Ethereal Girl: Mree in Echoes Podcast.

Hear Mree interviewed in the Echoes Podcast.

Mree: The Girl with the Red Guitar – Live on Echoes

Mree isn’t your typical singer song-writer.  Even though she started out playing acoustic guitar in her bedroom and recording alt-rock songs on YouTube,  she’s evolved her sound into something closer to dream pop than folk, embracing sounds from the New Age, Alt-Rock and ambient into a music that is both intimate and atmospheric.  She recently released her sophomore album, Winterwell.   As a child Mree listened to Mariah Carey, but now the 19 year old musicians is more likely to cite, Sigur Ros, Hammock and Bon Iver as influences.  She talks about her music, listening to Enya and looping her voice on the Echoes Podcast.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club.   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!

Mree’s Magical Sound on Echoes.

Hear Mree interviewed on Echoes tonight.

Mree isn’t your typical singer song-writer.  Even though she started out playing acoustic guitar in her bedroom and recording alt-rock songs on YouTube,  she’s evolved her sound into something closer to dream pop than folk, embracing sounds from the New Age, Alt-Rock and ambient into a music that is both intimate and atmospheric.  She recently released her sophomore album, Winterwell.   As a child Mree listened to Mariah Carey, but now the 19 year old musicians is more likely to cite, Sigur Ros, Hammock and Bon Iver as influences.  She talks about her music, listening to Enya and looping her voice tonight on Echoes.

Mree: The Girl with the Red Guitar – Live on Echoes

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club.   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!

Rhian Sheehan’s Ambient Music Box Symphony.

Rhian Sheehan’s Stories from Elsewhere
Echoes May CD of the Month

Hear Rhian Sheehan’s Stories from Elsewhere featured on Monday May 6

In a music style built on translucent hues, there are many shades of ambient chamber music.  There’s Harold Budd’s minimal austerity and Ludovico Einaudi’s classical melodicism.  Ólafur Arnalds trades in glitchy, haunted moods while Kevin Keller charts a more romantic course.  But Rhian Sheehan may have created one of the most sublime shadings on his 7^th 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.

New Zealand artist Rhian Sheehan started out as an acoustic guitarist and he was good enough to jam with finger-style guitar icon, Tommy Emmanuel.  But he began releasing albums of electronic music in 2001, and more recently, he has emerged with a sound that brings guitars, synthesizers, music boxes and orchestras together into tightly honed, but melodically  sweeping compositions.  That sound was first evident on his album, Standing in Silence four years ago.  In the interim, he released a purely ambient EP, Seven Tales of the North Wind, that revealed the influence of the Nashville duo, Hammock, who remixed a Sheehan tune.

Rhian Sheehan Live

He brings all those elements together on Stories from Elsewhere, an album whose signature sound may be the music box.  Sheehan has custom music boxes for which he creates his own music rolls and then manipulates the resulting sounds electronically.  Nowhere is that heard to better effect than on “La Boite à Musique” (Music Box).  It opens with a charming music box melody that morphs into a marching rhythm, which then stutter-stops, and finally is enveloped in strings that rise like a Jupiter rocket breaking the atmosphere: slow, graceful, inevitable.

There is innocence and foreboding in equal measure on Stories from Elsewhere.  It begins with the cover art, a painting of a young boy alone in the forest with a toy piano or music box. But the inside cover depicts that same boy, standing alone in an abandoned, desolate village.  It’s the kind of package that makes one lament the ascension of digital releases because it creates the surrounding aura of the album of an innocent world with a darker side lurking underneath.

Rhian Sheehan’s Stories from Elsewhere

Sheehan rocks-out on the deceptively titled “Nocturne 1985,” a heroic slab of fuzz guitar and sequencer overdrive while “Imber” more closely adheres to the nocturne theme with a plaintive music box sequence and Arvo Pärt-like piano, courtesy of Sheehan’s wife, Raashi Malik.  There’s more than a little bit of Sigur Rós in the falsetto vocals of “Litle Sines” and the heroic dawn-of-the-world surge on “A Thimble Full of Sorrow.”

There aren’t a lot of albums that grab you like a page-turner  novel and change you by the end, but Stories from Elsewhere is one.  The track “Somnus” provides a heroic, ambient denouement that leaves you breathless, with the final “Lullaby Machine” tagged on to say: It’s alright.  Go to sleep.  It’s only a dream, isn’t it?

Rhian Sheehan’s Stories from Elsewhere is a masterpiece of quietly epic dimensions.

~John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Hear Rhian Sheehan’s recent Echoes Interview in the Echoes Podcast.

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club.  With the Echoes CD of the Month Club, you get great CDs like Rhian Sheehan’s  Stories from Elsewhere Follow the link to the Echoes CD of the Month Club  and see what you’ve been missing.

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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.

Rhian Sheehan’s Music Box Podcast

Hear Rhian Sheehan’s interview in the Echoes Podcast.

New Zealand artist Rhian Sheehan has been releasing electronic albums since 2001, but he started out playing acoustic guitar. He was good enough to jam with finger-style guitar icon, Tommy Emmanuel. But after forays into pure electronic music he has emerged with a sound that brings guitars, synthesizers, music boxes and orchestras into epic, sweeping compositions.  He’s just released his seventh album, Stories from Elsewhere.  That album will be the Echoes CD of the Month for May.  Watch for the review next Wednesday. But for now, hear this interview with Sheehan from his studio in Wellington, New Zealand.  Rhian Sheehan Echoes Podcast

Among his thoughts are:

“I’ve got this guy staring right back at me with evil eyes.”

“I was trying to instill a sense of magic within the music, really, this kind of naivety, childlike quality to the whole work.”

“The children toys, musical toy obsession has not disappeared at all.”

“I collect ukuleles as well. Shock! Horror!”

“The children toys, musical toy obsession has not disappeared at all.”

“I was in Avatar. I’m dressed in red, being lead off by the Na’vi into a spaceship.”

Hear more in the Echoes Podcast.

~John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Rhian Sheehan’s Stories from Elsewhere

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club.  With the Echoes CD of the Month Club, you get great CDs likeFor Now I Am Winter.  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.