Tonight on Echoes, Connections from 1967 to 2013.

60’s Psych-Progressions, 70’s Krautrock, New World Fusion
and Ambient Chamber music Tonight on Echoes.

I must be feeling a bit nostalgic today.  I find myself going back to some of my earliest musical influences and to the early days of Echoes.  From the 1960s, I’ve got a song by Donovan, an artist who I think is an underrated influence on contemporary singer-songwriters.  His Sunshine Superman, is, song-for-song, a beautiful document of 60s tripped out psychedelia and optimism.  We’ll hear a tune from that album that looks to the darkside.  Then it’s up to 1969 and the debut from King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King.  Unlike the contemporary editions of this band, early Krimson could knock out a few ballads, especially when Greg Lake was singing the words of Pete Sinfield.   Moving up a decade, I’ll be dialing up some krautrock by Michael Rother from his second album, Sterntaler, with that beautiful guitar sound, the motoric drumming of Jaki Liebezeit and production from the late-Conny Plank.  .

From the early days of Echoes, look for music by Patrick O’Hearn, a musician who has remained a signature artist on the show from day one.   Then there’s an album by Roger Eno & Kate St. John. Roger is Brian’s younger piano playing brother.  St. John played oboe in The Dream Academy.  They made an early album of ambient chamber music called The Familiar before going on to form the chamber rock group, Channel Light Vessel with Bill Nelson.  We’ll hear one of many haunting tracks from The Familiar.

But of course, this is Echoes and I have lots of new music for you.  We’ll hear from the new album by Bombay Dub Orchestra, Tales from the Grand Bazaar as they continue to be masters of eastern fusion.  Morcheeba returns with a new album,  Head Up High  featuring singer Skye Edwards,  and I have new music by Pieter Nooten.  You may remember him from Clan of Xymox, an 80s new wave band on 4AD.  He went on to record a much loved album, Sleeps with Fishes with Michael Brook.  Now he returns with a double CD of ambient chamber music, Haven.

It’s all there and more tonight on Echoes.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

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Hans-Joachim Roedelius & Lloyd Cole: Clustered Commotions.

Hear the Echoes Interview with
Cluster’s Hans-Joachim Roedelius & Lloyd Cole in the Echoes Podcast.

In alternative rock circles, German bands from the 1980s are considered pioneers of sound.  Kraftwerk, Can, Neu, Harmonia and Cluster are consistently name-checked by everyone from David Bowie and Brian Eno to Stereolab and Radiohead. Hans-Joachim Roedelius, a founding member of Cluster and Harmonia, will be 80 in 2014, but he is still as prolific as ever.  He recently teamed up in an unlikely alliance with 80’s rock musician Lloyd Cole, best know for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions.  Their album together is Selected Studies Volume 1.  I talk to Lloyd Cole and Hans-Joachim Roedelius about their cross-generational collaboration tonight on Echoes.

Key Highlight;
Lloyd Cole: I am the anti-Moebius.

Hear Hans-Joachim Roedelius & Lloyd Cole in the Echoes Podcast.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

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Lloyd Cole & Hans-Joachim Roedelius.

It’s A Meeting of an 80s’s Rocker and 70′ Electronic Pioneer.

Tonight on Echoes, Cluster‘s (or Qluster) Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Lloyd Cole talk about their electronic collaboration.

In alternative rock circles, German bands from the 1980s are considered pioneers of sound.  Kraftwerk, Can, Neu, Harmonia and Cluster are consistently name-checked by everyone from David Bowie and Brian Eno to Stereolab and Radiohead. Hans-Joachim Roedelius, a founding member of Cluster and Harmonia, will be 80 in 2014, but he is still as prolific as ever.  He recently teamed up in an unlikely alliance with 80’s rock musician Lloyd Cole, best know for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions.  Their album together is Selected Studies Volume 1.  I talk to Lloyd Cole and Hans-Joachim Roedelius about their cross-generational collaboration tonight on Echoes.

Key Highlight;
Lloyd Cole: I am the anti-Moebius.

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

All is Neu Again- Michael Rother & Hallogallo Live

NEU! MARCHES BACK

UPDATE: Hear a live performance and the Echoes Interview with Michael Rother at end.

It was a mesmerizing evening of non-stop driving groove and ecstatic electric guitar when Michael Rother brought in his Hallogallo 2010 group to Philadelphia last night at International House.

Michael Rother @ International House

Michael Rother was a founding member of the German electro-groove duo called Neu! With drummer Klaus Dinger.  He went on to co-found Harmonia with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster.  Founded in 1971 after the two musicians departed a short-lived edition of Kraftwerk, Neu was known for their non-stop, monster mantra  grooves provided by Dinger, whose drumming presaged drum machines.   Atop his forward motion metronome, Rother layered soaring melodies and dive-bomber distortions, but with an economy of sound that relied more on timbre than notes.  With Harmonia, the music was no less driving,although prettier, more ambient sounds began to emerge in his music.  On his own. Rother has released a steady stream of albums since his landmark and still gorgeous solo debut, Flammende Herzen.  He maintains the motoric grooves, provided early on by Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit, but his melodies tended to be more symphonic, melancholic and often triumphal.

Michael Rother Laptop

Rother is experiencing a renaissance as yet another music generation is discovering the sound of Neu, Harmonia and Rother himself.  He can cite Brian Eno, who actually recorded with Harmonia, John Lydon and Ultravox, Sonic Youth and more recently, Radiohead and The Album Leaf among those his music has influenced.

With Steve Shelley, drummer from Sonic Youth and Aaron Mullan, from Tall Firs, on bass, a youthful looking Rother, appearing at least a decade younger than his 60 years, re-created landmark works from Neu, Harmonia and his solo output. They call themselves Hallogallo after a Neu track from the first album and that song,  now titled “Hallogallo 2010” in a heavier version, summed up the sound of the show.  After an ambient opening, Shelley kicked in to the unrelenting groove while Mullan layed down a sparse but deep bass line.  Rother, standing stoically behind a table laden with a computer,  mixer and a pair of Kaos pads, ripped out the soaring melody with his Fender Stratocaster.

Moving through solo tracks like the lyrical “Aroma Club B3,” Harmonia’s trancey “Deluxe (Immer Weider)” sans vocals, “Neutronics” from the Neu tribute album, and a new song called “Two Oceans,” Rother mixed in electronic loops, ambient pads and rhythmic support off his computer, but it was Shelly and Mullan who kept the groove alive, bringing vitality to a music could become repetitious, but never did.  The band improvised across the modal themes, not in a Coltrane/Hendrix sense, but in an orchestral, live compositional sense.  Elements of surf guitar, Eastern tonalities and acid sustain emerged in Rother’s playing.  You haven’t heard this much fuzzed, phased and filter-swept guitar in years as Rother deployed lines that were minimalist in scope, but epic in resonance.  I could’ve done without the random stereo panning, which should’ve been a bit more sophisticated at this point in time.

Although the music is unremitting in its drive, Rother’ heroic phrasing makes it sound euphoric, like a charge to the top of the hill.   It’s been 38 years since their debut and the music of Neu still sounds vital.  Klaus Dinger, passed away in 2008,  (see Obit) but Michael Rother & company make sure this isn’t a washed out nostalgia trip, but a look at new possibilities.  They played to a packed and devoted house of over three hundred at Philadelphia’s International House.

I must admit, after playing Michael Rother’s music non-stop on WXPN‘s Diaspar show in the 1970s and 80s, the guitarist fell off the map for me.  But while I wasn’t looking, he’s been releasing incredible albums over the last 20 years including the CDs Remember and Traumriesen, that take his music in new and tantalizing directions.  Neu’s music is currently being reissued in a vinyl only box set with all three Neu albums,  an aborted CD from 1986 and other outtakes

Look for an interview with Michael Rother shortly on Echoes.  Rother & Hallogallo 2010 will be returning to the states in September with dates in Columbus and Chicago (see Tour Schedule).

JUST IN: A link to the complete New York City performance at the Lincoln Center, although you’ll have to really crank it to get anywhere near the intensity.   Neu! Live in NYC.

Hear the Echoes interview with Michael Rother

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))