John Diliberto’s Top 10 CDs 2013

This was one of the hardest lists ever to compile.  It’s different from 25 Essential Echoes CDs of 2013, which is our picks of the best music played on Echoes.  And it’s also different from The Best of Echoes 2013 Listener Poll results.   These are my picks from all the music I heard in what turned out to be an epic year for new music.  And in an epic year, these are the albums that rose to the top of the top for me.

1- Pat Metheny – Tap: John Zorn’s The Book of Angels, Vol. 20
Metheny takes fragmentary themes from composer John Zorn’s “Book of Angels” series and orchestrates them into expansive, electro-symphonic works.  The fact that it features some of Metheny’s most unbridled and psychedelic guitar playing in years is just a bonus.

2- Rhian Sheehan –  Stories from Elsewhere
On his 7^th album, Stories from Elsewhere,  Rhian Sheehan created one of the most sublime shadings of ambient chamber music since Harold Budd’s Pavillion of Dreams.  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
I don’t know if I could’ve gotten behind an album more than I did Olivier Libaux’s sublime covers of music by alt-metal band Queen’s of the Stone Age.  Part of the New Wave/Punk cover band Nouvelle Vague.  Libaux stepped out on his own to record the albums with singers including Emilianna Torinni and Inara George. He accomplished a melancholy re-imagining of this alt-metal band’s music. It was a CD of the Month in July.

4 – Ludovico Einaudi –  In a Time Lapse
In a Time Lapse is a defining album on which pianist/composer Ludovico 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. It was Echoes CD of the Month in March,

5 – Moby   Innocents
Moby completes a trilogy of atmospheric, introspective songs that began with Wait for Me and Destroyed.  A CD of the Month in November,  Innocents is the most soothing melancholy.

6 – 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.

7 – 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.  The title track will leave you breathless.  It was an Echoes CD of the Month in February.

8 – Mree   Winterwell
Serene dream pop from a 19 year old musician who comes from a singer-songwriter tradition but creates Enya like choirs with her voice on this lush and powerful album.

9 – Bleeding Rainbow   Yeah, Right
This Philadelphia based band created a garage-rock psychedelic ecstacy that often attained the epic mixing shoegaze guitars with motoric grooves and heroic girl-group choruses from singer Sarah Everton.  I’m still trying to figure out why Savages got so much hipster attention and this album slipped away.  Play it loud and you’ll wonder why as well.

10- Sigur Ros  Kveikur
Sigur Ros kick out the jams on this album of delirious, roiling textures and Jonsi’s falsetto melodies of prayer.  This is one of the Icelandic groups more aggressive outings which is saying a lot for a band that has no restraints in their electric storm.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

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OR

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THE ECHOES LIVING ROOM CONCERTS VOLUME 19

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Olivier Libaux’s Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age Live on Echoes

Hear Olivier Libaux Bring his Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age to Echoes live tonight

Olivier Libaux’s UNQOTSA live on Echoes

Olivier Libaux is a co-founder of Nouvelle Vague, a French project that records lounge versions of Punk and New Wave songs. Libaux steps out on his own with the CD titled Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age, reinventing songs by that hard rock band. He turns them into introspective dreampop with a host of guest singers.  He comes to Echoes with two other wonderful vocalists, Charlotte Savary and Nathalie Réaux.  They give an enchanting performance of music from the most underrated album of 2013, including a new cover.

Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age was the Echoes CD of the Month for July. Read the Echoes review and hear more trax from this beautiful album.

Below, watch a live performance of  “3’s and 7’s” from Libaux’s 2013 album, Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Erik Wøllo’s Timelines is our February 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.

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

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.

Olivier Libaux Transforms QOTSA in Echoes Podcast

Hear an interview with Olivier Libaux tonight on the Echoes Podcast

Olivier Libaux is a co-founder of Nouvelle Vague, a French project that records lounge versions of Punk and New Wave songs. Libaux steps out on his own with the CD titled Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age, reinventing songs by that hard rock band. He turns them into introspective dreampop with a host of guest singers including Inara George from The Bird and the Bee, Katharine Whalen from Squirrel Nut Zippers, Clare Manchon from Clare and the Reasons and Skye from Morcheeba. Libaux talks about his Echoes CD of the Month for July. Read the Echoes review and hear more trax from this beautiful album.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On why this isn’t a Nouvelle Vague record:

Actually my partner (Marc Collin) was not into it, so I made it by myself.  I was the rock-n-roll fan in Nouvelle Vague.  If Nouvelle Vague was covering The Undertones, the Sisters of Mercy, the Dead Kennedys, XTC, things like that, that was because of me because I grew up with these bands.  I believe he’s not a great fan of Queens of the Stone Age.

You can hear Olivier Libaux’s interview in the Echoes Podcast.
John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Find your local Echoes station or streaming options here.

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 Top 25 for July 2013.

Queens of the Stone Age, reinvented, Leads Echoes Top 25

… Like Clockwork by Queens of the Stone Age made Number One on the Billboard Top 200, but Olivier Libaux‘s Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age was Number One on Echoes.  Libaux’s UNQOTSA ,  in which he creates intimate, melancholic versions of tunes from this raging heavy metal band, is one of the surprise albums of 2013.  With an incredible cast of singers, including Inara George, Susan Dillane and Clare Manhchon, Libaux has made this music his own.  It shouldn’t be too much of surprise though.  Libaux is co-founder of the French cover band, Nouvelle Vague which has been turning punk and new wave tunes into Bossa Nova, lounge and folk songs for years.  It was the Echoes July CD of the Month.  You can read a review and listen to complete tracks here.

Coming behind Libaux is the unexpected collaboration between Jah Wobble, former bassist with Public Image Limited, and the ambient band, Marconi Union.  They created a great CD of space dub music called Anomic.  Give a listen to their Echoes Interview.  Wobble is a riot.

Interestingly, eleven of the Top 25 artists have never made this list before.  Here’s the complete list.

ECHOES TOP 25 FOR JULY

1. Olivier Libaux – Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age (Music for Music Lovers)
2. Jah Wobble & Marconi Union – Anomic (30 Hertz)
3. Tricky – False Idols (False Idols)
4. Signal Hill – Chase the Ghost (Sun Sea Sky Productions)
5. Richard Bone – Images from a Parallel World (AD Music)
6. Azam Ali and Loga R Torkian – Lamentation of Swans (Terrestrial Lane Productions)
7. Still Corners – Strange Pleasures (Sub Pop)
8. Northcape – Exploration and Ascent (SunSeaSky)
9. Tom Caufield – Nature and the Constant Illusion (Bohemian Embassy)
10. Roger Eno/Plumbline – Endless City/Concrete Garden (Hydrogen Dukebox)
11. Lightning Dust – Fantasy (Jagjaguwar)
12. Laki Mera – Turn all Memory to White Noise (Just Music)
13. Brian Keane – Copper (OST) (Valley Entertainment)
14. The National – Trouble Will Find Me (4AD Records)
15. Three Fields – Sky (EP) (Installed Worlds)
16. William Tyler – Impossible Truth (Merge Records)
17. Bill Frisell – Big Sur (Sony Masterworks)
18. Melorman – Waves (Sun Sea Sky Productions)
19. Mree – Winterwell (Mree Music)
20. Jeff Greinke – Scenes From A Train (Infectious Music)
21. Seven Saturdays – Seven Saturdays (Lunada)
22. Rachel Zeffira – The Deserters (Paper Bag)
23. Arborea – Fortress of the Sun (Esp Disk Ltd)
24. Sigur Ros – Kveikur (XL Recordings)
25. Hooverphonic – The Night Before (Columbia Europe)

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 Olivier Libauxs Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age. 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!

Interview: Olivier Libaux

Hear an interview with Olivier Libaux tonight on Echoes

Olivier Libaux is a co-founder of Nouvelle Vague, a French project that records lounge versions of Punk and New Wave songs. Libaux steps out on his own with the CD titled Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age, reinventing songs by that hard rock band. He turns them into introspective dreampop with a host of guest singers including Inara George from The Bird and the Bee, Katharine Whalen from Squirrel Nut Zippers, Clare Manchon from Clare and the Reasons and Skye from Morcheeba. Libaux talks about his Echoes CD of the Month for July. Read the Echoes review and hear more trax from this beautiful album.

Below, watch a live performance of  “3’s and 7’s” from Libaux’s 2013 album, Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Find your local Echoes station or streaming options here.

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!