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

Echo Location: Ronn McFarlane’s 21st Century Lute

It’s not your ancient Renaissance lute anymore when Ronn McFarlane creates new music for an ancient instrument.

(You can hear an Audio Version of this blog, with music.)

In 2006, Sting put out an album of tunes by 16^th century composer John Dowland called Songs from the Labyrinth. Sting not only sang Dowland’s songs, but played a renaissance instrument called the lute. He plucked it convincingly, unless you happen to be a virtuoso renaissance lutenist.

Lutenist Ronn McFarlane at Echoes

Ronn McFarlane: I think he has fairly modest abilities on the lute but he does what he needs to do, and the most intricate lute playing tends to be done by his partner, Edin Karamozov, and he’s, you know, quite a fine player and quite brilliant.

Ronn McFarlane has been playing the lute for over 3 decades, much of it with the Baltimore Consort. What appealed to him in Sting’s music was less the Dowland pieces, and more, Sting’s own music.

Ronn McFarlane: One of my favorites was actually one of Sting’s original pieces, “Fields of Gold.” When they arranged that for two lutes and voice, I thought it was a haunting arrangement, quite beautiful, and I would have loved to have heard more contemporary music played on the lute.

So Ronn McFarlane decided to create his own repertoire. He’s been writing original compositions for about a decade and collected several of his tunes on an album called Indigo Road.

Ronn McFarlane-Indigo Road

If you listen close to McFarlane’s music, you’ll hear techniques like harmonics and glissandos that weren’t part of the renaissance arsenal. Ronn got some of them from his days as a rocker, but also from listening to contemporary acoustic guitarists like the late Michael Hedges. Like Michael Hedges, Ronn McFarlane is an eclectic. Celtic influences infuse some tunes, while on others he sounds like a bluegrass player.

Ronn McFarlane isn’t ready to give up his classical career with the Baltimore Consort, but he has opened up new possibilities for an instrument that, with the exception of Sting, hasn’t seen much new music for a few hundred years.

There will be a full interview with Ronn McFarlane Wednesday 9/03 and you can hear Ronn McFarlane playing live on Echoes on Tuesday, 9/16. More Info on the Echoes website

This has been an Echo Location, Soundings for New Music, heard on Wednesday mornings on 88.5 WXPN Philadephia and other enlightened Echoes affiliate stations.

(You can hear an Audio Version of this blog, with music.)

John Diliberto ((( Echoes )))

Echoes Top 25 For August: Ottmar Liebert Leads and Electronica Returns

Ottmar Liebert’s The Scent of Light, our August CD of the Month tops the Echoes Top 25 for August, but electronica and ambient music make a comeback after a few months off. They include Marconi Union who repeats their Top 5 performance with A Lost Connection, a download only release.  Joining them are Klaus Schulze and Lisa Gerrard’s Farscape, Darshan Ambient’s obviously ambient From Pale Hands to Weary Eyes and Sumner McKane’s What A Great Place to Be, are all electric/electronically based albums that debut in the Top Ten this month.   There are nine new entries this month in the Top 25.  Go to the Echoes Blog to read reviews and hear audio reviews of many of these recordings, including Marconi Union, Klaus Schulze & Lisa Gerrard, Biomusique, California Guitar Trio, Sacred Earth and David Pritchard.

ECHOES TOP 25 FOR AUGUST 2008

1.	Ottmar Liebert	The Scent of Light	Spiral Subwave Records Int’l	Read the Review!
2.	Jami Sieber	Unspoken: The Music of Only Breath	Out Front Music	CDBaby
3.	Marconi Union	A Lost Connection	MU Transmissions
4.	Don Peyote	Peyote Dreaming	Don Peyote Recordings/Interchill
5.	Gerry O’Beirne	The Bog Bodies and Other Stories	Self Released
6.	Joe Euro	Souvenir	Joe Euro Music	Buy From CDBaby
7.	Klaus Schulze & Lisa Gerrard	Farscape	SPV Recordings
8.	Darshan Ambient	From Pale Hands to Weary Eyes	Lotuspike
9.	Biomusique	The 10,000 Steps	Kosmic Music
10.	Sumner McKane	What A Great Place to Be	Don’t Hit Your Sister Records
11.	California Guitar Trio	Echoes	Inner Knot
12	Kevin Bartlett	Glow in the Dark	Aural Gratification
13.	Sacred Earth	Wind of the East	Red Feather Music
14.	Rodrigo Rodriguez	Beyond the Times	KZN Records
15.	V/A	Perceived Distances	Dataobscura
16.	Steve Roach	Empetus	Projekt
17.	Ronn McFarlane	Indigo Road	Dorian
18.	Hans-Jaochim Roedelius & Tim Story	Inlandish	High Wire Records
19.	David Cullen	Guitar Travels	Solid Air
20.	David Arkenstone	Echoes of Light and Shadow	Gemini Sun Records
21.	David Pritchard	Vertical Eden	Morphic Resonance Music
22.	Niyaz	Nine Heavens	Six Degrees
23.	Joan Jeanrenaud	Strange Toys	Talking House Records
24.	Forastiere	Why Not?	Candyrat Records
25.	Fernwood	Almeria	Self Released

Ottmar Liebert’sThe Scent of Light was the Echoes CD of the Month for August 2008

Echoes Top 25 for July: Marconi Union first Download recording to crack Top 5

Ambient chamber music still dominates the Echoes Top 25 for August, but for the first time, a download only album cracks the the Echoes Top 5. That CD is the purely ambient A Lost Connection by Marconi Union. Their album, Distance, from 3 years ago was among our favorite CDs that year, and A Lost Connection was definitely worth the wait. The album is full of plaintive electric guitar lines draped across a mesh of subtle, insinuating beats, synth pads full of melancholy and glitchy effects dropping in from the fringes. This album is more poetic and almost classical in spots compared to their first two albums. The mellotron-like flutes of the “Endless Winter” lend a somnolent chamber music sound across the insistent, but downtempo bass thud. Expect to hear that  song frequently on Echoes Winter Solstices to come and A Lost Connection frequently on Echoes. Right now, the only place to get A Lost Connection is from the Marconi Union website.

To my ears, there’s a very short distance between the classical Ahn Trio and the ambient Marconi Union.  In that light, ambient chamber music remains strong, although only 10 out of 25 discs fit broadly into that camp, compared to 14 last month. The Ahn Trio, Ronn McFarlane, and Jami Sieber remained important players this month.  Ottmar Liebert’s The Scent of Light made an impressive debut at #14. Look for that to be number 1 for August since it’s our CD of the Month.   You can read a Print Review  here, including an Audio Review with music.  Over all, there was a 50% turn-over in the Top 25 for August.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

ECHOES TOP 25 FOR JULY  1 – Sacred Earth (Peter Kater, Joseph Fire Crow, Arvel Bird) – Wind of the East (Print Review or Audio Review)

  2 – Ahn Trio – Lullaby For My Favorite Insomniac <Listen>

 3 – Marconi Union – A Lost Connection

 4 – Biomusique – The 10000 Steps <Read Review or Listen>
5 – David Cullen – Guitar Travels 

6 – David Arkenstone – Echoes of Light and Shadow

 7 – Kevin Bartlett – Glow in the Dark

 8 – Ronn McFarlane – Indigo Road

9 – Michel Banabila – Traces
10 – Jami Sieber – Unspoken < Listen>

11 – Eldad Lidor – Closer
12 – Hans-Joachim roedelius & Tim Story – Inlandish

 13 – California Guitar Trio – Echoes (Read Article)
14 – Ottmar Liebert – The Scent of Light (Print Review or Audio Review)

15 – Skala – Tundra
16 – Kaki King – Dreaming of Revenge
17 – Balmorhea – Rivers Arms

18 – Under the Radar – I Was There But I Can’t Remember When
19 – Hammock – Maybe They Will Sing for Us Tomorrow
20 – William Ackerman – Meditations

 21 – Niyaz – Nine Heavens
22 – Fernwood – Almeria
23 – David Pritchard – Vertical Eden
24 – Joan Jeanrenaud – Strange Toys

 25 – Don Peyote – Peyote Dreaming

Ambient Chamber Music Reigns on Echoes Top 25 for June

Ambient Chamber music dominates top airplay at Echoes in June.
We’ve been tracking ambient chamber music since the beginning of Echoes when it was mostly Tim Story, David Darling and Kevin Keller, but the subgenre has exploded, in an ambient chamber music way, that is, gently and without many people noticing, partly because it falls in between genres from the ambient chamber world music of Biomusique and Jami Sieber to the Euro-minimalist classical of Ludovico Einaudi and Ronn McFarlane to the folk chamber music of William Ackerman and Gerry O’Beirne. Nine of the Top 10 albums fall into the category and 14 of the Top 25.  When I hear 20-somthing bands like Balmorhea citing 50-something composers like Ludovico Einaudi or the venerable Arvo Part, that tells me that something is happening.  This is another ebb and flow in the evolution of Echoes which has seen influxes of Celtic, space music, electronica and world fusion over the years.  There’s still plenty of electronica, world fusion and unclassifiable music that makes up the Echoes soundscape. Here’s the Top 25 with a few links to reviews.

ECHOES TOP 25 FOR JUNE

1 – Biomusique – The 10000 Steps  <Listen>
2 – Jami Sieber – Unspoken  <Listen>
3 – William Ackerman – Meditations
4 – Ronn McFarlane – Indigo Road
5 – Fernwood – Almeria
6 – California Guitar Trio – Echoes
7 – Ludovico Einaudi – Divenire
8 – Niyaz – Nine Heavens
9 – Eldad Lidor – Closer
10 – Gerry O’Beirne – The Bog Bodies and Other Stories <Listen>
11 – Qntal – Translucida
12 – Ahn Trio – Lullaby For My Favorite Insomniac <Listen>
13 – Don Peyote – Peyote Dreaming
14 – Richard Bone – Short Waves
15 – Christopher Young – Sleepwalking
16 – v/a – Future Memories (v/a)
17 – Lisa Lynne & Aryeh Frankfurter – Two Worlds One
18 – Robert Rich & Ian Boddy – React
19 – The Orb – The Dream  <Listen>
 20 – Michel Banabila – Traces
21 – Bill Frisell – History Mystery
22 – Deobrat Mishra & David Michael – Himilayan Crossroad
23 – Kevin Bartlett – Glow in the Dark
24 – David Arkenstone – Echoes of Light and Shadow
25 – Rudy Perrone – The Language of Spirits