Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkian Talk About a Signature CD on Echoes

Hear Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkian interviewed tonight on Echoes.

An album that is sure to be in the Echoes Top 25 for 2013 is Azam Ali and Loga R. Torkian ‘s Lamentation of Swans, a Journey into Silence.   They used to be in two different bands.  Torkian played guitar in the Persian fusion band, Axiom of Choice and Ali was half of the world fusion duo,  Vas.  They got together romantically and musically and formed the Persian electronica band,  Niyaz.  Now they’re a married couple with a five year old child and they’ve released their first album as a duo.  It’s called Lamentation of Swans, a Journey into Silence. Tonight on Echoes I go quietly with Azam Ali and Loga R. Torkian.

HIGHLIGHTS

Azam Ali on her Iranian roots: Wherever you’re born, that’s where your roots are.  And you can live your whole life in foreign countries, but that connection to where you are will always remain.

Loga R. Torkian on discovering the guitarviol:  As soon as I played the first note I knew this is a magical instrument.  And I told him in 10 minutes, Jonathon [Wilson], can you build one for me?

Azam Ali on her imaginary language:  There is a certain value to making it sound like a language because just the human mouth is capable of so many different kinds of sounds.  And when you add the syllables it changes the texture of a melody.  It breaks the note in a particular way, it affects the kind of ornaments you can use, and in so doing, there are so many emotions that can be experienced.

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.

Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkian on Echoes Podcast

Hear Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkian interviewed on the ECHOES PODCAST

Azam Ali and Loga R. Torkian used to be in two different bands.  Torkian played guitar in the Persian fusion band, Axiom of Choice and Ali was half of the world fusion duo,  Vas.  They got together romantically and musically and formed the Persian electronica band,  Niyaz.  Now they’re a married couple with a five year old child and they’ve released their first album as a duo.  It’s called Lamentation of Swans, a Journey into Silence. Hear Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkian whisper about music in the Echoes Podcast.

HIGHLIGHTS

Azam Ali on her Iranian roots: Wherever you’re born, that’s where your roots are.  And you can live your whole life in foreign countries, but that connection to where you are will always remain.

Loga R. Torkian on discovering the guitarviol:  As soon as I played the first note I knew this is a magical instrument.  And I told him in 10 minutes, Jonathon [Wilson], can you build one for me?

Azam Ali on her imaginary language:  There is a certain value to making it sound like a language because just the human mouth is capable of so many different kinds of sounds.  And when you add the syllables it changes the texture of a melody.  It breaks the note in a particular way, it affects the kind of ornaments you can use, and in so doing, there are so many emotions that can be experienced.

Hear them talk about their music in the Echoes Podcast.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club.   CD of the Month Club members will be getting Darshan Ambient’s Little Things 10 days before its released.  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!

Persian Fusion Dervishes-Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkian on Echoes

Hear Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkian interviewed tonight on Echoes.

Azam Ali and Loga R. Torkian used to be in two different bands.  Torkian played guitar in the Persian fusion band, Axiom of Choice and Ali was half of the world fusion duo,  Vas.  They got together romantically and musically and formed the Persian electronica band,  Niyaz.  Now they’re a married couple with a five year old child and they’ve released their first album as a duo.  It’s called Lamentation of Swans, a Journey into Silence. Tonight on Echoes I go quietly with Azam Ali and Loga R. Torkian.

HIGHLIGHTS

Azam Ali on her Iranian roots: Wherever you’re born, that’s where your roots are.  And you can live your whole life in foreign countries, but that connection to where you are will always remain.

Loga R. Torkian on discovering the guitarviol:  As soon as I played the first note I knew this is a magical instrument.  And I told him in 10 minutes, Jonathon [Wilson], can you build one for me?

Azam Ali on her imaginary language:  There is a certain value to making it sound like a language because just the human mouth is capable of so many different kinds of sounds.  And when you add the syllables it changes the texture of a melody.  It breaks the note in a particular way, it affects the kind of ornaments you can use, and in so doing, there are so many emotions that can be experienced.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club.   CD of the Month Club members will be getting Darshan Ambient’s Little Things 10 days before its released.  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!

New Music: Azam Ali and Loga R. Torkian & Roger Eno

Hear new music from Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkian tonight on Echoes

Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkian, both play in the Persian Electronica band Niyaz, but you may also remember them from Ali’s group, Vas, and Torkian’s band, Axiom of Choice.  They’ve just released a new CD called Lamentation of Swans: A Journey Toward Silence that takes a more contemplative approach to their music. We’ll also hear new music by Roger Eno.  The pianist and one of the earliest Ambient Chamber Music composers teams up with Plumbline, an English electronic band on the album Endless City/Concrete Jungle.

Here’s a beautifully produced video of  Azam Ali & Loga R. Torkain’s for “Oceans” that puts together a smorgasbord of New Age mysticism.  The woman in the video is not Azam Ali.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Find your local Echoes station or streaming options here: http://www.echoes.org/stattime.html

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!

Biomusique – The 10,000 Steps – Echoes

You’ve heard the voice of Lisbeth Scott. You may have picked up on one of her solo singer-songwriter albums like Dove or heard her calling the heavens in gothic chants with State of Grace. But it’s more likely you’ve encountered her in dozens of film soundtracks. She sang fantasy refrains in The Chronicles of Narnia, wailed behind Bruce Willis‘s travels with the dead in The Sixth Sense, escaped danger with Harrison Ford in the latest Indiana Jones film, and sang laments in John Williams’ score for Munich.

It’s that side of Lisbeth Scott that turns up on the debut album of Biomusique, a collaboration with Greg Ellis. He’s highly regarded as a percussionist who works in films, plays with Billy Idol and Juno Reactor, and was the rhythm half of the Persian fusion duo, Vas, with singer Azam Ali. In fact, songs like “Ohroo,” will remind you of Vas as Ellis plays a mountain dulcimer with mallets, recalling Azam Ali’s hammered dulcimer playing with Vas.

But with Lisbeth Scott, he’s found a different kind of collaborator. On The 10,000 Steps, she brings a classical sensibility and a gentle feel to songs that read like haiku. “The Tender Green” mixes Ellis’s tribal drums with Scott’s layered, serene vocals, intoning “There is a world somewhere, way up high, way down deep.” It builds to a slow, erotic throb that resolves to a tribal coda.

Like a Rumi poem or an Abbess Hildegard von Bingen chant, Scott’s spare lyrics can be heard as love poems or hymns to a higher spirit. The opening “Ananda” finds her calling out passionately in despair and anguish. “Caeili et Terra” (Heaven & Earth) is a lament with Scott’s voice stacked up in Enyaesque choirs.

Greg Ellis has placed the instruments in a delicate balance that matches Scott’s lyrics. On “Redemption, Lisbeth Scott just sits down and plays piano in a pensive, Arvo Pärt-like meditation while Ellis blows some disarmingly affecting trumpet, like an elegy for Miles Davis.

Their name might sound like the product of a scientific gene splice or music created by plugging into plants, but Biomusique is much more about human souls than earth souls.

You can hear a review of Biomusique with sound samples. Their CD of the Month feature show will run on Echoes on Monday, June 2 and an interview with Biomusique can be heard on Tuesday, June 24
© 2008 John Diliberto