PRI: Echoes
A weekly musician interview from Echoes, the soundscape of ambient, new acoustic and world fusion music on public radio and on-line.
Visit Show Website http://www.echoes.org/Recently Aired
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Echoes feature - Forrest Fang
Since the 1980s Forrest Fang been crafting an experimental world ...
Since the 1980s Forrest Fang been crafting an experimental world fusion, playing violin, synthesizers and an array of exotic stringed instruments. His music sounds like it was made by a global orchestra, but it's all made in a bedroom in his home in San Francisco’s East Bay. Out of that bedroom comes an explosion of surreal sounds, a world music ensemble beyond imagination. He has a new album called Letters To The Farthest Star.
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Echoes feature - Kristin Hoffmann
Singer-songwriter Kristin Hoffmann has been recording since she was 17 ...
Singer-songwriter Kristin Hoffmann has been recording since she was 17 with a music she called Ethereal Renaissance Pop. Her latest solo album, The Human Compass, is a spiritual exploration through a tumultuous time in her life. On her new album, Amazing Space, she scores an electro-acoustic journey that accompanies images of the universe from the Hubble space telescope.
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Echoes feature - Robert Rich
Get your dictionary out and your thinking cap on as ...
Get your dictionary out and your thinking cap on as we talk to Robert Rich, one of the most conceptual and cerebral of electronic artists. He discusses the deep scientific theories behind his new album, Filaments, an exploration of "the strands of condensed energy-matter that formed out of the earliest inflationary period in our universe, and helped pull together the gasses that eventually became our cosmos." That concept inspired Rich to create one of his most inviting and enveloping albums.
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Echoes feature - Terry Riley Turns 80
Terry Riley, along with Philip Glass and Steve Reich, is ...
Terry Riley, along with Philip Glass and Steve Reich, is among the holy trinity of minimalism. His compositions In C and A Rainbow in Curved Air are seminal works of that genre. He was creating tape loops works in the early 1960s, laying the foundation for over 50 years of looping artists. He has continued composing and performing, notably working with Kronos Quartet on several collaborations. We celebrate the incredible, enduring legacy of this new music icon.
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Echoes feature - Wu Man
The Pipa is a Chinese lute known for its light, ...
The Pipa is a Chinese lute known for its light, pastoral sound. Wu Man plays it with a different kind of energy, she's often found playing new music, collaborating with explorers such as the Kronos Quartet on a composition by Terry Riley. She recently released an album of children's songs, Our World in Song, with Hawaiian guitarist Daniel Ho and percussionist Luis Conte, that transforms familiar melodies from around the world into something deeper and richer. We caught up with her at the Big Ears Festival this past March where she talked about her remarkable life, from the cultural revolution to music revolution.
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Echoes feature - Rebekka Karijord
Swedish singer Rebekka Karijord is a musician of rare vocal ...
Swedish singer Rebekka Karijord is a musician of rare vocal gifts and a conceptual approach to music represented on her latest album, We Become Ourselves. It's a poignant meditation on the men in her life, illustrated by heartbreakingly beautiful songs like Oh Brother. Karijord draws from many traditions: her father was a priest, which exposed her to hymns, which in turn opened her up to gospel songs, then work songs from America's days of slavery. It all comes together on this introspective, emotionally-wrought album. Rebekka Karijord talks about it when she comes into Echoes.
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Echoes feature - Angela Sheik
Angela Sheik is a compelling 21st century singer-songwriter who doesn't ...
Angela Sheik is a compelling 21st century singer-songwriter who doesn't just sit at a piano or play a guitar but with live looping creates her own elaborate orchestrations using those instruments plus autoharp, theremin, flute and whatever else she can get her hands on. Her album, Home Before Dark, is a miraculous construction of provocative, sometimes humorous songs where she tackles themes of romance, religion and hardship. It’s all built around her theatrical approach, often drawing comparisons to Kate Bush as she layers her voice into soothing choirs and Andrews Sisters style choruses. Angela Sheik talks about music, life and looping.
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Echoes feature - Another Fine Day
Another Fine Day is the performance moniker of Tom Green, ...
Another Fine Day is the performance moniker of Tom Green, an English musician who came to renown playing early morning sets at the Big Chill Festival for most of its 18 year run. He hasn't been prolific. He put out his first album in 1994, his second in 2000 and now has a new CD called A Good Place to Be. A seductive album of ambient jazz explorations with Tom Green as the only member of this virtual ensemble, it’s a meeting ground of Bill Evans and Miles Davis dripped through an Enoesque haze. From his studio, Tom Green talks about his music and his Array mbira, a modern take on the African thumb piano.
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Echoes feature - Jeff Oster
Trumpeter Jeff Oster was a lounge jazz musician playing clubs ...
Trumpeter Jeff Oster was a lounge jazz musician playing clubs until he bailed for a career in finance. But in the early 2000's he decided to start creating his own music. He connected with Windham Hill's Will Ackerman who produced his first album, At Last. Five albums later, he's still working with Ackerman and has a new CD of ambient jazz called Next. Playing mostly flugelhorn, Oster creates atmospheric, slow motion songs and moves into a bit of lounge funk with the legendary Rhythm and Blues rhythm section of Chuck Rainey and Bernard Purdie. From his home in Northern California, Jeff Oster talks about putting together his new album and exploring new directions.
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Echoes feature - Nels Cline
Nels Cline is best known as the guitarist with Wilco, ...
Nels Cline is best known as the guitarist with Wilco, but long before he joined that band he had a burgeoning solo career as a an outside jazz guitarist. He still maintains that path with groundbreaking albums with his group the Nels Cline Singers and experimental work that pushes the boundaries of electric guitar. In between sets at the Big Ears Festival where he rewired the audience's heads with fractured guitar synapses, he reflects on a career that embraces the contemplative and the chaotic and complains about the street musician outside his window. I would too.
