Sabato 30 Agosto suoneranno i dj Flavio Vecchi, F. Maurizi AKA Roger e Toti.

L’ultima serata magica che ci regalerà sarà il Closing Party di Lunedì 1 Settembre con il Magic Monday, alla console suoneranno Satoschi Tommiie e Ricky Montanari!

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

Every musician plays notes, but some of them think about the nature of sound a lot more than others. For them, music isn't just a conveyor of melody and rhythm, but a pathway into sound itself. No one captured the meaning of sound better than avant-garde iconoclast, John Cage. John Cage died 1992, but in the spring of 1987, he was still enjoying the sounds of the city permeating his Chelsea home.

John Cage: I have a friend, Paul Zukofsky, the violinist, who used to come and stay where I lived in New York when I left and when Merce Cunningham left because it was so quiet but he no longer comes because this is so noisy. For me it's a great pleasure though, to hear all the sounds. I find it very, just plain musical.

Brian Eno: Music has become part of the tapestry of your life like lighting is or like the environmental sound that you here anyways.... Anyway I was excited by the idea of making music that acknowledged that and said "Here's a music that is especially for that. Here's a music that is intended to merge into the environment. "

Eno's concepts were inspired by Cage and by minimalist composers who wanted to bring out sonic details and focus through repetition.                                                                                   
Terry Riley: Tape loop creates a stasis in the sound and you can watch something as if it were stopped in a camera frame and it repeats over and over again. And You start to notice the real deep details that can draw the mind in   also.

Surprisingly, pianist Keith Jarrett, who is anti-electronic, and far from minimalist, still reflects a similar desire to get to the essence of sound.
Keith Jarrett: As long ago as when I was at Slugs with Charles Lloyd I had this feeling that I might quit music because all I had to play was one note, you know, and that recurs in different guises now and then. But what it suggests is that I don't really need all that big an instrument to justify what I want to hear.

Keith Jarrett, Terry Riley, Brian Eno and John Cage. They are musicians who have gone into the microcosms of sound, often returning to produce some of the most influential, and even popular music of the last 50 years. They are among ten artists we'll hear next week on a special Echoes series called Thoughts in Sound. This has been an Echo Location, Soundings for New Music.

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

Thoughts in Sound is a series we produced through a grant from the Public Radio Exchange.  It includes interviews with Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, LaMonte Young, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, John Adams and Keith Jarrett.  You can read a more extensive article about this and hear each complete 5 minute audio piece here.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

His compositions had a warmth the others lacked and his guitar leads flitted between dangerous micro-second precision on Inventions for Electric Guitar and sensual psychedelic trips into ecstacy on New Age of Earth and Blackouts.

When you wait more than three decades before you get a chance to see an artist, expectations can be high. That was the case for the three-quarter full house that sat in the pews of St. Mary's Church in Philadelphia, ready to genuflect before the 55-year old musician. Produced by The Gatherings, this was only Göttsching's second US performance ever. His first was the night before in a rain-drenched outdoor event at the Lincoln Center in New York

Göttsching opened with a 45 minute opus called "Die Mulde." Originally composed for an art installation called 34 Mirrors R.S.V.P. by Mercedes Engelhardt,  Göttsching projected a video of the original event where he was playing in a field with large mirrors, performing the same score he was now playing live in the church.  With a film crew at St. Mary's to capture the concert,  Göttsching was being filmed in the church, playing in front of an 11-year old video of him playing at the original event . Given the mirror theme of the video, it seemed appropriate but also part of the consensual illusion the audience agreed upon, accepting that Manual Göttsching was playing live, when in fact, this was a Music Minus One performance with virtually everything coming off the computer. It was a prerecorded event of a pre-recorded event ready to be recorded once again.

Most of the music came off of Göttsching's laptop,  while he occassionally played some repetitive arpeggios or long chords on the synthesizer. He even soloed slightly. But rhythms, percussion, sequencer patterns and synth pads were all completely pre-recorded. Only when Göttsching strapped on his Gibson SG did the music come to some kind of life that was in the moment. Göttsching is a deft guitarist with a light touch on the strings and expressive use of pitch bends and delays. Hearing him play guitar live made me wish he'd just shut down the computer and wail.  His concluding guitar solo to "Die Mulde" and his gentle riffing on "Midnight on Mars" revealed the possibilities of a truly live Manuel Göttsching concert.

I must admit that the last piece sucked me in with its cycling sequencer groove and Göttsching's matching, understated arpeggiated guitar lead that seemed to chase its own tail in a hypnotic spiral. But I've heard this same effect done live with Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" and Terry Riley's tape loops, all performed in real time without pre-recorded sounds.  And Göttsching himself has done it with the live version of E2-E4 performed with the Zeitkratzer Ensemble. And for all that, while  E2-E4 is lauded as some kind of seminal dance record, it is under-rated as a masterpiece of minimalist composition and cyclical design.

Manual Göttsching has made important music that still sounds fresh every time I hear it. The process works on a recording, but a live performance is a different beast.   Nevertheless, most of the audience seemed thrilled at the opportunity to hear a carbon copy that was often like an actor playing his role live while the other characters were on film.   Actually, that's an interesting concept.  Someone must have done that already.

 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

An audio version of this Echo Location with music can also be heard.

Manchester, England was the home to some of the most seminal music of the 1970s and 80s. That's where Jamie Crossley and Richard Talbot grew up, stoked on the Manchester born sounds of groups like Happy Mondays, the Durutti Column and Joy Division.  The two musicians met in a record store where Richard worked. He was playing his own electronic music to unsuspecting customers.  Jamie Crossley walked in, heard it and suggested a collaboration. The results have been a trio of critically acclaimed albums beginning with Under Wires and Searchlights in 2003 and Distance in 2005. 

Their latest CD, A Lost Connection continues their music of interior designs that could've emerged out of a Blade Runner dream, which is fitting for a band growing up in the midst industrial decay. Much of their music rises out of a droning, electronic hum, like the distant sound of a powerstation, or the rumble of a subway. But out of that hum, a pulse emerges, clicks and glitches congeal and a melody at the borders of perception rises up out of the noise like Clint Eastwood emerging out of a desert heat mirage.

You can hear echoes of ambient artists like Boards of Canada and Moby in Marconi Union and they certainly bow at the altar of ambient creator, Brian Eno. Like those artists, there's a haunting, minor key melancholy and many of sounds seem almost a-musical, born from faulty joints, broken fittings or in the case of their new album, A Lost Connection. It's the soundtrack for abandoned factories and dead technology, but one where sunlight is filtering through the broken glass.

Marconi Union's Distance was released on the All Saints label, which also puts out CDs by Brian Eno, John Cale and Harold Budd. They expected their next album to come out there as well, and while they were waiting, they even recorded a second cd.  That's a much swampier and darker effort called Beautifully Falling Apart.  But All Saints has stopped producing new music so Marconi Union decided to release the first of their two albums, A Lost Connection as a digital download from their website, marconiunion.com.  You'll also find some free downloads on their site. 

This has been an Echo Location, soundings for new music.  Hear an Audio Version with music here.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

In the midst of an Echoes Chamber session with Return to Forever guitarist, Al Di Meola, the 54-year-old musician went into a subdued rant about the music we heard as kids.  "We grew up in the greatest era ever, the 60s," he proclaimed. "We still love the music we listened to when we were kids.  Our kids aren't going to be able to say that. They're going to be listening to the music we listened to when they get older."

There is some truth to what he said, at least in regards to pop music. Certainly the music of the 60s and early 70s continues to hang on, powered by classic rock stations and turned into dogma by places like The School of Rock. But there's also Rock of the 70s and Rock of the 80s format radio stations and I'm sure that 30 years from now, there will be a Rock of the 2000s format. I think every generation holds on to the music they heard in their teens and college years: 60s acid rock, 70s progressive rock, 80s punk, 90's grunge.

Di Meola is mostly referring to pop music, because otherwise, he's continued to explore new sounds and technology throughout his career as a listener and creator. But a nostalgic aroma was ever-present at the Return to Forever show I saw at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia. I was wondering why RTF en mass felt it was necessary to wave the flag for "live" music and rail against iPods and YouTube to a full house of some 4,000 people. And Chick, baby, despite your claims that RTF got no radio airplay in the 70s, I know they got boatloads of spins from commercial jazz stations that were still around then, including WRVR in New York and WWDB in Philadelphia. College stations, like WXPN in Philadelphia, played this music to death and got RTF many of their fans, as evidenced by the 50-something demographic dominating the reunion audiences.  RTF's performance thrilled those fans.  They didn't play any new compositions other than the opening tune-up piece, and except for a mangled version of "Romantic Warrior," they stuck to the recorded versions of most of them pretty faithfully, including the same somewhat dated synthesizer sounds that Corea used.

.Alex de Grassi's audience was substantionally smaller, but they to, were thrilled to hear this veteran of the finger-style guitar renaissance at Sellersville Theater.   Like RTF, much of his set was drawn from older material made during his glory years at Windham Hill Records. It was good seeing Alex playing solo, although nothing new was being revealed, something I wouldn't say for his world fusion DeMania trio.

I'm hopeful, but not expectant for Manuel Göttsching who performs in Philadelphia and New York over the weekend of August 15th. I know that he plans on playing classic music from Inventions for Electric Guitar  and New Age of Earth up through E2-E4. The most recent piece he's reported to play, Die Mulde, dates back to 1997 and that's very much in the 1970s sequencer style.  However, I'm still looking forward to that show, since Göttsching, like Klaus Schulze, has never played in the US.   It's music I've never heard performed live, but I'm not expecting any revelations. It will probably be like seeing RTF, who I also didn't get to see in the 70s. (BTW, can somebody update Ashra's Wikipedia entry? It is woefully skimpy and inaccurate).

Of them all, King Crimson has continued exploring new dimensions in their heavy metal future shock sound. I've seen them twice in this millennium and both were exhilarating, ear-shredding performances full of precision, spontaneity and new music.  While their audience will certainly be from the same demographic that will attend De Grassi, RTF and Ashra shows, Krimson's music continues to be exploratory, without pandering .

I too, love the artists of my formative years, and Echoes also maintains a loyalty to the pioneers we played early on like Will Ackerman, Tangerine Dream, Andreas Vollenweider, George Winston and Klaus Schulze. That music, along with Hendrix and the Beatles, Coltrane and Miles, Ultravox and Siouxsie & the Banshees, Philip Glass and Steve Reich  is all in my musical DNA.

But I don't want to exist in a musical past like some artists and audiences who are in an arrested state of musical development, living a terminal adolescence with the music that informed their youths. I don't want to think that the best music I'll experience for the rest of my life came out 30 or so years ago.  When I see teenagers who are enthralled by the sound and imagery of the sixties, I don't sometimes feel validated in my youthful tastes. but just as often, I feel like telling them to listen to your own music.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

(You can hear an audio version of this Echo Location, with music.)

Guitarist Ed Wynne was only born in 1961, but he has a unique perspective on the 1960s. Growing up in London, he lived in a duplex home next door to psychedelic folkie, Donovan.

Ed Wynne: Yeah, yeah, he rented half the house we lived in when I was growing up, it was very normal to have Donovan around the place and...
Brandi Wynne: And normal to have the Beatles around the place.
Ed Wynne: Yeah, yeah, they were popping in as well, and um stuff, yeah.
Brandi Wynne: Jimi Hendrix.
Ed Wynne: Yeah, it was funny in school when Donovan use to pick me up from school sometimes he was, you know we if my mom was busy or something and he’d come and pick me up from school, funny.

It was all just another magical mystery day for Ed Wynne. He was too young to actually participate in the 1960s revolution, but he made up for it when he formed a band called Ozric Tentacles at the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1984. Ozric Tentacles created a bridge from 60s acid rock to 80s rave culture.

 

Ed Wynne is the only original member left in Ozric Tentacles. He's a goofily affable presence on stage with shaggy brown hair curling down to his shoulders. He's managed to keep this band going through shifting trends, releasing over 30 albums and becoming the Grateful Dead of space music. Ozric layers syncopated grooves, synthesizer swirls, deep throb bass lines and serrated guitar solos from Wynne. He was heavily influenced by the band Gong and their guitarist, Steve Hillage.  (Hear Hillage Echo Location here)

Ed Wynne: First off the guitar did not necessarily sound like a guitar to me, and I thought well okay, there you go, that opens up a whole little door way there.

Like Hillage, Ed Wynne can turn a single strummed chord into an epic tone poem, morphing it through effects and torquing a whammy bar the way Picasso wielded a brush.

A lot of musicians have passed through Ozric Tentacles including some that have gone on to play in Eat Static, Transglobal Underground and Jamiroquai. Currently Ed Wynne and his wife, bassist Brandi Wynne, continue waving the Ozric freak flag high. With Ozric Tentacles, you strap yourself in and hold tight for the ride.

The latest album from Ozric Tentacles is a live set and DVD called Sunrise Festival. This has been an Echo Location, Soundings for New Music.

(You can hear an audio version of this Echo Location, with music.)

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

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

Sabato 9 Agosto

Rabbit Garden:
Krakatoa / Flavio Vecchio / Lelel Pasini

Bunny Loft:
Luca Agnelli / York

Cristal Privèe:
Mini circus party
Davn Hyro / Back & Fuga / Tonon / Marco Aedes

Giovedì 14 Agosto

Rabbit Garden:
Tiefschwarz / Lele Pasini / Salvatore Angelucci

Bunny Loft:
Anja Schneider / Miss P

Cristal Privèe:
Andrew / Alex Ferrazzi / Ricci Jr

Venerdì 15 Agosto
Dj Parade 23.00 - 08.00 del mattino

Layo & Bushwacka / Satoshi Tomiie / Kerri Chandler / Ricky Montanari / Flavio Vecchi / Massimino Lippoli / Luca Agnelli

Cristal Privèe:
James Venturi / Toti / Francesco del Garda

Sabato 16 Agosto
Freak n' Chic

Rabbit Garden:
Dan Ghenacia / Marc'Antona

Bunny Loft:
Lucio Aquilina / Dani Vescovi

Cristal Privèe:
Ricci Jr / Miss P / Fabiana

Sabato 23 Agosto
Freshn'fruit

Rabbit Garden:
Andy J / Ricky Motanari

Bunny Loft:
Ryan Crosson / Unzip Project / Toti

Cristal Privèe:
Ennio Ticchiarelli / Dano Deep / Licio

Sabato 30 Agosto

Rabbit Garden:
Flavio Vecchi / Roger

Cristal Privèe:
Toti

(You can hear an audio version of this Echo Location with music.)

Ottmar Liebert would be the last person to call his music straight-up flamenco. His rhythmic strumming interspersed with intricate finger picking and Spanish rhythms comes from that tradition, but Liebert's approach is more languid and less florid than most flamenco players. That's one reason why he called his debut album, Nouveau Flamenco when he burst on the scene in 1990. It conjures up the southwestern desert landscapes of his home in Sante Fe more than sensual Spanish dancers.

Liebert has taken an introspective and experimental path that flies in the face of music purity and even fans' expectations. He's recorded an album of classical music with orchestra, Leaning Into the Night, that featured original tunes and compositions by Ravel, Satie and Puccini. That CD was something of an about face from his 1990's love affair with electronics. He got the remix treatment on Euphoria, where Steve Hillage, Steve Be Zet and Aki Nawaz brought electronic beats to his music. That was followed up by his psychedelic epic, a double CD called Opium that was a Nouveau Ambient Flamenco journey.

The ambient influence has remained a subtle force in Ottmar Liebert's music. He uses electronics to gently shape the acoustic space around his guitar and band, Luna Negra. That's evident on his new CD, The Scent of Light.

The music on The Scent of Light builds slowly, each piece carving out a contemplative space until before you know it, the dynamic has completely changed. A centerpiece of the album is "Silence, No More Longing." It's an 11 minute excursion that builds from solo guitar, to multi-tracked guitars adding ambient electronics, bass, percussion, and finally unleashing a quiet electric storm from guitarist Stephen Duros.

In many ways, The Scent of Light is a direct descendent of his 1993 CD, The Hours Between Night and Day. Like that album, many of the songs here are inspired by Liebert's travels, and he went beyond his standard ensemble line-up for more lush, evocative arrangements full of ambient shadows and environmental sounds.

The Scent of Light is full of subtle, but unexpected touches. There's the reverse percussion echoes on "Firelight," the call and response guitars of "The River: Writing in Water," and the tamboura drone and tabla that comes in through "Candlelight." The mellotron flutes and reverse guitar bring "Moonlight" to a haunting close as it dissolves dissolving into birds and wind. Liebert takes you from a world of interior ruminations to exterior vistas.

Ottmar Liebert is calling The Scent of Light his best album ever. I'll need more time for that kind of assessment, but it's certainly one of his best. It's our Echoes CD of the Month for August.  We'll be featuring it in a special show on Monday, August 4.  Check www.echoes.org for for more information.  A separate review of The Scent of Light  will be live on the site shortly.

John Diliberto,  July 30, 2008                                                                                                              (((echoes)))

Si comincia con sabato 2 agosto in consolle Massimino Lippoli e Idriss D. Inoltre, special guest della serata Tadeo. DJ spagnolo di grande fama, proporrà le sue sonorità techno e le sue contaminazioni musicali insieme a Gas e Roger.

Luned' 4 Agosto invece grande evento targato Def Mix. Una data del world tour imperdibile. Alla consolle si esibiranno Hector Romero e Satoshi Tomiie. In sala due ci saranno Frankie Knuckles e David Morales ad aspettarvi.

Si comincia con domani, sabato 26 luglio: alla consolle il grande Ricky Montanari. Conosciuto in tutto il territorio Italiano e all’estero, Ricky Montanari è un dj riminese che ha fatto la storia della musica house in Italia. Sempre devoto al suo lavoro, negli anni ha addirittura collezionato più di 40mila vinili. Le contaminazioni musicali e la crescita professionale di Ricky Montanari lo hanno portato ai vertici della house music soprattutto in Italia. Ed è per questo che questo evento all’Echoes è imperdibile. Insieme a lui, ma in un’altra sala, si esibiranno Luga Agnelli, E. TIcchiarelli e Andy Dj.

La serata avrà inizio alle ore 23.30. Gli inviti e gli omaggi donna valgono fino alle ore 01.30, mentre invito o omaggio uomo fino alle ore 01.00.

Il lunedì altro grande evento Echoes con Carl Craig. Nato in America, i suoi set sono veramente affascinanti. La sua grande tecnica e la vasta conoscenza musica gli permette di assemblare, manipolare e fondere diversi stili musicali durante la stessa serata in modo da creare un genere del tutto introvabile. Grazie ai tanti rmx che Carl Craig ha collezionato negli anni, viene definito la colonna portante e il massimo produttore nell’ambiente di musica elettronica underground.

La serata musicale avrà inizio alle ore 23.30. Servizio pulman Bluline, linea verde partenza ore 23.20

You can hear an audio version of this blog with music here.

When Malcolm McLaren decided that Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious should cover the Frank Sinatra hit, "My Way," he got Simon Jeffes to write the string arrangements.

Simon Jeffes: His singing was grotesque, but at the same time there was something moving about it. And it wasn't a send up when I did the arrangement. I actually got quite touched by it. Because although it sounded totally moronic in a way, it was full of kind of anger and despair and yet life, there was really life
in the piece.

"My Way" might be Simon Jeffes' most notorious work, but it's not the music for which he's best known. That would be the quirky chamber music group, The Penguin Café Orchestra. They were an ad hoc assemblage of musicians headed up by Jeffes from 1973 until his untimely death 24 years later. They recorded their first album for rock and new music auteur Brian Eno's label called Obscure Records. The roster included John Adams, Harold Budd and Michael Nyman, but even more than those genre- bending composers, the Penguin Café Orchestra was unclassifiable.

You've heard the Penguin Café Orchestra on NPR shows, IBM commercials and even the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack. They were an influence on modern chamber rock and Trey Anastasio, guitarist from the jam band, Phish, was looking to the Penguin Café Orchestra when he composed his instrumental album, Seis De Mayo.

Trey Anastasio: If there was a sound that was in my head, interestingly, it was probably the Penguin Café Orchestra. I don’t know how many albums they had but I had one of them, and I use to always play that album while I was cooking. So when I sequenced and mixed this album I literally sequenced it in the kitchen while cooking, and I use to think I want to have an album that you can cook to, like the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

I think Simon Jeffe's would've appreciated the music for cooking scenario.

Simon Jeffes: It was whole idea of an orchestra playing Beethoven in a smokey atmosphere, I think was very exciting. People with a sparkle in their eye and sort of maybe a cigarette in the corner of their mouth.

Several albums from the Penguin Café Orchestra have just been re-released.

You can hear a longer version of this interview, Tonight, July 23, on Echoes. You can also here an audio version of this Echo Location with music.

It's hard to pick out on Penguin Café Orchestra album. Signature songs are scattered across their 4 studio recordings.

My personal favorite is Signs of Life. Besides key tracks like "Southern Jukebox Music," it has a few songs of unalloyed and quaint beauty including "Rosasolis" and "Perpetuum Mobile."

  Music from the Penguin Café, their debut, is still a standout. Playing ukeleles and quatros, with earnest string arrangements, this album was so unhip that it was ultrahip. "The Penguin Café Single" stands out here.

                                                                                                                                                                    The self-titled album, Penguin Café Orchestra contains "Telephone and Rubber Band," the closest they came to pure novelty, although they always flirted with that. (Note that the CD cover links to the original CD issue. The remastered version wasn't on Amazon at this writing.)

Broadcasting from Home has some signature tracks, including "Music for a Found Harmonium."

When In Rome is a live album and contains faithful renditions of most of PCO's best-loved tracks.

 John Diliberto (((echoes)))