PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast

Mutantrumpet Creator Ben Neill Proposes an Age of Music Democratization: Echoes Podcast Mutantrumpeter Ben Neill argues for musical democracy now! in the Echoes Podcast .. If you’ve listened to Echoes over the last 30 years, you’ve heard the music of Ben Neill a lot. He plays an instrument called the mutantrumpet which has 3 trumpet bells, a trombone slide, two sets of valves and a lot of electron...

Hammock's Psychedelic Revelations: The Echoes Podcast The ambient guitar duo Hammock have become darlings of both the post-rock and ambient scenes. Yet, although they may attract a hipster audience, their music is imbued with Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson’s evangelical upbringing and their subsequent rejection of much of that doctrine. It informs  alot of their new album, The Second Coming was a M...

An Electronic Revolution-Tonto's Expanding Head Band 55th: The Echoes Podcast It has been 55 years since Tonto’s Expanding Head Band first took flight on the 1971 album, Zero Time . Recorded on their electronic array called TONTO , it predated by years the sequencer-driven recordings of Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra , Klaus Schulze’s Picture Music and Kraftwerk’s Autobahn . It...

The Physics of Love-KÁRYYN: The Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, an extraordinary artist for you, KÁRYYN . She is an electronic singer-songwriter of Armenian descent who came up through the experimental world studying with electronic and Deep Listening composer Pauline Oliveros .  She has released her second album, Physics Universal Love Language (PULL) . Her music is centered around her voic...

Will Ackerman on Windham Hill and Philip Aaberg, R.I.P. in Echoes Podcast Today we were just going to bring you our interview with Will Ackerma n, the founder of Windham Hill Records as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of that label. But then we got the news that pianist Philip Aaberg , a stalwart Windham Hill artist, had left the planet on May 23. So first we will hear our Will Ackerman intervie...

The Complete Derek Shulman Interview-The Tale of a Gentle Giant in Echoes Podcast Almost everyone is familiar with the big progressive rock groups of the 70s like Yes , Genesis , King Crimson and Emerson Lake and Palmer . But one of the bands bubbling just under the surface was Gentle Giant . To true aficionados of the progressive rock genre they were icons. Early this year, the lead singer of the...

From Apes to Humanity - Felsmann & Tiley: The Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast , techno DJs Felsmann & Tiley take the ambient classical pill and dial up a cinematic electronic sound on their second album, Protomensch . They come in from the cold of hard techno for a warmer, more hypnotic sound that is a long way from the dance floor. Patrick Tiley: “We were a bit more youthful and en...

Craig Padilla & Marvin Allen's Post-Rock Space Music for the 21st Century: The Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast electronic artist Craig Padilla and guitarist Marvin Allen. They have released a quartet of albums that traverse the world of ambient, progressive rock and psychedelic music. Their latest is Unfolding Skies . It is Echoes April CD of the Month.  Its cosmic sounds were all recorded in...

Flore Laurentienne's Prog Rock Inspired Ambient Chamber Music: The Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast,  an interview with Canadian composer Mathieu David Gagnon who records ambient chamber music as Flore Laurentienne . He mixes acoustic instruments with vintage analog synthesizers including the Mini-Moog. He recently released the inauspiciously titled album, Volume III . He’s making a more lush...

Joan La Barbara's Vocal Circus: The Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast we have avant-garde icon Joan La Barbara . I have avant-garde vocal icon Joan La Barbara, who, along with Meredith Monk, change the way a voice could sound in music, opening up a world of deeper expressions. We play a lot of singers on this show who create imaginary languages. Vocalists like Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins...

Antique, Vintage and Transcendent: The Sound of Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore in the Echoes Podcast The harp is often thought of as a heavenly instrument plucked by angels. And gothic voices have certainly called to the heavens. Those are attributes that harpist Mary Lattimore  and singer and electronic musician  Julianna Barwick  attain on their album,   Tragic Magic . Mary Lattimore isn’t yo...

Flipping the Script-Gentle Giant's Derek Shulman's Journey from Prog Singer to Pop Executive There are many progressive rock bands that still stalk the earth. Yes , King Crimson , Van Der Graaf Generator . But not Gentle Giant . They made all their records during Prog Rock’s glory years in the 1970s and then called it quits. While their legacy continues on as one of the most innovative and e...

A Blitz of Sounds from the Edge - Big Ears Festival 2026: the Echoes Interview with Ashley Capps In the Echoes Podcast it’s our annual interview with Ashley Capps , the founder of Big Ears Festival . He also created Bonaroo and resurrected Moogfest . We cover Big Ears because they often have a lot of Echoes artists and they are just the best, most civilized and most surprising festival in America....

Head into Deepspace with Deepspace: The Echoes Podcast When you name yourself deepspace you better live up to it. Mirko Ruckels, who is deepspace, has been doing that since 2007. His album, Neon Blue Utopia was a CD of the Month this past January and he has a new one called Water Planets . You might tell from those titles that Ruckels is influenced by science fiction. Mirko Ruckels: “I&#8217...

Hania Rani Storms the World: The Echoes Podcast Polish composer and pianist Hania Rani has been quickly rising to the surface in a see of ambient chamber music and neo-classical composers going mellow. But her new album breaks from that movement even though she initially saw as rebellious to her own classical background. Hania Rani This music was so simple and but also different and also intriguin...

Mike Oldfield's Ommadawn at 50: The Echoes Podcast   In the Echoes Podcast , Tubular Bells ’ composer Mike Oldfield talks about Ommadawn , his two-sided epic from 1975. Mike Oldfield changed the world of progressive rock and instrumental music with his 1973 opus, Tubular Bells. But two years later he released this third album that many consider to be his masterpiece. It was released 50 years...

Azam Ali's Synesthesia Therapy: The Echoes Podcast Singer Azam Ali from Vas , and Niyaz graces the Echoes Podcast. The voice of Azam has been part of the Echoes soundscape for 3 decades. Her Persian fusion groups, Vas and Niyaz, were seminal acts and her solo albums have included chants of Abbess Hildegard von Bingen , and hymns of Sephardic Jews sung in Ladino, to the electronic-driven sounds of...

The Echoes Podcast: Bluetech Takes Us to the Spacehop Bluetech’s album, Spacehop Chronicles 2 is the Echoes CD of the Month for October and in the Echoes Podcast , we have Bluetech himself, Evan Bartholomew , talking about this electronic journey into orbit that sits between space music and trip-hop, all meditating on the journey of Laika , the canine cosmonaut that died in space. Bluetech: For me...

Echoes Podcast: Marissa Nadler Attains Escape Velocity September’s CD of the Month was New Radiations by Marissa Nadler and in the Echoes Podcast we’ve got her talking about this album which is one of her most personal releases. Marissa Nadler: The whole record is really a heartbreak record. It kind of examines both sides through distance and time. And so New Radiations is really moving on in my h...

Echoes Podcast: 40 Years of Ancient Dreams with Patrick O'Hearn - The Echoes Interview We celebrate the 40 th anniversary of Patrick O’Hearn’s debut album, Ancient Dreams . Patrick O’Hearn has been one of the defining voices of modern electronic music. Until the rise of Yanni , he was one of the signature artists of the Private Music label. Since his debut album, Ancient Dreams in 1985, he’s conti...

Mixing It Up with Master Dub Mixer - Adrian Sherwood: The Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast , a legend of dub on the next Echoes when we talk to producer Adrian Sherwood . Sherwood is a Dub Master. The English musician has been manipulating sound for over 5 decades, working with masters of the Jamaican dub style like Lee “Scratch” Perry , and creating his own music in projects that...

Nicholas Gunn Goes Trance: The Echoes Interview Our August CD of the Month was the album, 30 by Nicholas Gunn. In the Echoes Podcast, I’ve got him talking about it. Nick has been a part of Echoes since his self-released debut album, Afternoon in Sedona in 1993, but around 2012, he changed, giving his flute a rest and plugged into software synths and computer generated music for the dance floor. Ni...

Klaus Schulze-An Icon of Electronic Music in Echoes Podcast The 50th Anniversary of Timewind , the 1975 album by Klaus Schulze is coming up on August 25. In the Echoes Podcast hear a documentary on this legendary artist who helped launch a new genre not just in electronic music, but music period. Klaus is one of the Icons of Echoes . He sadly left the planet in 2022.   Before Techno, Electronica,...

Echoes Podcast: Electric Chamber Music on Edge with AVAWAVES In the Echoes Podcast , AVAWAVES talk about their new album, Heartbeat . AVAWAVES is the British electric chamber music duo of violinist Anna Phoebe and keyboardist Aisling Brouwer . Their fusion of electronic and music and compositional verve can be heard on their soundtrack to Apple TV series, The Buccaneers and their new album, Heartb...

Trauma, Medicine, Pain and Beauty with Jessica Robbins of Course: The Echoes Podcast John Diliberto and Course’s Jessica Robbins In the Echoes Podcast , Ankylosing Spondylitis, a spinal disease causing immense pain. But Jessica Robbins , who records as Course , creates some beautiful music out of that pain on her album, Hue Mirror .  It’s an exploration of her years-long journey to fin...