PRX: Echoes Interview Podcast

Peter Gregson's 21st Century Orchestra: The Echoes Podcast Peter Gregson is a classically-trained cellist.  He’s recorded with orchestras as well as composers Max Richter and the late- Jóhann Jóhannsson . He’s also composed music for film and video games including, Ammonite . He goes into ambient chamber music on his recording Patina . It mixes synthesizers and electronic processing an...

Rena Jones's Mythology Through Music: The Echoes Interview Rena Jones is a polymath. She plays violin, cello and synthesizers and immerses her music in the imagery of nature and philosophy. Her new album is Allegories . We talk with Rena Jones and her accomplice on the album, world music artist  Jeff Thomas Potts about the global grooves and hidden meanings on Echoes .

Echoes Podcast: Marissa Nadler's Unsolved Mystery & Pink Floyd's Meddle at 50 In the Echoes Podcast Marissa Nadler & Pink Floyd’s Meddle at 50 We all watched TV during pandemic isolation, but singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler got an album out of it. It’s called The Path of the Clouds and it’s inspired by the Unsolved Mysteries TV show. She turns these tales into personal metap...

Crowd-Sourced Creativity: Kevin Keller-The Echoes Podcast Ambient Chamber music composer Kevin Keller took the RPM Challenge to record an album in one month. To do it, he enlisted his fans, running a daily blog where he considered their suggestions to create his music. The results are his new album, Shimmer , which, despite all the input, is distinctly Keven Keller. We talk to Kevin Keller about c...

Otherworld Music-Stephan Micus: in Echoes Podcast Before there was a “world music” genre, there was Stephan Micus , playing instruments from Afghanistan to India to Indonesia.  However, ever since his first album, Archaic Concerts , in 1976, the German composer was never making world music, but other-worldly music.  He plays his ethnic instruments in non-traditional ways, multi-trackin...

Jade Warrior-World Fusion Pioneers 50th: The Echoes Interview. It’s the 50 th Anniversary of the greatest unsung band of Progressive Rock, Jade Warrior . Releasing their eponymous debut in 1971, they went on to create a quartet of the most brilliant world fusion albums. Before Peter Gabriel moved from drum machines to Senegalese drummers, and when Andreas Vollenweider was still doing music for poe...

Loreena McKennitt's The Visit Re-visited in the Echoes Podcast It was 30 years ago that Loreena McKennitt released her breakthrough album, The Visit . Today we talk to this influential artist who turned Celtic music into world fusion while telling epic tales of “The Lady of Shallott” and “All Souls Night.” The album took the burgeoning Celtic craze of the 80s and launched i...

Will Ackerman, Jeff Oster & Tom Eaton: The Echoes Interview Clockwise from top Left: Will Ackerman, John Diliberto, Tom Eaton, Jeff Oster Guitarist Will Ackerman , founder of Windham Hill Records, horn player Jeff Oster and multi-instrumentalist Tom Eaton have gotten together on an album that might remind you of the halcyon days of Windham Hill.  It’s called Brothers , reflecting their longt...

Philosophical Electronics: Chronotope Project in Echoes Podcast Jeffrey Ericson Allen talks about his spacious ambient music under the name Chronotope Project .  A cellist who has added electronics to his work, he tends toward the mystical and cosmic.  His latest album, Gnosis is the Echoes CD of the Month for September. . Allen uses ambient soundscapes to explore themes from Greek Philosophy to t...

Jomoro's Percussion Dreams: The Echoes Interview Mauro Refosco – John Diliberto – Joey Waronker -Zoom It’s a meeting of electronic and acoustic percussion and ethereal moods with Jomoro . This is the project of percussionists Joey Waronker and Mauro Refosco with guest artists including Sharon Van Etten and Lucious . Veterans of artists like David Byrne , Red Hot Chili Peppers , Atoms f...

Robot Koch: From Metal to Meditation: The Echoes Podcast German Composer Robot Koch has gone from death metal to deep ambient chamber music in his career. We follow the course of this inventive artist up through his latest dive into deep ambient music. We’ll talk about his most recent album under his name, the ambient chamber sound of The Next Billion Years , his collaboration with violinist...

Hybrid and George Winston, the 30th Icon in Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast we go to the opposite ends of the Echoes spectrum. We’ll hear from the electronica duo, Hybrid and acoustic pianist George Winston, the 30th Icon of Echoes. Hybrid takes us into the sometimes-dark world of their new album, Black Halo . Formed at the turn of the millennium, the husband-and-wife duo of Charlotte a...

The World of Kitaro, 29th Icon of Echoes in the Echoes Podcast From the top of Mt. Fuji, the 29 th Icon of Echoes, Kitaro, arrives. The Japanese electronic composer has created a stream of otherworldly sounds since the late 1970s. We’ll hear a profile of this artist from his days in The Far East Family Band to his emergence as a solo artist and up through Kojiki and his long-lived career. Se...

Will Ackerman-28th Icon of Echoes and Jon Hassell Remembered. It’s hard to separate the guitarist Will Ackerman from the record label he founded, Windham Hill Records . We’ll hear a profile of this influential artist who released his first album, In Search of the Turtle’s Navel in 1976.  We’ll hear about the creation of Windham Hill, his influential approach to the guitar a...

Echoes Podcast: Sunroof with Daniel Miller & Gareth Jones and Hammock, the 27th Icons of Echoes. Daniel Miller ignited electronic pop with The Normal and launched the careers of Depeche Mode who were produced by Gareth Jones . There might not be electronic pop without them.  But when they get together in a new electronic project called Sunroof,  they explore the outer edges of electronic music...

The Mastelotto's Romantic Guide to King Crimson in Echoes Podcast: The Echoes Interview The Mastelottos,  is the couple of King Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto and his wife, singer Deborah . They have an album with what might seem an oxymoronic title, A Romantic’s Guide to King Crimson . King Crimson? Romantic? But there’s more to than that as they transform music from this iconic and h...

Echoes Podcast: Agnes Obel, the 25th Icon of Echoes and Emancipator, Rena Jones and Flowerpulse Emancipator, Rena Jones, and Flowerpulse weave their electronic roots together into the ambient excursion of Xylem , their debut album. Emancipator has been featured heavily on the show with his gritty electronic sound, while Rena Jones is an old favorite who mixes electronics with her cello and violin....

Gary Numan and Earth's Revenge: The Echoes Interview Gary Numan paints a dystopian nightmare where earth takes revenge for a civilization that has fostered environmental and military catastrophe. Musically, his new album, Intruder , it’s a long way from his hit single, “Cars,” but listen close and lyrically it’s not.  We ponder the apocalypse with Gary Numan in the Echoes P...

Sufjan Steven's Meditations; Mythos at XXV and Patrick O'Hearn, the 22nd Icon in the Echoes Podcast It’s a packed Echoes Podcast that begins with Sufjan Stevens going ambient, accesses the 25-year history of Mythos and ends with the 22nd Icon of Echoes, Patrick O’Hearn First up in the podcast will be idiosyncratic folk-rocker Sufjan Stevens who shuts up and plays his synthesizers.  His...

Jess Lamb & The Factory: Manufacturing a Soulful Dreampop In the Echoes Podcast, Jess Lamb and the Factory take us into their album of spiritual search and identity. And then there’s American Idol . They are a Cincinnati band fronted by singer Jess Lamb and includes Warren Harrison from the duo Hungry Lucy . They’ve created a deep spiritual meditation partly shaped by Pandemic called Y...

Ulrich Schnauss-The Sound of Utopia: The 20th Icon of Echoes Ulrich Schnauss is the 20th of 30 Icons for 30 Years of Echoes . We’ve been enthralled by his music since his second album, A Strangely Isolated Place . When his first album was issued in America after that release, we made it a CD of the Month . We get immersed in the world of Ulrich Schnauss with a meditation on his sound and ins...

From Man-Machines to Mind-Blowing: Kraftwerk, the 19th Icon of Echoes and Shpongle's Shponglogenic Sounds at 25. A double dose of electronic sound in the Echoes Podcast from Man-Machines to Mind-Blowing. We get Shpongled when we talk to Simon Posford and Raja Ram of the psychedelic electronic duo, Shpongle . They talk about their hallucinogenic sound and their deep music backgrounds that inform th...

London Grammar Digs Californian Soil and Michael Hedges-The 18th Icon of Echoes London Grammar are the seductive and serene band who are releasing their third perfect dream pop album in a row. They artfully mix songs of love and loss with themes of political betrayal and social injustice, anchored by the shadowed voice of Hannah Reid .  And on their new album, Californian Soil , Reid even finds lo...

Jean-Michel Jarre, 17th Icon of Echoes and Decouplr-Two Generations of Electronic Sound In the Echoes Podcast, we flip the switch on Jean-Michel Jarre , the 17 th Icon of Echoes for Jean-Michel Jarre-An Icon of Electronic Music: The Echoes Documentary . The French electronic artist brought electronic music to global popularity with his 1976 album, Oxygene , bringing the space music sound to new au...

Echoes Podcast: Grandbrothers and Jeff Johnson & Phil Keaggy: The Echoes Interviews In the Echoes Podcast , the German duo Grandbrothers .  They play a grand piano hooked up with electronics and a machine to generate an orchestral sound live.  Erol Sapp and Lukas Vogel Zoom in to talk about their sound which is in a lineage from John Cage to Conlon Nancarrow to Hauska to Olafur Arnalds . Their lat...