Echoes Podcast: Genesis & Marillion Guitarists Fly Together - Steve Hackett & Steve Rothery: The Echoes Interview In the Echoes Podcast a meeting of two guitar virtuosos of sonic manipulation and melody. There have been a lot of electric guitar duets over the years, John McLaughlin recorded duet albums at different times with Larry Coryell and Carlos Santana; John Scofield and Pat Metheny got together and Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp. Okay, I’m stretching on that last one. But none were as musical and expansive as The Roaring Waves by Steve Hackett and Steve Rothery. You know them from Genesis an
The Guitar Magic and Mayhem of Jeff Beck with biographers Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill: The Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, the beauty and chaos of Jeff Beck, an iconoclastic guitarist, when we talk to biographers Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill. When John Diliberto was growing up, there were three musicians that formed a holy trinity of guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. Beck was the first to push the electric guitar into psychedelia with The Yardbirds before taking the instrument into the stratosphere. Beck plucked his final string on January 10, 2023, leaving behind on
Spotted Peccary Music celebrates its 40th Anniversary In the Echoes Podcast, it’s all about Spotted Peccary Music as the pioneering ambient and electronic label celebrates its 40th anniversary. They have outlasted Windham Hill, Narada, Hearts of Space Records and many more. Artists like David Helpling, Deborah Martin, Chronotope Project, Craig Padilla and Rudy Adrian have been part of a catalog of more than 200 releases, all shaped by the creative vision of Howard Givens and Deborah Martin, the brain trust of the label Howard Givens: “The goal was to design a sound that left you immersed in th
A Meeting in Ambience: Michael Stearns & Robert Rich: The Echoes Podcast In the Echoes Podcast, two electronic musicians who were part of the original 1980s California new age and space music scenes. Michael Stearns and Robert Rich are icons of electronic music and have recorded their first album ever together, Reunion of Breath and Waves. And they did it in person face to face, synth to synth. Robert Rich: I’ve been using a term for twenty-five plus years now that I refer to as embodiment, which, having lived my life in Silicon Valley until recently, getting extremely tired of the push toward
Thoughts Through Sound - David Helpling & Scott Reich: The Echoes Podcast On the Echoes Podcast, David Helpling and Scott Reich go Through the Thought Horizon. They are musicians exploring a philosophical ambience. David Helpling you might know from his many solo works, collaborations with Jon Jenkins and Dark Sky Alliance. Scott Reich is less well-known. He’s a pianist and electronic composer, but he also takes his music to the mystical side on their collaboration, Through the Thought Horizon. Scott Reich: The word “through,” meaning if you get to tied to your thoughts, you can have a limited
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 electronics. He’s been making music on the edges of electronica since his 1995 album, Green Machine. In the main part of the Echoes Podcast, I’m not going to talk to Ben about the trumpet, but about his new bo
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 Moonrise. Hammock’s Marc Byrd: In one Christian school that I grew up in, Wednesdays, we wore a pin-on tie with an eagle, an American flag, and a Bible printed on it. So I got a good dose of Christian n
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 was an album of thudding bass grooves, melodic electronic flights and deep ambient expanses, long before any of that became part of the contemporary electronic music vernacular. You may have never heard Zero Time, but its influe
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 voice. KÁRYYN: My voice is my first instrument and I’m not trained as a singer so it’s not about singing licks, it’s not about that, you know, it’s not traditionally what would sound beautiful. I use my voice
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 Ackerman, 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 interview but after that, I’ve got our last interview with Philip Aaberg. Will Ackerman is not only a distinctive guitarist with several signature works, but a producer and collaborator who brought us George Wi
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 band, Derek Shulman, released a memoir, Giant Steps. At the time I interviewed Derek and produced a nice feature from that on Echoes and in the Echoes Podcast. But there was a lot of good stuff in there
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 energetic then for DJing club music and now we’re sort of making more music for the reclining chair.” Their new conceptual release, Protomensch, manages to be hard hitting and political as well as poignant and thou
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 Craig Padilla’s living room. Craig Padilla: We did the first song, and when it was done, Marvin goes, “Padilla, make another sequence.” And so he and my wife would go into the kitchen and just talk and
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 brand of ambient chamber music emerging from progressive rock and Bach. Mathieu David Gagnon : I’m not coming from classical music. I studied piano, but all my teenage years were very focused on progress
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, Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance and Azam Ali of Vas and Niyaz. But two singers in the avant-garde world preceded them. One is Meredith Monk. The other is Joan LaBarbara. Her debut album was a declarati
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 your typical classical harpist. She channels her instrument though a looping device and can be heard in numerous, often avant-garde situations where hell is right next to heaven. Julianna Barwick has been cre
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 expansive bands in the genre, their co-founding member and lead singer, Derek Shulman, went from the stage to the record executive suites working for Polygram, Atco and Roadrunner records and signing acts like B
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. Ashley: what we’re trying to avoid is the bland and the innocuous, know, are just things that, know, you know, just nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, you know. That doesn’t really interest me. Big Ears is
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’ve always loved science fiction and I’ve always loved, I’ve always been searching for that perfect kind of ambient science fiction scenario, you know, you know, exploring, exploring a planet by yourself, it speak
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 intriguing from different reasons that I wanted to try it out myself. very soon after I understood it’s a little bit not boring, but a little bit, again, limited. And I really like to feel free in music. The a
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 ago on September 25 or November 7. There’s a little dispute there. Today we revisit this epic work and our interview with Mike talking about an album that was inspired by his mother, who died during the recordin
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 her 2019 album, Phantoms. But after that release and the pandemic, she fell into depression and was thinking of leaving music. Azam Ali: The music industry has just become a place that I didn’t relate t
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, creating hope and the possibility of beauty and talking about fantastic sci-fi worlds and giving people a moment to escape and to feel larger than their lives is my approach and the only thing that I k
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 head completely into a new world. Marissa Nadler is not your typical singer-songwriter. Yes, she sings and plays guitar, and that has been the central voice of her music since she began recording in 20
Echoes Podcast: 40 Years of Ancient Dreams with Patrick O'Hearn - The Echoes Interview We celebrate the 40th 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 continued releasing finely crafted, deeply textured music on CDs like El Dorado and So Flows the Current. There’s a depth to Patrick O’Hearn’s music that comes from a wide range of experience, from straight a
