hearts of space | news

PGM 904 "THE TURNING TIDE" : Week of March 12th...

Every year at the threshold of spring, we return to the joy and heartache of Celtic music. 
We celebrate a culture whose roots go back to Iron Age Europe, that became one of the foundations of western European folk music, and by virtue of waves of Irish and Scottish immigration, a major element in American folk music as well.

During the last 20 years we had a bit of a boom in Celtic music. These days things have quieted down, but the genre is still abundant with talented musicians and superb recordings. On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE it's another journey in the Celtic soundscape called THE TURNING TIDE.

Music is by JEFF JOHNSON & BRIAN DUNNING, singers MAEVE McKINNON, KAREN MATHESON and CATRIONA WATT, fiddler ATHENA TERGIS, Celtic harpist AINE MINOGUE, and the bands ALTAN and SOLAS.

[ view playlist ]     [ view Flickr image gallery ]     [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

iPhone App News

Months ago we announced that we were working on an iPhone app for Hearts of Space. Lately we've been getting a steady stream of questions that boil down to..."what the hell is taking so long!??" 

SHORT ANSWER

The delay has been caused by iPhone compatibility issues, service limitations, "now playing" information display, and sound quality issues. All these have created problems we've had to research and solve. We've finally come up with an acceptable solution and will start the final phase of programming as soon as we finish testing it. Sorry, still no hard estimate on a release date, but sooner than later.
 
LONG ANSWER (Non-technical)

If you're an iPhone user, you are something of an early adopter and computer connoisseur. Nevertheless, the full story is a lot more technical than most will care for, so I'll do a separate post for that shortly. 

When we started researching what it would take to develop a Hearts of Space iPhone app in summer 2009, we were pretty uninformed about the state of mobile media delivery. So we looked for an experienced software developer and found a company we knew from the radio business that had branched out into iPhone app development.

They had a standard template that allowed them to develop a working app in about a month for the majority of their radio station clients who run a single live "webcast."  The cost was reasonable, they had experience, it looked good.

We knew going in that our ultimate goal of offering the entire HOS Archive on the iPhone was a lot more complicated than just a single live webcast, so we spent several weeks analyzing the problem of adapting what we offer on full size computers to the less powerful iPhone.

At the same time we surveyed about fifty iPhone-equipped subscribers to find out what they wanted. We found that ease of use and continuous music (vs. trying to navigate over a thousand choices in the archive on a tiny screen) were most important to our users.

So we decided to limit our initial iPhone service to just This Week's Show, The Radio Channel webcast, and a short list of free streams for new users. Free Sunday programs would be included.

This combination would cost more to build than a single channel "radio" app, but it would deliver the audio and interface quality our users have come to expect from HOS. The advantages of keeping it simple were that the app could be free, and we were told we could have something ready to release by the end of 2009. So in September we signed a contract with the developer and proceeded with the project.

A few weeks into it, we hit an unexpected snag. The developer had not understood the implications of the fact that each HOS program is a 59 minute long file — rather than the "song-by-song files in a playlist" they were used to.

On the web our custom Flash player and server combo handle the long files easily, but Flash is famously not supported on the iPhone. (The iPhone had not been released when we started to develop our Flash service, so that limitation was not apparent. Apple is pushing its own media format to replace Flash.)

We were quite surprised to find that the iPhone has very limited support for industry standard streaming formats and methods. Only MP3, a newer audio format called AAC, and a few irrelevant ones will work, and then only if delivered with with one of two standard "protocols" (Internet delivery methods) plus a new one designed by Apple that's not really in use yet. I won't bore you with the details, but it's like saying you can have any flavor you want as long as it's vanilla or chocolate. Our service was some kind of exotic fruit.

Long story short — our large, long files were causing problems. The iPhone wanted music sent to it song by song, and we were setup to deliver an entire show in one piece. Not only that, the "now playing" information — so you can glance at the player and see the name of the artist, the track and the album — would not be displayed, just the name of the program. Not having this information would be like a giant step back to 2003 on the iPhone.

We wanted to do better, so we set out to fully understand the problem, then look for other solutions. That process has now consumed three months (including delays for various holidays), and has involved dozens of conference calls, multiple test setups, and several consultations with mobile media experts and service providers.

Why was this necessary? The entire area of delivering audio and video to mobile devices is burning hot and changing fast. Formats and protocols that were common even two years ago have been abandoned or superceded. It's a fast-moving target, the very definition of a dynamic environment.

Worse, we want to serve iPhone users now, but right behind them are all the other mobile platforms — Blackberry, Android, Windows, Palm and more. We want to create a solution that works for everyone.

FINALLY, A SOLUTION

The good news is that this week we finally settled on a technical setup that will provide service to iPhones in an app, and will work on most other mobiles using the built-in web browser and media player. For those phones we will be developing a mobile version of our web site later this year.

We will be offering a new "iPHONE PLAN" at a special price, and adding iPhone access to our AAA web service plan at no extra charge. The app will provide free access to the current week's show on Sundays, plus a short list of free demo content.  AAA and iPHONE plan subscribers will be able to access 3 different (non-interactive) webcasts with full 'now playing' information, as well as the weekly show on-demand, and the free demo content.

We'll put off full Archive navigation, personal playlists, favorites and the rest of the features we offer on the web until we have a little more experience and are sure about where the new mobile formats and standards are going.

We will resume active programming work on the iPhone app as soon as we have completed a final round of tests this week to confirm the new setup.

Considering what we've been through so far, I would not be so foolish as to specify a completion date here;-) but I can say we are way more impatient to get this done than you are, and will be pushing ahead as fast as we can.

Thanks for your patience. Like all good things, we hope it will be worth waiting for.

:: Stephen Hill, Producer

PGM 421R "PATIENCE" : Week of March 5th...

Patience — a quality once taken for granted in a slower world. Now we speak of it as a virtue, with a mixture of admiration and something like disbelief. How does one find the time, the focus, and the generosity...for patience?

On this edition of Hearts of Space, we cultivate the elusive quality of patience with music that asks only for your time — and gives back a deeper sense of concentration.

Music is by OYSTEIN SEVAG & LAKKI PATEY, JEFF PEARCE, TIM STORY, and KIT WATKINS.

[ view playlist ]     [ view Flickr image gallery ]     [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

PGM 903 "COSMIC TRAVELER" : Week of Feb. 26th...

Since the earliest days of electronic music, composers have developed the natural relationship between electronic sounds and images of cosmic space.

Free at last from the limits of physical instruments, they could create vast stereo spaces and sustain tones endlessly, with an unlimited palette of pitch, timbre, modulation, and resonance. In time the electronic studio became a vehicle for virtual space flight. 
It's a theme we've been pursuing since our 23rd program back in 1983.

The waning days of winter are a particularly good time to take a cosmic vacation. Restless from too much time indoors, we seek expansive sounds and galactic spaces, filled with dark drones or floating harmonies, a sense of adventure and discovery. On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE, an interstellar journey called COSMIC TRAVELER, with spacemusic by JONN SERRIE, DAVID PARSONS, PHILLIP WILKERSON and MEG BOWLES.

[ view playlist ]     [ view Flickr image gallery ]     [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

Finally, our updated Flash Player v2.9.5

This new version of the HOS custom Flash player fixes some minor issues and improves various aspects of normal operation. It should load automatically when you arrive at HOS.com.

We tried to launch it last month but it wasn't quite ready for active duty. In the interim, we fixed the original issues, found a new bug and fixed that, and tested everything thoroughly. So we will be very surprised if there are any problems with this build.

To verify your player version: right click on the large banner to see the version number.

If you see anything lower than v2.9.5, your browser is stubbornly holding on to the old version. Please click the "Reset" link at the upper left corner of the site to reload the newest version. In the few cases where this doesn't work ("sticky" browsers) you can clear your browser "cache" by following the instructions in our Help! section. Write to help@hos.com if you need assistance.

Among the changes:

[1]    BANNER OPERATION: Now when you first arrive at HOS.com, the player displays our banner image full strength for 10 seconds, then changes to the "interactive" view (banner dimmed, controls visible) for another 10 seconds. If you don't interact with the player it then reverts to the full strength view (minimum text and controls).

Anytime you move the cursor over the player, it immediately reveals the interactive view. After 10 seconds of inactivity, it will fade back to the full strength view again while you are playing music and show you only the Now Playing information. If you don't want this, just leave your cursor over the player.

[2]    VOICEOVER ON/OFF (microphone) button: now works anytime. Previously you had to make your choice while a program was actually running. Now you can press it anytime and it will toggle between on and off. As before, the player will save your choice when you log out and log back in.

[3]    IMAGE GALLERY LINK: We've added a visible text link for the new program's "Image Gallery." It's visible when the player is in the interactive view. The gallery is a collection of 18 Flickr.com images that relate to the current week's program. There are thousands of awesome photographers posting millions of great images on Flickr. If you enjoy our banners, please take a moment to view the entire gallery.  Click on any image to view the "photostreams" of the source artist photographers.

[4]    SCROLLWHEEL SUPPORT: We've Improved support for scrollwheel operation on Macs. This was not working on some combinations of the Mac OS and browser, should be much improved now.

Go forth and stream, spacefans...

PGM 902 "SACRED SINGING METALS" : Week of 02.19.10...

Gongs, bells and bowls. This trio of metal instruments pack a sonic and psychological punch way out of proportion with their utter simplicity.

Long revered for their role in religious ceremonies, almost magical in their ability to delight and entrance, they stand virtually alone in the resonant space between music and pure sound. They've been joined in recent years by the synthesizer. It's not simple, but it can create sounds unconstrained by the physical limitations of vibrating materials. As you'll hear...it's a marriage made in heaven.

On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE, another journey in the resonant space of bells, bowls, gongs — and synthesizers, on a program called SACRED SINGING METALS. 

Music and sound experiences are by XUMANTRA, HUMAN METRONOME and 33 TETRAGAMMON, STEVEN HALPERN, LIQUID BELLS, DEUTER, and KLAUS WIESE.

[ view playlist ]     [ view Flickr image gallery ]     [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

PGM 901 "FLOATING REVERIES" : Week of Feb. 12th...

Under the gray skies and chilled atmospheres of winter, we attune to a slower pulse. Activities curtailed for the moment, there's time to dream a bit, and for that we revisit our old standby, the grand piano.

Though large and massive in the physical world, in the world of music, the piano can fly and float...on weightless waves of sound. And when combined with ambient electronics, we have a potent vehicle for travel...to deep and distant dimensions.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a piano/chamber/electronic journey called FLOATING REVERIES. Music is by LUDOVICO EINAUDI, ELENI KARAINDROU, BRUNO SANFILLIPO, ASHLEY/ROEDELIUS/STORY, and MICHAEL JONES.

[ view playlist ]     [ view Flickr image gallery ]     [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

PGM 690R "MOUNTAINS of MARS" : Week of Feb. 5th...

With eerie clarity, JOHN SURMAN's soprano saxophone rings out across a chilled, silent soundscape. It could be tundra, steppes, fjords, ice fields, or mountain valleys. The very ambiguity of the space of this music is part of its power.

Judging by recent NASA photos and a little imagination, it could even be a sound heard on Mars. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a late winter report from the intersection of electronica and chilled-out jazz...called MOUNTAINS OF MARS.

Music is by SURMAN, CIPHER, TONE GHOST ETHER, MATTHEW SHIPP, ROEDELIUS, and LYLE MAYS.

[ view playlist ]     [ view Flickr image gallery ]     [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

PGM 900 "CINEMATRONIC" : Week of Jan.29th...

And it has come to pass in the year two thousand ten, dear spacefans, that we reach another numeric waypoint in our journey together. For our 900th program special, we bring you music that fulfills what one of our artists calls "the quest for the acoustics of emotion beyond any cultural or geographic limits."

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we consider the mainstream of popular film music today: a muscular, melodic ambient fusion of classical, electronic, and ethnic "world music."

Our story starts in the 19th century with DEBUSSY, who broke through the conventions of classical orchestration with impressionistic sound paintings like "The Engulfed Cathedral."  We have an electronic version by Japanese musician TOMITA from 1974.

Then, almost 100 years ago in Paris, 1913, Russian composer IGOR STRAVINSKY's music for the ballet The Rite of Spring famously caused a riot at its premiere. It was too early for electronic instruments, but his scandalous combination of the symphony orchestra with primal dissonances and intense "pagan" rhythms set the stage for what has become the music of epic movies today.

The pivotal figure in the development of this style of film score was Greek composer VANGELIS. Beginning with CHARIOTS OF FIRE in 1981, he extended "pagan classical" into "symphonic electronica" — merging synthesizers, rock and ethnic rhythms, and Greek folk melodies. And from there, spacefans, you can draw a straight line to JAMES HORNER'S music for AVATAR.

On this 900th transmission of HEARTS of SPACE...a program called CINEMATRONIC.

Music is by VANGELIS, ADIEMUS, HANS ZIMMER & LISA GERRARD, AUSTRALIS, KARL JENKINS, JAMES HORNER, IMMERSION THEORY, CONSTANCE DEMBY, PAUL AVGERINOS, LIQUID MIND, and FRANK VAN BOGAERT.

[ view playlist ]     [ view Flickr image gallery ]     [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

PGM 899 "SOUNDCLOUD" : Week of January 22nd...

The history of electronic music extends across most of the 20th century, and continues to evolve in the 21st. And it's not just technology; electronic instruments and the electronic studio have rejuvenated old styles of music and helped create many new ones.

The common thread in the story is sound. Never before have musicians had so much control over this crucial aspect of music.

From the early experimenters and electronic simulations of classical music, through the renaissance of so-called "tone-color" music in the 1970s and 80s, the infinite variations of electronic dance music (starting with Disco), to the personal music of thousands of individual artists and composers — electronic sound provides an infinite palette for creative expression.

On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE, we borrow our title from a hot web service for electronic musicians called soundcloud.com. Music is by ESA KOTILAINEN, ERIK WOLLO & BERNARD WOSTHEINRICH, PATRICK O'HEARN, IGNEOUS FLAME, SLEEPING ME, OOPHOI, and STEVE ROACH. It's a journey in the ever-evolving world of electronic music called SOUNDCLOUD. 

[ view playlist ]     [ view Flickr image gallery ]     [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]