hearts of space | news

PGM 1281 'ANTIPODEAN SPACE' : may 7-14

The great Southern lands known today as Australia and New Zealand were once called "the Antipodes" (an-TIP-ohdees) by the British. The word literally means 'the other side of the world.' If you tunneled straight down from the British Isles through the center of the earth, Australia is roughly where you'd emerge — upside down, of course.

Even after it was colonized by the British, for centuries Australia was seen by the rest of the Western world as remote, exotic, and inaccessible. And even in the internet age, this isolation has meant that Australian music, art and culture has often gone unnoticed. Yet since the late 1970's, Australia has seen talented composers creating rich veins of contemporary music, including space-creating instrumental music in a variety of styles.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space guest-produced by our Australian colleague MIKE G (the man behind the essential web site AmbientMusicGuide.com) a selection of ambient and atmospheric music by Australian artists from the 1980's to the present, on a program called "ANTIPODEAN SPACE."

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

PGM 1193R 'FLOATING WORLDS 2' : apr. 30-may 7

One of the core experiences of ambient and electronic spacemusic is the feeling of weightless floating. These subtle sounds seem to dematerialize us, expand our personal space, and slow our sense of time. It's kind of magical — and for many of us, highly pleasurable, even addictive. 

Since the introduction of mass-produced electronic instruments in the 1970s, anyone can create floating textures, but even if you're just a listener, the experience is widely enjoyed and often described in therapeutic terms as relaxing, healing, and transformative. 

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, another anti-gravity journey on electronic waves, on a program called FLOATING WORLDS 2.

Music is by PAUL AVGERINOS, ERIK WØLLO, HOWARD GIVENS & CRAIG PADILLA, PHILLIP WILKERSON, and MAX CORBACHO.

 [ view program page ] [ view Flickr image gallery ] [ play 30 second MP3 promo ]

PGM 1280 'DRONES and MICROTONES' : apr. 23-30

DRONES—not the ones that fly, take pictures and drop bombs, but sustained musical reference tones—have been used for thousands of years. Simple, effective, and popular, drones originated in ancient southwest Asia, and spread to Europe, India, and Africa.

For many contemporary listeners, their first encounter with a drone was in Indian classical music. It's normally produced by a dedicated instrument called the tamboura (or tanpura), which creates a sustained buzzing sound with the reference pitch and a harmonic fifth above it. Some Indian instruments like the sitar, sarod, and saranghi have drone strings built-in. Not to be outdone, western bagpipes produce multiple drones, as does the medieval hurdy-gurdy. And today, drones are common in electronic and avant-garde music.

Microtones are another basic feature of Indian music. Where western music uses just 12 equally spaced tones to the octave, Indian scales typically have 22, allowing more elaborate melodies and ornamentation. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we return to the entrancing sounds of Indian contemplative music, on a program called DRONES & MICROTONES.

Music is by SAMIR BODHI, HANS CHRISTIAN, AL GROMER KHAN, J.J. GREGG, RAMAN & SRIKANTH, MANOSE, and AMELIA CUNI & WERNER DURAND.

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

AT LAST...the all-new Hearts of Space iOS mobile app is here!

 

A WEEK AGO ON SUNDAY APRIL 11th, we finally released our all-new app for iOS devices: iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. 

 

If you're a current Hearts of Space Full or Standard service subscriber you got an email advising you of the update. If your device was set to accept updates automatically, it happened overnight and the next time you signed in you were in a shiny, happy new world.

 

 

We'll be the first to admit that it took forever. The entire development process stretched over FIVE YEARS:

 

|   Phase 1 included our first full "API" (Application Programming Interface — the protocols that allow  computers to negotiate with each other) and an all new "back end" infrastructure running in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.   

|   Phase 2 was a completely redesigned and rewritten web site and a new HTML5 Player launched in December 2019. 

|   Phase 3 is the new iOS apps and soon-to-come Android apps, which deliver "feature parity" with our main web application. Now anything you can do on the web site you can also do on the mobile apps.

 

This was by orders of magnitude the biggest and most complex software development project we've ever attempted. God Bless ALEX BURROWS and his team at BAY INTERACTIVE for their extraordinary patience and competence! 

 

We spent almost two years testing and refining the design of the user interface to make an inherently complex application as intuitive as possible. We resisted massive pressure to launch before it was ready, and conducted a rigorous six week beta test with over 200 participants. 

 

The payoff was that the rollout went off with just a few minor issues, immediately spawned dozens of rave reviews from our users in the App Store, and a solid 5 Star rating. Sweet!

 

We encourage every fan of ambient, space, and contemplative music to download the (free) app and register for a (free) basic account. 

 

This allows you to stream our new weekly programs anytime/anywhere, up to four times each week. And even without a subscription you can still explore the entire archive, play 30 second samples, view the playlists and artwork for almost 1300 programs and over 150 albums, and check out our 11 full time genre-focused "Channels." 

 

In the words of London TV producer Matt Nida:  "The shows themselves are exemplary. The opening monologues set up the week’s theme poetically and economically before letting the music do the rest of the work. The selections are well judged and the themes consistently intriguing and surprising. Specialist radio doesn’t get much more bang-on than this. If you’re looking to expand your ambient horizons, there’s no finer resource available to you." 

 

Safe streaming, spacefans, wherever you are...

 

:: Stephen Hill and Team HoS

 

 

PGM 1279 'IMAGINARY WORLDS' : apr.16-23

Music is something we literally create out of thin air. For millennia it was defined by the sound of physical instruments and the human voice. As instruments evolved and became more refined, music became more complex and sophisticated. By the late 19th century, French composers like Debussy and Ravel were creating orchestral "impressions" of imaginary places and events—an early form of what we now call Virtual Reality.

Since ancient times, literary and religious texts have described mythic fantasy worlds with magical and supernatural elements. It took music centuries to catch up, but in the 20th century, electronic instruments finally gave composers a virtually unlimited set of tools to create imaginary environments. Today we have music for fantasy films and video games, and ambient composers invent fantastic immersive environments for our traveling pleasure.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, virtual realms of fantasy and imagination, on a program called IMAGINARY WORLDS.

Music is by ISHQ, DESENSITIZED, STEVE ROACH & SERENA GABRIEL, DEBORAH MARTIN, KEVIN BRAHENY FORTUNE, and KRILL.MINIMA.

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

PGM 1073R 'DREAMS OF SPRING' : apr. 9-16

It's official: spring at last. After the proverbial long hard winter, spring takes on an almost mythic appeal. Of course, here in California, it's been spring on and off for several months. So first, our sympathies to those whose winter must have seemed interminable.

The music of spring expresses renewal and rebirth, with energy, buoyancy, optimism and hope for the season to come. Ambient composers mix flowing water and other natural sounds into their compositions, along with airy, ethereal flutes and keyboards, to create nature-inspired meditations.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, an ambient excursion for the season, on a program called DREAMS OF SPRING. Music is by DEUTER, PETER KATER, SHERRY FINZER, MANEESH DE MOOR, STEVEN HALPERN & MICHAEL DIAMOND, and (no kidding) CHRISTOPHER of the WOLVES.

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

PGM 1278 'IMMORTAL MELODIES 2' : apr.2-9

No European musician has achieved the status of JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH, who is regularly cited as the greatest composer in history. He dominated the Baroque era of 18th century Germany, and in retrospect, played a key transitional role in the evolution of Western classical music.

His virtuosity as a performer, productivity and brilliance as a composer, the vast range of his secular music and sublime profundity of his religious music — have never been equaled. An innovator in his time, he expanded the role of the pipe organ in the church and embraced new styles, while his adoption of the "well-tempered" scale set the course for the future.

Beyond its breadth, depth, intellectual and emotional power, the appeal of Bach's music can be attributed to something more basic: Bach was a master of melody. The spacious lyricism of his chorales and contemplative arias creates an atmosphere of sacred mysticism that's as relevant today as it was in Baroque Germany.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space from our regular guest producer for classical and sacred music ELLEN HOLMES, an all-Bach program called IMMORTAL MELODIES 2. Performances by pianists CHAD LAWSON, MARTA & GYORGY KURTÁG, and ANNA GOURARI, cellists YO-YO MA and ELISE ROBINEAU, organists FRANZ HAUK and OLIVIER LATRY, and strings by FRETWORK, the BBC PHILHARMONIC and the BBC SYMPHONY.

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

PGM 1277 'SECRETS OF THE STARS' : mar.26-apr.2

It's well established that electronic music naturally creates images of cosmic space. Almost fifty years ago, it was given the logical name: spacemusic. The genre has two common modes: flying music is rhythm-powered and goal-oriented, moving through space bound for distant galaxies; floating music is static and timeless, resting peacefully in vast, silent starscapes.

As the genre evolved, electronic composers gave expression to the drama in the supreme adventure of exploring the cosmos — a feeling we share today even on missions close to our home planet. They ask the existential and extraterrestrial questions: Who are we? and Are we alone?

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, it's another cosmic-electronic journey, on a program called SECRETS OF THE STARS. Music is by EXTRAWORLD, STARTERRA, DAVE LUXTON, SEABAT, JONN SERRIE,  DREAMSTATE LOGIC, and JAJA.

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

PGM 1276 'SIX STRING SPRING' : mar.19-26

This week we transit the Spring Equinox, the official beginning of spring and a good time to check in on the ambient space guitar. Acoustic or electric, live or sampled, looped or direct, straight up or processed, folk, jazz, or classical — even in the electronic age, the venerable six string guitar continues to make itself indispensable almost everywhere music happens.

Guitarists of the Ambient persuasion take it slow, quiet, and spatially expanded, leaving the virtuosic fireworks to their rock brothers and sisters. Occasionally...a heroic rock guitarist like JEFF BECK or BUCKETHEAD will journey to the contemplative side of the instrument just to do something completely different.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a spacey, twangy, laid-back, subtle, turn-of-the-season journey for ambient guitar — on a program called SIX STRING SPRING. Music is by CHRIS HAUGEN, LISA BELLA DONNA, CLAES NILSSON, CARL WEINGARTEN, BLUE STAR, and TONY GERBER, with PHIL KEAGGY and DREAMHUB. 

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

PGM 974R2 'THE CELTIC ROAD' : mar. 12-19

This week, dear listeners, we come once again to our yearly celebration of all things Celtic. Though the time has passed when Celtic music was trending, it's a tradition that continues to evolve. Ireland has boomed and bust, and through it all the beauty and spirit of Celtic music has continued to charm audiences around the world, with its brilliant dances and heartfelt airs and ballads.

In the poetic imagination of the Celtic bards and troubadours, travel metaphors are as common as thoughts of home. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we take another journey across those green and rocky lands, on a program called THE CELTIC ROAD.

Music is by DAVY SPILLANE, MOYA BRENNAN, LISA LYNN & ARYEH FRANKFURTER, LOREENA McKENNITT, AINE MINOGUE, DAVID ARKENSTONE, BRAGH ADAIR, and JAMES GALWAY & PHIL COULTER.

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