hearts of space | news

PGM 916R 'AMERICAN REFLECTIONS' june 28-july 5

This week we gather for our yearly July 4th celebration of American independence. It's a festive affair, with food, fun and fireworks. In the last few years, the celebration has often been tempered by continuing national, global and planetary challenges, and this year is no exception. Somehow, it all seems to make the day more precious — a haven from cares and reconnection with friends and family on a fine summer day.

We take comfort in familiar food, games, and music. The summer concert season is in full swing: from neighborhood bars and county fairs to giant festivals, the panorama of celebratory American music is all around us, punctuated by dazzling visions in the night sky.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we look back at the quiet roots of American music — folk tunes, hymns and ballads — and the simple purity of traditional acoustic instruments, on a program called AMERICAN REFLECTIONS. Music is by DAVID MODICA, BRUCE KAPHAN, TINGSTAD & RUMBEL, WILL ACKERMAN, GEORGE WINSTON and others.

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

PGM 1015 'SUMMER SKIES' : june 21-28

New Age Music, ladies and gentlemen: has there ever been a more inappropriate name for a music genre?

Whether you love the name or hate it, you have to ask: what were they thinking? The category sweeps up all kinds of music and typically is criticized for being too sweet, too easy, too predictable, even too relaxing. And while that's sometimes the case, like anything else in art and life, you can find some exceptional things in the New Age genre: music with sublime melodies, subtle psychoactive soundscapes, or both.

One of our jobs is to help you find those exceptional things. On this transmission of Hearts of Space we aim to do that, on a seasonal program called SUMMER SKIES. Music is by MICHAEL DIAMOND, THIERRY DAVID, PAUL AVGERINOS, DEUTER, MICHAEL BRANT DEMARIA, LIQUID MIND and ANIMA.

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

PGM 1014 'ULTRATRIBE' : june 13-20

The Ambient music genre called "Techno-Tribal" is based on an oxymoron: the combination of sophisticated electronics with the earthy, organic sounds of so-called primitive, tribal cultures. On the surface they have nothing in common...what's going on here?

The trail was blazed by STEVE ROACH in the late 1980s, after a life-changing trip to the Australian outback, where he encountered the artifacts and instruments of the aborigines. The resulting album "Dreamtime Return" is one of the foundation stones of the genre.

Of course, anthropologists and ethnologists had been collecting music from native cultures for years; Oriental music had strongly influenced the evolution of European music in the late 19th and early 20th century, and Stravinsky had injected a dose of ethnic vitality into European classical music with "The Rite of Spring." But by the 1980s, electronic music had grown into several predictable styles: cool and mechanistic from the high-tech artists; warm and melodic from the romantics; ethereal, atmospheric, sometimes dark, dissonant and strange, from the Ambient composers.

Roach, and those who followed him, forged a new connection between electronic soundscapes and elemental musics rooted in the earthy rhythms of drums, rattles and ancient instruments like the didgeridoo, the sounds of insects, animals, and nature itself. The combination 'grounded' electronic music in the earth and in traditional acoustics, with a sound that looked backward and forward at the same time, and gave electronic music a new kind of vitality.

Today, techno-tribal is an established style on the world's map of electronic music, a fusion of ancient and contemporary that complement each other. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, another a techno-tribal journey, on a program called ULTRATRIBE.  Music is by STEVE ROACH & BYRON METCALF, GEORGE WALLACE, RESONANT DRIFT, AMIR BAGHIRI, and STEVE ROACH & BRIAN PARNHAM.

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

PGM 1013 'AIRSTREAMS' : june 7-13

The complex harmonics of the drone, the gentle tones of the bansuri flute: it's one of the signature sounds of the classical music of India.

The word bansuri comes from the Sanskrit roots for bamboo and melody: the North Indian instrument is a simple bamboo tube with six or seven finger holes; the pitch varies with the length. According to Indian mythology, the bansuri is associated with Lord Krishna, who is said to have cast a spell on women and animals with his playing.

These days, the bansuri is casting it's quiet spell around the world: the extended notes, vocal inflections and rich ornamentations have a soothing effect on even the most hyperactive among us.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space...an East Indian journey on the sound of breath, on a program called AIRSTREAMS.

Music is by RAJENDRA TEREDESAI, JOHN WUBBENHORST & KEN ANOFF, BENJY WERTHEIMER, STEVE GORN, ANOUSHKA SHANKAR, AL GROMER KHAN and MANEESH DE MOOR.

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

HOS ACCOUNT SYSTEM UPDATE: We fixed the big bugs...

...now it's up to you to tell us about any individual issues so we can fix them!

To do this, log in and take your new MY ACCOUNT page for a test drive. 
See how easy it is to verify and update your account, particularly your billing info.

We need this because some subscriptions and some credit and debit card data did not transfer to the new system. Rest assured: this was due to unavoidable mismatches between the two secure databases, not any security problem.

By making sure your account has both your subscription and your payment card ready, you can avoid those annoying 30 second samples, now and when your recurring access plan is up for renewal. Filling in your billing info will insure continuous access to your subscription.

Here's a quick guide to HOS My Account symptoms and fixes...

• Your sign in doesn’t work (“Please try again”) or, reset password doesn’t recognize your email.

Let us know you can’t find your account. We’ll find it and get it working again. Some folks signed up after the old system was not supposed to make new accounts anymore. The new system has to be updated manually. Let us know at [email protected].

• The reset password message never arrives.

You may have registered with a non-working email address, or forgotten to update when you closed a former address. Let us know you can’t reset, and give us your actual working email address. We’ll take it from there.

• You’re getting 30 second samples even though you’re sure you’ve subscribed.

Look in MY ACCOUNT for your subscription and billing information. If your subscription info isn’t there, let us know at [email protected].  If your credit card info isn’t there, please enter it, then ask us to bring your missing subscription into your account.

• Your prepaid minutes don’t appear in the upper left of our site or in MY ACCOUNT.

Can you stream anyway? Let us know either way at [email protected].

• You just bought new access but our app or Sonos doesn’t recognize it.

This is easy — just sign out and sign in again. That updates your rights on your mobile or in Sonos.

Hearts of Space is supposed to be the anti-frustration experience. So at the first sign of trouble, write to [email protected]. The sooner we know about it, the sooner you will be happily streaming again.

Thanks for your patient understanding! :: HEARTS of SPACE Customer Support

UPGRADE UPDATE: Almost there

• Password reset: fixed and tweaked.
It works well now, as long as you can actually receive the confirming email at the address you've registered with us. If not, please change your email address in MY ACCOUNT or ask us to change it for you, so when your password needs to be reset you'll be able to do it.

• Inappropriate Session Expired messages: gone!
Except for one you'll receive after resetting your password. That ends your current listening session and triggers the email. Please just dismiss it and move on. We're working on getting rid of this unnecessary message.

• MY ACCOUNT
Accessible via normal sign in, no second sign in required except as a security step for purchases.

• All subscription rights
Now working properly.

INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNT ISSUES

These have to be resolved case by case — there's no wholesale fix that can be applied. But everything can be fixed and made right. We're eager to do this for each subscriber or user who discovers an issue with their account. The two major symptoms of system transition difficulty are:

• Your sign in is not accepted, and you can't reset your password with your customary email address.

• You get 30 second samples when you should get full streams, OR you don't see your subscription in MY ACCOUNT, OR you do see Prepaid Minutes purchases you don't recognize as current.

If you experience any of these issues or any other bugs or glitches we haven't yet discovered, please report them to [email protected] right away. Please don't frustrate yourself trying to fix it or hoping that the problem will go away by itself. Let us help you resolve the problem.

When you write, please describe the symptom or issue as specifically as you can. Please include your full name or the full name on your account, and your account's registered email address. We'll research your situation and fix the underlying issues ASAP.

Thanks :: Stephen Hill and the HOS online team

UPGRADE UPDATE: Problems...

Let's just say it: in the last 48 hours there have been more glitches and bugs than we expected from the upgrade to our new E-commerce and My Account software.

Despite months of careful preparation, the transition has not gone as smoothly as we planned. Too many of our users and subscribers have been inconvenienced by one problem or another. Most issues have been caused by incomplete or inaccurate data translation between our old provider’s ancient service and the new modern system we’ve moved into.

Regardless of the reason, we apologize. It pains us to know that any of you have been frustrated by this. Uninterrupted music and trouble-free service is our prime goal at HOS, and we haven't delivered it this week.

Our engineers are working through and resolving each bug as quickly as possible, prioritizing those affecting the most people. Leyla Hill is working diligently on individual account issues brought to her attention by your emails to [email protected].

We ask for and appreciate your continued patience while we make things work as they're supposed to. We thank the many of you who've sent good wishes along with your bug and glitch reports. We understand that we’ve inadvertently made you all into involuntary beta testers, and we are very grateful to those whose precise and thoughtful reports aid us in resolving the issues.

ISSUES WE'RE WORKING ON

Password reset: On Friday the 31st we did a lot of work on the new password reset process. It works well now. However, when you do a password reset, for security reasons the code kills your current listening session. That's why you see a "session expired" message. We’ll eventually find a way to get rid of that. In the meantime, if you reset your password, just dismiss the message and keep going.

Repeated “session expired” messages are blocking some of you from using the service. Our engineers are focusing on this bug now and hope to fix it soon.

Blocked access to MY ACCOUNT Information and management functions is the next bug to tackle. Again some are blocked by this, others not. Please don’t frustrate yourself trying to get past this second sign-in. It’s not something you can fix. We’re working on it.

Rights issues with cancelled, but unexpired subscriptions. It’s a server issue that has to be resolved there. In the meantime, please report this to [email protected]. If you can access Account Management under MY ACCOUNT you can reactivate the subscription temporarily, allowing you to stream music. If you can't access Account Management, we can do it for you. Then we or you can cancel the plan again once the larger rights issue is resolved on the server.

Please report issues specific to your account to [email protected] as precisely as you can. These include:

• Can’t sign in to play music or the system doesn’t recognize your email address
• You have an email address that no longer works so you can’t get the reset password message
• Your subscription seems to be missing from your account
• Your subscription renewed or upgraded shortly before the transition, but that isn’t reflected in the new system
• You get only 30 second samples of music you know you should be able to access

We’re responding to messages to [email protected] as quickly as possible. It helps if you include the email address you use for sign in if you email from a different address.

Again, our apologies. We promise to work through each and every issue as quickly and efficiently as we can.

:: Stephen Hill and the HOS Online crew