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PGM 993R 'CATHARSIS' : oct.27-nov.3

We owe our Pagan ancestors thanks for their recognition of the special days of late autumn — a time of restless spirits, spawned by all things dark and fear-full.

The advent of the house of Scorpio each year brings the ambient genres of gloom, Gothic, and dark atmospheres to the fore. This music displays a romantic quest for strangeness, a taste for the ominous, and a fascination with death and decay that's appropriate for the fall season, even celebrated on All Hallow's Eve by fans of the macabre, the ominous, the morbid, and the diabolical.

It's a taste that's both aesthetic and cathartic: a willful immersion in our ancient limbic emotions of terror and fear. And (to look on the bright side of a dark picture) a reassuring exercise of our impulse for self-preservation.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space...a Halloween experience called CATHARSIS. Music is by CAUL, SCEPTRE, LIGHTWAVE, JOE RENZETTI, HAR, MINGO and BETWEEN INTERVAL.

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PGM 1161 'THE GATHERING DARK' : oct. 20-27

Despite the unseasonably warm temperatures and their sometimes disastrous consequences, one thing in our environment remains absolutely unchanged: the sun and the earth continue reliably tracing their cosmic orbits. And so, for very good astronomical reasons, here in the northern hemisphere the autumn days grow shorter, and the light grows ever dimmer, as we plot our course toward the winter solstice. 

The music of the season is measured, calm, with restrained passion and glints of bright color against a darkening background. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we score the season of fading light and falling leaves, on a program called THE GATHERING DARK.

Music is by JEFF PEARCE, DARSHAN AMBIENT, TIM STORY & ROEDELIUS, JEFF GREINKE, TAPES AND TOPOGRAPHIES, EYES CAST DOWN, and HAMMOCK.

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

 

PGM 1160 'ARCHAIC CONCERTS' : oct.13-20

Hearts of Space was born and raised during the formative years of electronic music in the 1970s and 80s. Because we've been covering the ambient side of its evolution for over forty years, the program has often been associated primarily with electronic music. 

But since the very beginning, we've always given almost equal time to traditional, purely acoustic forms of contemplative, space-creating music, as well as "electro-acoustic" hybrids. The reason was simple: long before electronics, there were centuries of music from dozens of world cultures that not only offered profound listening experiences — they defined and set a standard for what music can be. 

To be sure, electronics opened up vast new tonal and expressive dimensions for contemporary music — but we still return to traditional acoustic music, sit in virtual palace halls on ancient nights, and drink from the source of musical language. 

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, contemplative sounds on venerable acoustic instruments, on a program called ARCHAIC CONCERTS. The title is taken from the 1976 debut album of the unique German musician STEPHAN MICUS, who inspired, and is featured, in this program. 

Music is by STEPHAN MICUS, MYSTIC JOURNEY, MICHEL BANABILA & MEHMET POLAT, HANS CHRISTIAN, DJIVAN GASPARYAN, and SHUNSUKE MIZUNO.

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

 

PGM 1159 'COSMIC FLIGHT' : oct.6-13

No one has ever fully explained the relationship between electronic sounds and images of cosmic space.

From the earliest experiments with electronic music, composers used it to express the strangeness, vastness and mystery of the cosmos. It was a brand new medium, free from the limitations of historical styles, conventional instruments, and even the laws of acoustics. Space was "the final frontier" and electronics were the vehicle to go there. 

Today, electronic musicians around the world command a virtually unlimited set of instruments and resources for creating sound images of our cosmic environment. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, another deep space journey on electronic waves, on a program called COSMIC FLIGHT.

Music is by VLADIMIR ABOVYAN, ASCENDANT, TRANSPONDER, CHRIS RUSSELL, ROBERT RICH, STEVE ROACH, ALTUS, and AMIR BAGHIRI. 

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