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1206R 'WINTERTRONIC' : feb.26-mar.5

Winter...has a way of overstaying its welcome. After several months of sullen skies, numbing cold, and too many days of frigid rain, sleet, or snow—even the most ardent champions of the season fall silent. We've arrived...at forbearance. 

Here in California, the trees blossom in mid-February regardless of the weather. After a big rain, the ground is strewn with pink and white petals. Soon the storms will taper off and spring will arrive. For most of the country though, there's still a long time to wait. 

Ambient electronic artists find inspiration in the winter atmospheres, and create music with dark drones, virtual storms, chilled tones, and monochromatic harmonies. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, it's another wintry journey on electronic waves — on a program called WINTERTRONIC.

Music is by TRANSPONDER, HOLLAN HOLMES, SOLARIS, NETHERWORLD, BLUETECH, KIRSTY HAWKSHAW, JANNE HANHISUANTO, and ILUITEQ.

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PGM 1274 'SOLEMN HOPE' : feb.19-26

The ambient-neoclassical duo of pianist DUSTIN O'HALLORAN and electronic musician ADAM WILTZIE — collectively A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN — have a name that not only sets them apart, but needs some explanation.

As you might expect for two Americans who met in Italy while touring, their music has more to do with European art than their roots in California and Texas. It starts with the Greek goddess Nike, who became the Roman goddess of victory, conveniently named Victoria. She's familiar to students of art history as a triumphal winged figure on coins, jewelry, and architecture. Her most famous monument is The Winged Victory of Samothrace, now in the Louvre—a masterpiece of Hellenistic sculpture and the very classical embodiment of the spirit of triumph.

So it's a stroke of post-classical genius to address their work to "the sullen," and a shrewd way of managing the expectations of a possibly cynical post-modern audience: the regal pace and transcendent beauty of their music brings a feeling of quiet reassurance. They're members of a popular group of modern classical composers with an integral ambient sensibility. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, reassuring neo-classical ambient for trying times, on a program called SOLEMN HOPE.

Music is by A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN, TERJE RYPDAL, BEN LUKAS BOYSEN, JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON, JEFF GREINKE, VOLKER BERTELMANN & DUSTIN O'HALLORAN, and SLOW MEADOW.

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PGM 1273 'MYSTIC METALS 2' : feb.12-19

BELLS, BOWLS, and GONGS — charter members of the struck idiophone family of resonant percussion.

BELLS originated in Neolithic China in the 3rd millennium BC. They were made of bronze, glass, ceramic, or minerals like quartz with a crystalline molecular structure. When formed into a circular cup shape and struck, bells produce a pitched tone and harmonics, which fade away slowly. Mechanical resonance gives bells their characteristic ringing sound.

GONGS are another member of the resonant percussion family from East and Southeast Asia. Suspended gongs are flat circles that produce clouds of sound without a central pitch; bossed gongs have a raised center, and are tuned to produce pitched tones.

BOWLS or more accurately bowl gongs, are both; they start as a flat circle like a gong, and are then bent into a bowl shape like a bell. They also produce a pitched tone and are often called singing bowls.

So much for the physics — the real mystery is the metaphysics. For millennia, these simple instruments have been used for ritual and ceremony, religious services, meditation and contemplative experience. Today there's a quiet boom in subtle, psychoactive sound, with hundreds of dedicated artists creating "deep listening" concerts, "sound baths," and recordings. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, the wintry tones of bells, bowls and gongs, on a program called MYSTIC METALS 2.

Music is by JARGUNA, HANS CHRISTIAN, KARMA MOFFET, SATORIO, SHAWN FEENEY, SCOTT LAWLOR, and THE LOVELY MOON.

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PGM 1272 'RESONANT HEART' : feb. 5-12

In Part 1 of our posthumous retrospective of cellist DAVID DARLING called 'RESONANT DARK,' we focused on his groundbreaking early albums for the German ECM label. Darling told the story of his first session with ECM producer MANFRED EICHER, who set the agenda definitively by saying "I want you to go as deep as you can go." In ten albums from 1980 to 2000, they did just that, defining and setting a standard for darkly serious ambient chamber music.

But there was other music in David Darling's heart. In the early 1990s, he began to pursue a more varied, romantic, even playful direction in recordings for other labels. Rather than the two day recording schedule at ECM, he took his time. Working with patient, supportive engineer/producers like MICKEY HOULIHAN and TOMMY SKARUPA, Darling achieved new heights of beauty in his solo recordings, collaborated generously with other artists, and broadened his appeal. Through it all, he continued to inspire, teaching and leading improvisation workshops for his non-profit organization Music For People, and working with spiritual teachers like AL HUANG, SYLVIA NAKKACH, and COLEMAN BARKS.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we focus on David Darling's post-ECM recordings EIGHT STRING RELIGION, CELLO BLUE, GRATITUDE, HOMAGE TO KINDNESS, and his Grammy-winning PRAYER FOR COMPASSION.

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