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PGM 879R2 'CLOUDSCAPES' : aug.25-sept.1

SUMMER brings us one of the greatest free shows on earth. In fair weather, rising water vapor freezes into microcrystals of ice, and we see a vast, constantly changing panorama of clouds, floating and flying overhead. When summer storms arrive, the sky grows dark with the drama of thunder and lightning — nature's original multimedia show.

Clouds come in four families: high, middle, low, and vertical — with official Latin names like cirrus, cumulus and stratus. Satellites now give us the big picture of cloud patterns around the planet and how they affect the weather; there are even clouds on other planets, and interstellar clouds in outer space. It's no wonder that ambient musicians find clouds a major inspiration.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a high altitude summer electronic journey called CLOUDSCAPES. Music is by DIGITONAL, RUBEN GARCIA, FORREST FANG, ROBERT RICH, TERRA AMBIENT, BRUNO SANFILIPPO, and DARSHAN AMBIENT.

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PGM 1353 'DOWNTEMPO NIGHTS' : aug. 18-25

In these now hotter summer nights, an ambient music fan may crave a bit more rhythm in their chilled sonic cocktail, and for that we have Downtempo—an electronic sub-genre characterized by an atmospheric sound and slower beats than typical electronic dance music.

Legend traces the origin of Downtempo to the English city of Bristol in the late 1980’s and the emergence of “trip-hop”—a psychedelic fusion of hip-hop and electronics by popular artists like PORTISHEAD and MASSIVE ATTACK. By the early 1990’s, dropping the vocals and adding rhythmic influences from dub reggae gave rise to a melodic, instrumental chill-room genre that came to be known as Downtempo Electronica, or just Downtempo.

On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE, a nocturnal summer journey called DOWNTEMPO NIGHTS. Music is by PARALLAX-5, ONE ARC DEGREE, LAUGE, ASC, CHRISTOPHER WILLITS, MARCONI UNION, JOHAN AGEBJÖRN, and CONNECT.OHM.

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PGM 875R 'INDIA EVOLUTION' : july 11-18

The drone...the modal scale...the sinuous, ornamented melodic line. Even without a sitar or a tabla, you know you're enveloped in one of the new Indian-influenced strains of ambient music.

Hundreds of years ago, while Western music turned right at polyphony, harmony, and the equal-tempered scale, Indian classical music continued to develop the old modal system of scales and natural intervals, in a vocal-centered, monophonic style.

Where we created chords and counterpoint, monumental symphonies, hymns and songs, Indian music continued to evolve the melodic sophistication of raga, the rhythmic complexity of tala, and the patient pursuit of mood and depth.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we return to the sublime world of Indian ambient and devotional music, on a program called INDIA EVOLUTION.

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PGM 1352 'ANCESTRAL ECHOES' : july 4-11

The Techno-Tribal genre of electro-acoustic ambient emerged in 1988, the fruit of a remarkable act of musical anthropology by American electronic musician STEVE ROACH, who journeyed from Los Angeles to the Australian outback to collaborate with native aboriginal musicians and absorb their mythology of The Dreamtime. The result was a revolutionary and still influential album: DREAMTIME RETURN. Writing about its descendants in 1993, I said:

"The natives are drumming tonight on the cyber-tribal frontier.
It's a worldwide movement; composers on every continent/
exploring the boundaries of world music as it evolves into our techno-tronic culture.
It's a deliberate collision—between the vital spirit of the ancient tribal world,
and the rational logic of the electronic age."

Three decades later, the renamed Tribal-Ambient genre continues to refine the sound, while maintaining the spirit of the original innovation.On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a journey through space and time, tribal energy and digital technology, on a program called ANCESTRAL ECHOES.

Music is by BYRON METCALF & SHANE MORRIS, FRORE, ALIAS ZONE, ROBERT RICH, RESONANT DRIFT, and NUMINA.

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