Encore Programs

PGM 1231R “FALLING” : oct. 2-9

THE SUN begins its long withdrawal from the northern hemisphere after the summer solstice in June. After the autumn equinox in September, the transition seems to accelerate. The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, and the temperature cools, while the natural world changes color and prepares for the winter to come.

Since medieval times we’ve called this season “fall.” The word comes from Middle English, with Old English and Old German roots. Falling implies movement downward, and in autumn, declining solar energy brings a feeling of descending or falling into the season. In music it’s marked by slowing tempos, descending chord progressions, darkening timbres, and wistful, even melancholy emotions.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space…we descend into the autumn soundscape, a program called “FALLING.” Music is by DAVID DARLING, JOEP BEVING, CHRISTOPHER TIGNOR, HAMMOCK, LUDOVICO EINAUDI, and TOM EATON.

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PGM 1021R “DUBSHIP EUPHORIA” : sept.11-18

Out of the ganja-fueled creative ferment of Jamaica came Reggae, and later, a studio remix style called “Dub.” Spacey, psychedelic, fat with drum n’ bass and heavily seasoned with reverb, echo and effects, it inspired English artists to gene-splice Dub with Ambient electronics, and call it “Ambient Dub.”

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we follow the trail of Ambient Dub on a program called “DUBSHIP EUPHORIA.” Music is by JAH WOBBLE & MARCONI UNION, MOTIONFIELD, S7VEN, SOUNDS FROM THE GROUND, ISHQ, CYBER ZEN SOUND ENGINE & MATT BORGHI, and MIKTEK.

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PGM 1401R “RHYTHM OF THE HEAT” : aug 28-sept 4

WHEN THE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC is written, the period from the arrival of playable synthesizers in the 1960s and the introduction of drum machines in the 1970s until now will seem particularly disruptive. Synthesizers propelled the music out of academic laboratories and on the road to the diverse electronic space, ambient, and atmospheric genres of today. At the same time, drum machines propelled popular music out of the recording studio and onto the dance floor, where DJs produced an endless variety of complex beats that paved the road to EDM—Electronic Dance Music, and IDM—Intelligent Dance Music.

When the summer heat arrives, it stimulates rhythmic activity everywhere. Ironically, ambient is one of the few genres that can live without rhythm, but percussion is so fundamental to popular music that many ambient artists can’t resist using it. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, percussion-powered ambient for late summer, on a program called (with due respect to the song by Peter Gabriel) “RHYTHM OF THE HEAT.” Music is by AES DANA, VIR UNIS, STEVE ROACH, CHRIS MEYER’S ALIAS ZONE, EXTRAWORLD, BIFF JOHNSON, JOYSTICK, and THIERRY DAVID. 

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PGM 1053R “SPACE GUITARS 12” : aug 14-21

Ambient explorations for electronically enhanced guitar

The inventors of the electric guitar were originally motivated by the need for volume, to compete with drums, brass, and other loud instruments. But it didn’t take long for reverb and special effects to transform the electric guitar into a vehicle for space exploration.

Beginning in the 1960s, technically inclined improvisers used tape recorders to create live repetitions, essentially reinventing the Baroque canon, where a musical phrase or melody is repeated at fixed intervals. The need for more portable effects led to the invention of compact tape loop echo processors, and today’s electronic “loopers,” which make possible a more precise and flexible style of contemplative improvisation.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, recent work in this ambient sub-genre, with another installment of our long-running “space guitars” series, on a program called “SPACE GUITARS 12.” Music is by PETER JACK RAINBIRD, STEVEN GRAHN, CLIVE WRIGHT, JEFF PEARCE, and HAMMOCK.

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PGM 1220R “AMBIENT TRAVELER 2” : jul 31-aug 7

In the warm, bright days of summer, an ambient fan yearning for travel to exotic cultures will book a flight on Sequencer Airlines. With its steady pulse, it’s a perfect rhythm for moving through space.

The roots go back to 9th century Persia, but the music sequencer idea really got going in the 19th century after the Industrial Revolution, with popular devices like music boxes, mechanical organs, and player pianos. By the first generation of electronic synthesizers in the 1960s and 70s, the Step Sequencer was a machine that turned equal length notes into repeating rhythm patterns. They’re simple, delightfully hypnotic, and fun to work with.

Today things are more complicated, but a lot more powerful. We have audio sample sequencers, loop-based creative music software, phrase samplers, and digital audio recording software many times more powerful than the primitive sequencers of early synths-and hey! They’re still fun to work with.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space…a journey from kinetic sequencer patterns to exotic Southeast Asian ambient soundscapes-on a program called “AMBIENT TRAVELER 2.” Music is by ATOMIC SKUNK, DAVID PARSONS, CHRISTEL VERAART, CHRONOTOPE PROJECT, LOREN NERELL, ALIO DIE & LORENZO MONTANA, and RICHARD BONE.

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PGM 1213R “PROGRESSIVE AMBIENT” : july 17-24

The “progressive” label is growing, and it has nothing to do with politics.

In music, the term has a history that goes back to Progressive Folk in the 1930s. After that came Progressive Jazz from the 1940s to the 1970s, Progressive Rock, Pop, and Bluegrass in the 1960s, Progressive Country in the 1970s, Progressive Metal in the 1980s, and Progressive Electronic and Progressive House in the 1990s.

Progressive is what happens when a genre has matured, and there’s an abundance of highly skilled musicians who want to stay creatively challenged.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space—if the progressive label means expanding stylistic and conceptual boundaries and synthesizing cultural influences—then I’m gonna say we’re overdue for a genre…and a program…called “PROGRESSIVE AMBIENT.”

Music by NOYA, GODWIN, & JÜRJENDAL, BRIAN ENO & J.PETER SCHWALM, MASSERGY, CRAIG PADILLA & MARVIN ALLEN, JON DURANT, MANUEL GÖTTSCHING, HAMMOCK, and EYES CAST DOWN.

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PGM 844R “AMERICAN CROSSROADS” : jul 3-10

EVERY JULY 4TH, we celebrate America’s independence with food, fun, and fireworks. For as long as most of us can remember, everything that’s good about America — our diversity, freedom, individuality and self-assurance — has been proudly on display.

This year, our celebration is tempered by a growing awareness of the great challenges we face in national, global and even planetary affairs. You have to look back to the 1930s to find a comparable period, but even those challenges seem limited by comparison.

So this year we celebrate the founding of America with the knowledge that American ideals and the American character are being tested. If Americans can respond positively to the challenges we face, we may look back on this period as the time of America’s maturity.

American music today reflects the maturing of our melting-pot of cultural traditions — hymns, folk and popular songs, blues, jazz, electronica, maverick classical, ethnic rhythms, and immigrant genres — a complex panorama of musical sources, freely invented and reinvented. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we listen for the reflective side of the American soundscape…on a program called AMERICAN CROSSROADS.

Music is by BRIAN KEANE, PAUL WINTER CONSORT, SACRED EARTH, BILLY McLAUGHLIN, WILL ACKERMAN, BIOMUSIQUE, PATRICK O’HEARN, PETER OSTROUSHKO, and JOHN DOAN.

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PGM 913R : ‘TRANS-ASIAN DIFFUSION’ : june 18-25

The term “The Silk Road” was invented by a German geographer in 1877. He was describing trade routes that go back to the Han Dynasty of China over 2000 years ago, connecting Europe with the major cultures of the Asian world…by land and by sea. The driving force was commercial, but like the Internet today, it also enabled the spread of social communication, technology, culture, food, and music.

In 1940 American anthropologist ALBERT KROEBER came up with a fancy name for the process: “Trans-Cultural Diffusion.” In music, traditions from many countries and intersecting influences over many centuries make sorting it out a challenge. There are common instruments, rhythms, scales, and approaches to making music. Each country added its own distinctive elements, and the process continues today—at electronic speed.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space….music derived from those way stations on the Silk Road…on a program called “TRANS-ASIAN DIFFUSION.” Music is by BOB HOLROYD, FRITZ HEEDE, TARIK BANZI, ANOUAR BRAHEM, OMAR FARUK TEKBILEK, ROBERT RICH & LISA MOSKOW, BENJY WERTHEIMER & DAVID MICHAEL.

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PGM 914R ‘DREAM TRACKER’ : jun.12-19

For several decades, a small group of Western musicians have studied the ancient practice of shamanism and shamanistic music, as a way of deepening their art and their connection to the natural world.

In aboriginal and tribal cultures from the Arctic to Australia, the role of the shaman was to bridge the human and the spirit world for guidance and healing. Today, neo-shamanism and neo-shamanistic music express a longing for direct spirituality, wholeness and harmony with nature that some find lacking in our culture.

Starting from prehistoric forms of music and aboriginal instruments like the rattle, the drum, the bone whistle and the didgeridoo, they added the ambient dimensions of electronic sound and created a new genre called “techno-tribal.” Earthy and trance-inducing, it rescued electronic music from ethereal abstraction, grounded it in the sounds and rhythms of the natural world, and influenced the ecstatic electronic dance music of today.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we beat the drum and rattle the bones, on a journey called “DREAM TRACKER.” Shamanic poet JOSIE TAMARIN puts it this way:

The lost world waits in darkness and dream;
And in dreamworlds gods and goddesses
Beat the pulse of prayer
Dancing near blazing fires
Drumming toward greater light
Creating song from cries of loss
Fanning the glowing embers of the heart.

(quoted by MICHAEL HARNER in “The Way of the Shaman”)

Music by BYRON METCALF, DASHMESH KHALSA & STEVE ROACH; TERRA AMBIENT, CHAD KETTERING, TUU, and SCOTT AUGUST.

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PGM 0873R ‘MORE AMBIENT COOL’ : may 29-june 5

Program 873 banner - Miles Davis

We begin with the mysterious “Fourth World” music of ambient trumpeter/composer JON HASSELL: an apparition arising out of the hazy cross-cultural soundscape between classical Indian vocal music, electronics, and cool jazz. It’s a sound that’s been widely influential in contemporary music for over 25 years — a popular atmospheric hybrid that defies category…by design.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we invoke the spirits of departed masters like JON HASSELL, cool jazz trumpeter MILES DAVIS, Indian vocalist master PANDIT PRAN NATH and electronics pioneer KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN…on a journey called MORE AMBIENT COOL. Additional music by PAUL HASLINGER, TWILIGHT ARCHIVE, PAUL SCHUTZE, NELSON FOLTZ & TOM LYNN, TOM HEASLY, and HAROLD BUDD.

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