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PGM 1306 'MYSTIC MESSIAEN' : jan.14-21

The 20th century French composer OLIVIER MESSIAEN was a musical modernist during a revolutionary period in classical music, an unabashed Romantic, and a devoutly religious Catholic who spent most of his long life playing organ in churches and cathedrals.

He reconciled these apparent polarities by following an artistic path that was unique and original. Along with complex, innovative contemporary music that ranged in intensity from serene to volcanic, he created a vast catalogue of religious program music inspired by his deep faith. It's been described as "a glowing vision of hope and transcendence for the 21st century, through faith in music, love, and the divine."

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we focus on Messiaen's religious and contemplative music, on a program called MYSTIC MESSIAEN.

We feature two of his masterpieces for organ — LA NATIVITÉ DU SEIGNEUR and LE BANQUET CÉLESTE, O SACRUM CONVIVIUM for chorus, two movements from L'ASCENSION for strings and brass, and an ethereal movement from FÊTE DES BELLES EAUX, for an ensemble of pioneering French electronic keyboards called Ondes Martenot.

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PGM 1305 'WINTER LIGHT 2' : jan.7-14

Winter...drains the color from the landscape and leaves behind a subtle monochromatic palette of grays, browns, and blues; and after snow...a magical world of white. The winter atmospheres range from bright sun with airy transparent blues, to chilled mist, dense fog, and skies threatened by sullen clouds.

In the far north, time seems to slow. It's a vast, lonely, contemplative environment that's inspired an electronic genre called "isolationist ambient." On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE, the immersive sound of winter atmospheres, on a program called WINTER LIGHT 2.

Music is by YAGYA, BANCO DE GAIA, SEETYCA, ERIK WØLLO, ISOSTATIC, PHILLIP WILKERSON & CHRIS RUSSELL, LOSCIL, and IAN BODDY+ERIK WØLLO.

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PGM 1304 'CANTO ELECTRONICO' : dec.31 - jan.7

The best-kept secret in European minimalism must be the late Dutch composer SIMEON TEN HOLT, who died in 2012. After experimenting with complex chromaticism and serialism early in his career, Ten Holt arrived at his own style of "humanized" minimalism: infused with traditional musical values, rhythmically rigorous, wonderfully melodic, and flexible in performance.

His most famous piece, composed in 1976, is called CANTO OSTINATO, which in Italian means "obstinate song," a reference to its continuous, repeating quintuplet rhythm base: 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-5. Its structure is based on 106 "cells" of a few phrases each which allow great latitude for repeats and interpretation by the performers. The piece can take from two hours to more than a day, and there are dozens of versions for 1, 2, 3, and 4 pianos, pianos plus organ, harp, or marimba, pipe organ, strings, and synthesizer.

Canto Ostinato has been a popular phenomenon in the Netherlands for 40 years and hundreds of sold out performances. Despite its appeal, it's hardly ever been performed or broadcast in the U.S. We tried to help fix that a couple of years ago when we featured a mesmerizing live version for two pianos, performed by the Dutch husband/wife duo JEROEN and SANDRA VAN VEEN.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we kick off the new year with a buoyant, energetic version for synthesizer, programmed and performed by SANDRA and JEROEN VAN VEEN. Simeon Ten Holt's CANTO OSTINATO for synthesizer; let's call it CANTO ELECTRONICO, on this transmission...of Hearts of Space.

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PGM 1303 'WINTERTRONIC 2' : dec.17-24

December...brings both powerful storms and clear, cold, silent nights that incline toward the holy as we approach the holiday season. We try to put aside the conflicts and challenges of the present day, and display the finer spirits and better angels of our nature. We celebrate the season with a radiance of light and color, hymns and songs, food and gifts, generosity and kindness.

For ambient musicians, it's a time to blend the warmth and intimacy of traditional acoustic music with the mysterious floating spaces of electronic music. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, calm and bright soundscapes for the season, on a program called WINTERTRONIC 2. 

Music is by KEVIN KELLER, ECHO SEASON, ROBERT RICH, ALPHA WAVE MOVEMENT, MAX CORBACHO, PAUL AVGERINOS, and SENSITIVE CHAOS.

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PGM 1302 'KINDRED SPIRITS' : dec.3-10

The story of Windham Hill Records is both a story of success, and a cautionary tale. From its emergence in the heart of Silicon Valley in 1976 as a tiny independent label for co-founder WILL ACKERMAN's ironically low-tech solo acoustic guitar music, it became the poster child for the emerging genre that was eventually dubbed New Age by the record industry ten years later.

Described as "instrumental, acoustic, and mellow," with high quality analogue recordings on vinyl and tasteful minimalist graphics, Windham Hill got distribution from one of the major labels, expanded its roster with kindred acoustic artists like pianist GEORGE WINSTON and guitarist MICHAEL HEDGES, and went on to sell millions of records.

So...success, but there's a big difference between music, and the music business. The pressure was intense, and Will Ackerman wasn't happy. He never wanted to be a corporate record executive, so he sold his half of the company in 1992 and retired to a farm in rural Vermont.

That would normally be the end of the story, but Ackerman was still relatively young and wanted to get back to making music. So he built a recording studio on the property, teamed up with ace engineers CORIN NELSEN and TOM EATON, and began to record and produce other acoustic artists. A few years later he started another independent label, but this time — he stayed independent.

And that's where the story takes a creative turn. In over twenty years of working with hundreds of compatible musicians, Ackerman began to collaborate as an acoustic guitarist as well as a producer, which led to participation in instrumental "supergroups" like FLOW (in 2019) with trumpeter JEFF OSTER, guitarist LAWRENCE BLATT, pianist FIONA JOY HAWKINS, and triple-threat artist-engineer-producer TOM EATON; and (in 2021) with JEFF OSTER and TOM EATON in BROTHERS.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we feature music from BROTHERS and congenial acoustic and electro-acoustic artists, on a program called KINDRED SPIRITS. It's about finding your true artistic family. Music is by WILL ACKERMAN, JEFF OSTER & TOM EATON, TOM EATON solo, RUSSELL WALDER, TIM STORY, LAURENCE FURR, and ECHO COLLECTIVE.

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PGM 1301 'CONTEMPLATIONS' : nov. 19-26

For centuries, music has been used to lead listeners into deep, quiet meditative states. The goal of this music is healing, self-realization and spiritual communion. The 20th and 21st centuries have seen a steady growth of popular music to calm our hyper-stimulated nervous systems and support inner experience. Whether it's the sublime adagios of early classical music, the simple, consonant tonalities of New Age, the sophisticated orchestrations of contemporary sacred minimalism, or the expansive spatial experiences of ambient — we seek the pleasures and benefits of psychoactive sound.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space from longtime guest producer for classical and sacred music ELLEN HOLMES, a program called CONTEMPLATIONS, featuring music by MAX RICHTER, plus HANS ZIMMER, JAMI SIEBER, DIETRICH BUXTEHUDE, SIEUR de SAINTE-COLOMBE, ANTONIO VIVALDI, JORDI SAVALL & HESPERIAN XXI.

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PGM 1300 'A BRIEF HISTORY OF DARK AMBIENT' : nov. 12-19

And so it has come to pass, dear spacefans, that in the dark days of late autumn in the year 2021, we arrive at the 1300th transmission of the HEARTS of SPACE series. I'm STEPHEN HILL, and befitting the occasion, it's another of our centennial specials called A BRIEF HISTORY OF DARK AMBIENT.

The term "dark ambient" was coined in the early 1990s by ROGER KARMANIK, founder of the record label Cold Meat Industry, to describe the music of RAISON d'ETRE and similar artists. The style is a gene-splicing of the Industrial, Ambient, Drone, and Noise genres, including the experimental side of early 1970s German electronic music — fondly dubbed 'Krautrock' — and the Industrial Music of the late 1970s & early 80s, such as the band THROBBING GRISTLE.

During the 1980s, LUSTMORD, NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS & ZOVIET FRANCE were among the first to create consistently dark ambient music, featuring low drones and distressed chorales, liberally seasoned with industrial noise and electronic special effects. In the early 1990s RAISON D'ETRE augmented the industrial imagery with medieval iconography.

During the late 80s & early 90s, a slower, more ethereal side of Gothic art rock emerged, called "ethereal wave" or "dark wave," including many of the early artists on the Projekt label. And an even more austere sub-genre called "Isolationist Ambient" arrived quietly in the 1990s, including the music of THOMAS KÖNER from Germany and BIOSPHERE from Norway.

It's Program 1300 : A BRIEF HISTORY OF DARK AMBIENT, on this transmission...of Hearts of Space. Music is by RAISON D'ETRE, POPOL VUH, LIGHTWAVE, VOICE OF EYE + LIFE GARDEN, THOMAS KÖNER, BIOSPHERE, BLACK TAPE FOR A BLUE GIRL, ROBERT RICH + B.LUSTMORD, TROUM, PAUL SCHÜTZE, and RHYTHM & NOISE.

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PGM 1299 'OMINOUS' : oct.29 - nov.5

If you're feeling masochistic, turn on the unrelenting stream of disaster, tragedy, and malfeasance that passes for "news" in these troubled times. Is it any wonder that each year at the end of October we celebrate a Celtic and medieval Christian holiday haunted by death, decay, and supernatural dark spirits?

For ambient musicians, it's a time for deep drones, disembodied voices, melancholy wailing, gloomy strings, and a dark galaxy of electronic and environmental effects. On this Halloween transmission of Hearts of Space, we embrace the gathering gloom with a program of cathartic dark ambient atmospheres called...OMINOUS.

Music is by SOUND PHENOMENON, ATRIUM CARCERI, GEORGE WALLACE, MONOCUBE, TOM JENSEN, MYUU, SUSPERIA-ELECTRICA, and SOUNDING THE DEEP.

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PGM 1298 'SHADOWLANDS 2' : oct.22-29

Autumn brings transformations both subtle and powerful. The shadows lengthen as the focus of the sun moves south below the equator. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we now experience rapid seasonal climate change on top of slow global climate change. It's a transition marked by familiar changes in temperature, color, and activity in the natural world, disrupted by increasingly extreme weather events.

For ambient musicians, it's a time for complex tone colors burnished with glints of silver and gold, bittersweet harmonies, descending progressions, and gently melancholy emotions.

On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE, we transition to the darkening electro-acoustic soundscapes of autumn, on a program called SHADOWLANDS 2. Music is by MYCHAEL DANNA & TIM CLÉMENT, STEVE ROACH & MICHAEL STEARNS, MIGUEL NOYA, CLIFF MARTINEZ, ALEX HAAS, and LISA BELLA DONNA.  

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PGM 1297 'COSMIC ELECTRONIC 3' : oct. 8-15

The powerful creative stimulus that came with the first wave of popular electronic instruments was nowhere more intense than Germany in the early 1970s. In Berlin, a young drummer named KLAUS SCHULZE began working with early electronic instruments. He was a founding member of important bands like ASHRA and TANGERINE DREAM, but soon went solo with a series of groundbreaking albums that established a cosmic sound and a musical language that's still influential today—combining native electronic ornaments, trancey sequencer rhythms, and electronic string lines inspired by his hero, RICHARD WAGNER.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space we're back in our comfort zone, with another classic spacemusic journey called COSMIC ELECTRONIC 3. Music is by KLAUS SCHULZE, COSMIC REPLICANT, EXTRAWORLD, JUTA TAKAHASHI, NIMANTY, DREAMSTATE LOGIC, SPACECRAFT, and JONN SERRIE.

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PGM 1296 'CELLO ELEGIES' : oct. 1-8

Like sopranos, the violins get all the attention. The violas, famously, get ignored. But of all the orchestral string instruments, the real star is the cello. In its low range, it anchors the string section; as a solo instrument, it soars with a beautifully lyrical singing voice; while in the studio, its four octave range is a compact string orchestra in one instrument. So for range, tone, versatility, and expression, the cello is unsurpassed — and it sounds especially right in the fall.

On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE from longtime guest producer for classical and sacred music ELLEN HOLMES, we follow the cello to the emotional heart of autumn, on a program called CELLO ELEGIES.

Music performed by 2CELLOS, STJEPAN HAUSER, MICHAEL HOPPÉ & MARTIN TILLMAN, JULIAN LLOYD WEBBER, YO-YO MA, JACQUELINE DU PRE, SHEKU KANNEH-MASON, MATHEW BARLEY, BARRY PHILLIPS, FRETWORK, and JORDI SAVALL & HESPERION XXI.

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PGM 1295 'AUTUMN WINDS' : sept.24-oct.1

The transition to autumn is marked by shorter days, cooler nights, and deepening colors. As the sun drops inexorably lower in the sky here in the northern hemisphere, the natural world begins the transformation to a colder, darker season scented with "the perfume of decay."

In music, the complex tones and smoky timbres of the woodwind family—the oboe, English horn, clarinet, and bassoon—bring a sonic analog of the changing atmosphere. Writer MARIA POPOVA calls it "a bewildering harmonic of the transcendent and the transient."

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, autumnal ambient for woodwinds and electronics, on a program called AUTUMN WINDS. Music is by RUSSEL WALDER, DEBORAH MARTIN & JILL HALEY, ALTUS, ANDREW LAHIFF, and MAX RICHTER.

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PGM 1294 'DEVOTION 2' : sept. 10-17

Over the last 30 years, the gentle world of Indian devotional music has been updated and transformed by an international group of ambient musicians. Inspired by this venerable heart-centered tradition, often working with authentic Indian musicians, they've stretched the boundaries and expanded the atmospheres of the genre with electronic drones, echoes and reverberations, overdubs, and studio magic. Slow, deep, and meditative, you don't have to know anything about Indian music or religion to enjoy it.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, ambient excursions in Indian devotional music—on a program called DEVOTION 2. Music is by HANS CHRISTIAN, GARY STROUTSOS & STEVIN McNAMARA, BEN LEINBACH, CRAIG PRUESS & ANURADHA PAUDWAL, MARK SEELIG, and AL GROMER KHAN.

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PGM 1293 'SYMMETRY' : sept. 3-10

Across the spectrum of Ambient, Electronic, New Classical and New Age music we find a common metaphor: the journey. It's music for virtual travel, for progressive ascent towards a goal, arrival at an apex, descent, and return.

New York composer ZENON MARKO has given classic architectural form to the experience by making it rigorously symmetrical. His album SYMMETRY, he says, "is a musically symmetrical journey — whether physical, intellectual, imaginary, emotional, psychological, or spiritual." As if serious music wasn't already difficult enough, the entire album is symmetrical, with the descending sections as actual reverses of the ascents.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, the power of form, and the powerful sound of heroic ambient electronics, on a program called SYMMETRY. Music is by ZENON MARKO, SENSUALISM, KEVIN KELLER, CHRONOTOPE PROJECT, HAMMOCK, MAX RICHTER, and TOM EATON.

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PGM 1292 'SUFI SOUL 3' : aug. 27-jun.3

The mystical, inward-facing order of Sufism goes back to the very beginning of the Islamic religion in the 8th century. It has parallels to the venerable traditions of Buddhist and Hindu mysticism, and aims for direct union with God by purifying the heart. The work of the Persian Sufi poet RUMI has achieved worldwide popularity for its beauty and insight, and a body of Sufi music evolved to accompany religious practices and meditation—most famously the "whirling dervishes" of the Mevlevi order in Turkey—creating a genre that's not only alive today, but producing new strains of spiritual music.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we revisit the contemplative heart of Middle Eastern music, on a program called 'SUFI SOUL 3.' Music by ZIKR PROJECT, DHAFER YOUSSEF, ANOUAR BRAHEM, ELIYAHU SILLS, ALEX KHASKIN, MICHEL BANABILA with MEMET POLAT, ÜMLAUT, & SALAR ASID, DEREK & BRANDON FIECHTER, ABE HATHOT, and PAUL AVGERINOS & OMAR FARUK TEKBILEK.

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PGM 1291 'GONG-CHIME IMMERSION' : aug. 6-13

The traditional Gamelan music of Indonesia originated almost two thousand years ago. It has a sound and spirit all its own, with influences from bronze age metallurgy, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. The complex rhythms and shimmering sound of the metallophone orchestra of bells, gongs, chimes, cymbals and xylophones — plus skin drums, bamboo flutes, strings and vocals — has fascinated Europeans since Gamelan ensembles performed at the Paris Exposition of 1889.

In the 20th century, an elite group of western composers including ERIK SATIE, JOHN CAGE, LOU HARRISON, HARRY PARTCH, STEVE REICH, PHILIP GLASS, and others took the traditional gamelan sound in new directions, creating new instruments and orchestrations and later adding the ethereal dimension of electronics.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, ambient hybrids inspired by the gamelan music of Indonesia, on a program called GONG-CHIME IMMERSION. Music is by LOREN NERELL, DAVID PARSONS, JON IVERSON, DANIEL SCHMIDT and THE BERKELEY GAMELAN, EVERGREEN CLUB CONTEMPORARY GAMELAN, and JALAN JALAN.

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PGM 1290 'ELECTRONIC FOSSILS' : july 30-aug 6

Electronic music is everywhere today, so it's surprising to learn that as a popular genre it's only about 50 years old. While the earliest examples go back to the late 19th century, until the 1960s electronic music was rare, expensive, and almost exclusively the domain of obscure academic and experimental musicians.

These early theorists realized that electronics would vastly expand the tones and timbres available to composers. This led to popular electronic versions of Bach and Debussy, and electro-acoustic combinations of conventional and electronic instruments. More seriously, it led to a revival of so-called "tone color" music, an evolution of the Romantic "tone poems" of Richard Strauss, Liszt, and Wagner — while more radical artists used electronics to create new forms of music that had never been heard before.

It all came together in the 1970s, when the advent of relatively affordable electronic synthesizers, drum machines, effects processors, and recording equipment fueled an era of rapid discovery, invention and innovation, and the beginning of popular electronic music. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we look back at the sound of electronic music in the 1970s, on a program called ELECTRONIC FOSSILS. Music is by DOUG McKECHNIE, MICHAEL GARRISON, JEAN-MICHEL JARRE, TANGERINE DREAM, DEUTSCHE WERTARBEIT, LAURIE SPIEGEL, KLAUS SCHULZE, and ROBERT RICH.

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PGM 1289 'JON HASSELL RETROSPECTIVE' : july 23-30

American avant-garde composer JON HASSELL died in June 2021 aged 84. Of all the artists that have been featured on Hearts of Space, due to his wide influence, theoretical brilliance, and open-minded innovation, no one deserves a retrospective more than JON HASSELL.

His 1978 debut album VERNAL EQUINOX set out his vision of what he called "Fourth World" music, which he defined as "a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques." It's a vision that was influential with other musicians because it opened up new creative vistas rather than just rearranging the elements of old ones.

His embrace of exotic cultures was always respectful and creative, never casual or exploitive. He saw less developed countries as places where tradition was still alive, and spirituality was inherent in their music. His principal instrument was the trumpet — electronically softened, harmonized and spatialized into what one writer said "sounded as if it were played by a Berber on a distant sand dune, or from a minaret in a deserted city."

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a JON HASSELL RETROSPECTIVE.

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PGM 1288 'THE NEXT DIMENSION' : july 9-16

It's utterly without tension, reliably tonal and melodic, and wouldn't hurt a fly. Yet New Age music has been the subject of decades of casual ridicule.

Originally a grassroots phenomenon with a do-it-yourself creative ethic made possible by the home studio movement, after a period of mainstream success in the 1980s, it retreated to serving its core audience. Despite the criticism, New Age remained a popular niche, showing that a therapeutic music for relaxation, meditation, virtual travel, and alternative forms of spirituality had become something of a psychological necessity in high-intensity modern life. 

Around 2004, a critical reappraisal of the genre began, led by music blogger Douglas Mcgowan and by serious music collectors, Gen X'ers and Millennials who were children during the glory days of New Age. Evaluating musicians on their own merit rather than writing off the entire genre led to the conviction that some of the artists had been underappreciated, and the genre itself had been overcriticized.

On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE, New Age music reconsidered, on a program called THE NEXT DIMENSION. Music is by DEAN EVENSON, SCOTT HUCKABAY and PHIL HEAVEN, JONNY LIPFORD, DAVE EGGAR, HIROKI OKONO, UMA SILBEY, MICHAEL BRANT DEMARIA, FORREST SMITHSON, MIKE CLAY, IASOS, and PAUL AVGERINOS.  

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PGM 1287 'PARALLEL WORLDS' : july 2-9

Of all the artists that have been featured on Hearts of Space, due to his wide influence, theoretical brilliance, and tireless innovation — no one has earned a celebratory retrospective more than JON HASSELL. An avant-garde composer and inventor of "Fourth World" music, he described it as "a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques." Jon Hassell died this week at the age of 84.

We'll work on that retrospective, but for now we'll use one of his classics to introduce a program of the kind of globe-trotting, culture-hopping, creative ambient he inspired. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a program called PARALLEL WORLDS. Music is by JON HASSELL, TRANCE MISSION, GREEN ISAC ORCHESTRA, RICHARD BONE, DARSHAN AMBIENT, DANIEL LANOIS & ROCCO DELUCA, ALEX HAAS, and FORREST FANG.

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PGM 1286 'SUMMER STARS' : june 25-july 2

Many kinds of music are associated with one of the seasons, but ambient and environmental electronic music? — more than most. The music has to BE the season: to reflect, inhabit, and merge with the space and feeling of the seasonal environment. And when it comes to summer ambient, the pace gets slower, the harmonies get warmer, and the ethereal sounds inspire weightless floating.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we float peacefully through the star fields on the warm breezes of a summer night, on a program called SUMMER STARS. Music is by ERIK WØLLO, SUFJAN STEVENS, STEVE ROACH, RUDY ADRIAN, and AMONGST MYSELVES.

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PGM 1285 'SLACK KEY PARADISE' : june 11-18

Hawaii, ladies and gentlemen: our 50th state, a subtropical archipelago of 137 volcanic islands arising from the Pacific Ocean, 2000 miles southwest of the U.S. mainland. Unique in many ways, it's a rich multi-ethnic melting pot of indigenous Hawaiian, Polynesian, East and Southeast Asian, and North American cultures.

All this diversity gives Hawaiian music a sweetness and charm that led to popularity for the steel guitar and the ukulele in the early 20th century, and a revival of the so-called "slack key" or re-tuned finger-style guitar in the 1970s. The languid pace and tropical ambience of the music echoes the astonishing beauty of the natural setting. One visit to the Garden Island of Kauai turns a word like "paradise" from hyperbole...to description.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, the languid music and lush subtropical ambience of Hawaii, on a program called SLACK KEY PARADISE. Music is by BRUCE KAPHAN & JAKE SHIMABUKURO, BOB BROZMAN & LEDWARD KAAPANA, KEOLA BEAMER & R.CARLOS NAKAI, TAIMANE, KAWIKA KAHIAPO, and WAYNE POWELL.

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PGM 1284 'FLOATING WORLDS 3' : june 4-11

The concept of a "soundscape" was defined in the 1960s as a combination of sounds that create an immersive environment. It includes sounds of the natural acoustic environment and weather—called the geophony; animals and insects—called the biophony; and sounds made by humans—the anthropophony.

In Canada, the soundscape idea was established for a whole generation of musicians by composer and educator R. MURRAY SCHAFER. Among his students were two young Canadian electronic musicians — MYCHAEL DANNA and TIM CLEMENT. In the mid 1980s they were creating what they called "environmental electronic music" like this classic track from the album SUMMERLAND.

DANNA went on to become an A-list film composer known for non-traditional scores for films like The Life of Pi, while the combination of natural acoustic environmental sounds and electronic music became one of the enduring trends in the ambient music of today. Like scores for imaginary films, they can entertain, challenge, or sooth us, sending signals to our ancient limbic alert system that tell us to be vigilant, or relax.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a collection of immersive environments and electro-acoustic soundscapes called FLOATING WORLDS 3. Music is by DANNA & CLÉMENT, SINEPEARL, TOM EATON, ALPHA WAVE MOVEMENT, ALIO DIE & REMCO HELBERS, and STEVE ROACH.

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PGM 1283 'THE SOUND of BLISS' : may 21-28

THE GROUP BLISS was a warm breeze that emerged from chilly Denmark in 2001, the project of writer/producers MARK-GEORGE ANDERSON and STEFFEN AASKOVEN. Original vocalists TCHANDO from Guinea-Bissau and ALEXANDRA HAMNEDE (hahm-NYED-eh) from Sweden, brought soulful African and refined jazz elements to the group's polished mix of pop songcraft, subtle ambient electronics, ethnic and classical elements.

Successful in Europe from the start, their music appeared on dozens of compilations and soundtracks. Four more excellent albums followed between 2003 and 2013, establishing BLISS as elite artists in the popular ambient/downtempo/chill genre. It took five years before they released an album in the U.S. and started building an international fanbase. They'd be household names in the States if not for the fact that the word "bliss" is apparently irresistible to musicians; more than a dozen other artists exploit the name or use it as a title, leaving a confusing mess for all of them.

So when it comes to "Danish Bliss" we're not talking about pastry, but as you'll hear, a superior contemporary world-ambient-downtempo experience. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, an overdue retrospective called THE SOUND OF BLISS.

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PGM 1282 'SANCTUM SANCTORUM' : may 14-21

Composer CONSTANCE DEMBY passed peacefully in 2021 at age 81. She was an original character, a fun-loving free spirit who emerged out of the creative upheaval of the 1960s as a "sound sculptor" of resonant steel instruments, and member of an anarchic hippie musical group from Maine. After the group disbanded in the mid-1970s, she was drawn to the spiritual path, studied yoga, made the pilgrimage to India, and began to compose devotional music.

Back in the U.S., she settled in Northern California, started her own cassette label, and pursued a recording career armed with a modest musical education enhanced by great intuitive intensity. She was gifted with a profound talent for melody and a lavish gift for orchestration that served her well. From her earliest recordings she aimed to create what she called "sacred space music" — at first with acoustic instruments, later with electronic synthesizers and studio tools. She was one of the earliest adopters of electronic sampling keyboards, which gave her access to the full spectrum of orchestral instruments she employed in her choral symphonies.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a Constance Demby posthumous retrospective, on a program called SANCTUM SANCTORUM.

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