Interview Podcast – Echoes

Despite their name, they don't hate radio, though but they do make music you won't hear broadcast much, except on Echoes. We'll hear from this English trio who can evoke early Pink Floyd one moment and Tangerine Dream the next.

The Forefathers are a Florida band whose guitar-centric sound is based on the e-bow and delay techniques popularized by the Scottish group, Big Country. Their all-instrumental music also embraces Americana with open-sky harmonica melodies. We talk to this band about their latest CD, Aurora.

Always an exponent of Ambient Americana, guitarist Sumner McKane scores a soundtrack for a documentary called In the Blood, about Maine's logging industry in the early 20th century. He also produced the film. His score calls up folk themes and modern ambiences.

It's lullabies from the Middle East transformed by the voice of Iranian-born singer, Azam Ali. She updates these songs on a new CD called From Night To the Edge of Day. We talk to the singer, who has also been the voice of the Persian fusion groups Vas and Niyaz.

Vicki Richards plays electric violin, and although she was inspired by the fusion music of the 1970s and 80s, her own sound is more introspective and drawn from personal experience. She talks about her new album, She Vanishes, the Echoes CD of the Month for April.

Agnes Obel's debut album was the Echoes CD of the Month in January. We sit down with the Danish singer-songwriter who talks about the often personal stories behind her haunting and entrancing ambient chamber music songs.

In his New York City apartment, Laurie Anderson's music director, Skuli Sverrisson, pulls out his bass, toy piano and more, when he reveals the concepts behind his subtle and complex ambient chamber music. His CD Seria II echoes Italian film composers Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota and sends them into atmospheric terrain.

Harold Budd is the keyboardist who created the sound of ambient chamber music. As the guitarist of The Cocteau Twins, Robin Guthrie created dream guitar textures. The two musicians have just put out a new CD of atmospherically chilled music called Bordeaux. They talk about their music on Echoes.

Heligoland is the name of an island off the coast of Germany, and also the title of a Massive Attack album, but it's also a group from Australia via Paris that creates an ethereal dream pop. Their new album, All Your Ships are White, was produced by ex-Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie. We talk to the band's founders, singer Karen Vogt and bassist Steve Wheeler, about Heligoland's journey geographically and musically.

Icelandic composer and keyboardist Olafur Arnalds sculpts an ambient chamber music landscape full of pensive moods and melodies that insinuate themselves in slow motion elegance. We talk with him about the chilled ambiences of his concept album, And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness.