Idyllic Music Podcast | Trip Hop - Downtempo - Electronica

This week, we'll look at artists in exile. Not those forced from their homes through political or legal turmoil but the more romantic expatriation of the kind envisioned by Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene. The 'Lost Generation', living in hotels, on allowance and awaiting inspiration. Finding their muse this week are Azoora, Kesakoo, My Toys Like Me, Juliet Hotel, Darren Scott Nesbit and The Chill Conspiracy.

This week, we'll examine the creative process. Painter Kimberly Brooks offers up and octet of stages of which six match the songs on this episode of Idyllic Music. They are Vision and Hope. Excitement, Clarity, Obsession and Resolution. Look for these in music of Screenatorium, Lasswell, Synthetic, Electric Hippies, Fauna and Endlos.

This week, we'll look at the tension created when fashion comes full circle. As Massive Attack's Tricky points out you have "A dread of the past and fear of the future. You're brand new, You're retro" Finding that singular point for us on the edition of Idyllic Music are Polished Chrome, Return To Mono, Letters In Numbers and Cassettes Won't Listen.

This week we'll spotlight mendacity. There was a time, not long ago, when you could assume a benchmark of truthfulness. Not from everyone or about everything but you could feel fairly secure in the notion that you weren't being lied to about the big things, all the time, with a straight face. Exploring the sad state of this tendency to lie are Trifonic, QuiOui, the silk demise, Orange Crush, DRT, Humus Luminus-Quinslonn and Tacet.

This week, we'll look at ruins and relics. Places long abandoned for more promising prospects. Whether ancient or post-modern they recall a measure of greatness that evokes more sadness than nostalgia. Leading our tour on this episode of Idyllic Music are Steric Hindrance, NeiLicis, Clear Plastic, Rude Corps, Sardinia Bass Legalize and Electric Salmon.

This week we'll explore the edge of the world. A point on the horizon that marks the end of what is known and all that lies beyond. It's a gray, ill-defined area that defies the usual measurements. Making concerted efforts to try this week are The Uberkids, The Artificial Sea, Monotronaut, Dive Index, onkgusD, Stabilizer and Schev.

This week, we'll feature the music of the Orb. Of all the bands that inspired us and helped formulate the scope of this program, it was The Orb's determination to move the mind as well as the hips. Blending the pioneering electronica of Tangerine Dream and the beats of Chicago's warehouse scene with the deep dub of Scratch Perry and Byrne and Eno's Bush of Ghosts sampling, The Orb remain a central pillar of today's electronic music.

This week, we'll look at the great choice each of us must make between the physical and the moral, happiness and virtue. How we choose to define the greater good sets the path we follow in life. The great challenge is to find a way to bring these mutually exclusive, incompatible values together and find some way of reconciling them. We'll hear from Canola Tenderfoot, Salaryman, Scanlan, I Awake and Elika.

This week, it's another globetrotting episode of Idyllic Music as we find inspiration in 3 continents in a mashup from 5 countries including Italy, Senegal, The U.S. Sweden and the Netherlands. We'll hear from Ten and Tracer, l Orchestre A-Dakar, Black Era, MarinuZz and Please.

This week, we'll take a poke at Satan, The Devil, Beelzebub or El Diablito. Whether or not you think he is an actual being or a manifestation of our universal need to personify evil, the concept of hell is as pervasive an idea as there is. From Robert Johnson to the White Stripes, there is no denying the fear or promise of hell has been a part of music for a long time.

This week, we'll look at metaphors, similes and allegories. These Figures of Rhetoric color our languages and influence the way we describe music. Adding relish and piquancy to this addition of Idyllic music are Iambic, Karmacoda, Plastercluster, TCK and Rafael Aragon.

This week, we'll look at the excitement, obsession, twists, and serenity of first romance. The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end. Exploring the first time on this edition of Idyllic Music are Kristin Hersh, Merlune, Weigl and Hoffman, Telafonica, Mudville and SoundShifter.

This week, the chillout continues in the land of the long winters. Five artists from the Baltic region provide the heat for this frigid episode of Idyllic music. They are Fauna, Milieu, Sirk, Bersarin Quartett and Margareds.

This week, we'll look at the coming and going, beginnings and ends and the state of things at those two points. Starting and stopping with us on this episode are Korev, Artemis, Lex Nasa and Savoir Vivre.

This week we'll consider the boarding house. Where people of all stripes rent rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes weeks, months and years. Boarders who otherwise would have nothing in common might share evening meals and a common living room. And so this week's Idyllic lodgers include Fringe, Musetta, Jamdeluxe, Minor Chill, Echo TM and Peach Stealing Monkeys. I'm the proprietor, Jim Nye.

This week, it's adventure. The kind imagined by the great turn of the century authors like Kipling, Burroughs, Wells and Verne. 100 years hence on Idyllic Music, we offer Sublimatus, Daakoon, Conrad Belfort, Juno6, Orbique and Synthastazia.

This week, we'll look at the Sun. The periodic table lists 117 elements in the universe yet the sun is mostly just hydrogen and helium. Its simplicity belies its enormous life giving value in both a physical and spiritual sense. Exploring this paradox for us on this edition of Idyllic Music are Cling, Omihoshbin, Subtronik, 2 Bone Giants, Vim Cortez and Amanda Jayne.

This week, on the 100th episode of Idyllic Music, we hope to honor the many regular listeners of this podcast with CD ready mixes of the best vocal tracks heard on the show over the past two years. Don, Mika, Stephen and I have gleaned the archives and will offer up these two mixes unencumbered by the usual patter so that you can burn them directly to the blank CD of your choice. We have two podcast mp3 files of nearly 80 minutes worth of the best music featured over the two years. Picking only these songs proved difficult.

This week, on the 100th episode of Idyllic Music, we hope to honor the many regular listeners of this podcast with CD ready mixes of the best instrumental tracks heard on the show over the past two years. Don, Mika, Stephen and I have gleaned the archives and will offer up these two mixes unencumbered by the usual patter so that you can burn them directly to the blank CD of your choice. We have two podcast mp3 files of nearly 80 minutes worth of the best music featured over the two years.

This week, we'll contemplate the patient ear. The following five tracks require time. At least they did for me. Each one finds its stride at precisely the right moment for that song and that make them special. Taking their own sweet time about it are HerbalJ, Audiokonstrukte, Terence Blanchard, Wurlitztraction and Misosoup. At the end of the program, I'll have a few words about our 100th episode and give away.

This week, East meets West for a soft clash or happy mesh of global culture. It's the musical migration that may be our best hope toward understanding and acceptance of each other. Helping us along are DubDriver, Tokyo507, Omnisine, Mystic Village and Soma Sonic.

This week, we'll look at fair-trade music. Over the past several years, three things have changed the course of popular music, for better or worse. First came the marriage of music and video and the overwhelming marketing power it presented.

This week, we'll look beyond the Lost Horizon for the mythical places, hidden and elusive. They are known by names like El Dorado, Shangri-La, Avalon, Atlantis or Utopia. Guiding our way on this episode of Idyllic music are AguaFlames, Neko Neko, Alu, Neil Smith, Indidginus and Orange Crush.

This week, we'll look at transportation. It's the getting from one place to another that takes up so much of our time whether it's physically or spiritually. So we'll explore the conventional and not so conventional ways of getting around with the help of USB, Under, Crisopa, Aquanaut and HypNo.

This week, we'll look for the lost, the secret, the rushed and hypnotic with the help of four bands who have made distinctive contributions to independent music in their home countries. They are Bluba Lu, Kalahari Surfers, QuiOui and Volfoniq.

This week, we'll look at city life and the effort it takes not to be overwhelmed by it. Taking us through the structure, disorientation, density and sanctuaries of respite are DJ Shiro, Dive Index, Confused Man, Danieto and Macrostructure.

This week, we'll look at the brusque and abrupt. It seems as if we live in a time of rapid change, speeding up yet halting in fits and jerks. It is demonstrated in the area of climate change, where the theory of abrupt, tipping point change is becoming more widely accepted. On this episode we'll hear 7 songs whose precipitous changes and Unexpected endings represent that new reality.

This week, we'll look at the One and no other. Novelist Iris Murdoch said 'The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries" It explains how years after love goes sour, you can be haunted by that failure. Accepting no substitutes this week are Blind Divine, Chris Martin, Dive Index, Countertop Hero and Lemonchill.

This week, we'll look at the blue side of love. The agonizing reappraisal that comes after infatuation with the help of Big Wheel, Kristin Mainhart, The Banjo Consorsium, Fez Dispenser, Velvet Chain and Deerfoot.

This week, we'll hear five songs by artists and musicians who have internalized the sounds of their adopted homes or stepped outside their native cultures to embrace the beats of another. They are Amanda Jayne, Virculum, Suzanne Vega, Stervhia and the Lion of Joppa Soundsystem.

This week, we'll look at sister cities. Not in any formal sense but closely related nonetheless. We have four bands and four cities whose cultural and artistic proximity could just as easily be one. They are Mavro, Chill Factor-5, Tricky and Bubblelawn.

This week, we'll look at foreknowledge and hindsight. The ability to know what might happen and inability to profit from that knowledge. Like Camus' unused train ticket found at his fatal car crash or lyrics of a song made clear over time. We'll visit that paradox with Jamdeluxe, Nihaya, Owen, Tryad, and Coil.

This week, we'll search for the empty space, the gap or missing part. A spot devoid of all things but meaning through the help of the definitive Lacunae, Aaron the cutter, DS-Art, Max Cavallera and Egon.

This week we'll look at points in time that determine an endless series of possibilities. Paths that diverge then meander back and cross again. The future may be unwritten but which future. Presenting their respective cases are Motionfield, Ecovillage, SAHR, Peach Stealing Monkeys, Waverider and Gabriel.

This week, we look at ones and zeros, the choice of on or off. Calculations for a digital age where the earthly pursuits of the past are but nostalgia. Forging on and remembering the old at Jeankal, Synthastazia dot exe, Frank Molder, Mabafu and Jah Wobble.

This week's Rorschach looks at things that might have been had we taken the time to see what was hidden in plain sight. Providing the hindsight without recrimination are Calm, Mr.S, Peeping Tom, Two Loons for Tea and Terence Blanchard.

This week, we'll look at sustainability and cooperation. One of the searing truths of the music you listen to is that it don't come easy. Musicians create and if they are good enough or plain lucky, they can take their songs on the road and sell a few tickets. Independent artists ask only a bit of cooperation from us. This podcast is entirely dependent on the bands that offer up their music for us to play for free.

This week, we'll explore the essentials. In fact, The Sun and water are the key ingredients for life, as we know it. I'd like to suppose cool music to that short list as well. We'll hear all three in the voice of Portal, Surbahar, Omihoshbin, Band of Mad Women, and The HellBus.

This week, it's the current state of electronic music. It's become the laziest handle for a genre since Alternative. For a long time it was defined as music played on synthesizers but that time has come and gone. Today's electronic music is so broad as to defy easy categorization but for one element. It is, more often than not, assembled digitally. So, we'll peer into the electronic future with the help of MoShang, Ikarus, K-Shan, The Silk Demise, The Twombley Spiders and Toneless Symphony.

Just as a sad movie can raise your spirits and the blues make you joyful sometimes being alone can be rejuvinating, This week we'll feel out the many aspcts of being alone through the music of Simone and Flu, Grove of Hellion, All About Max, Hungry Lucy, Chico Correa and Ici Aussi.

This week, we'll look at that short period between emerging from sleep to actually opening your eyes. A state of near consciousness through the music of Natalie Walker, cognitive dissonance, Karmacoda, A Weekend At Lesters, Blue Vitriol and Org.

This week, we'll examine the illusion of contact. The sheer counter-intuitiveness that on a sub-atomic level nothing actually touches anything else. Whether it's the landing of a boxer's blow or the gentle lapping of waves on a shore, contact remains elusive. On this episode we'll hear from Robert Stephan, BlackEra, Siksha, Phasen, Mark.Nine and Matera.

This week, we'll explore tongues and grooves from 5 bands who build on individual contributions to realize a vision beyond a single person. They are Chillerstadt, prod13F, Messian Dread, William Lamy and Alchemy Groove.

This week, we'll revel in elegance. To some it's an antiquated old world charm but in troubled times it really more a last stand against barbarism in all its forms. Showing their poise on this episode of Idyllic Music are Elsiane, Big Wheel, Conduct Unbecoming, Radium88 and Bitkit.

This week, we'll tour the American West, where the sunsets are purple and red and yellow and on fire. A west not of Wayne but McCarthy with a myth of epics and truths in small stories. So with a narrative bass, we'll hear the tales from Amy Abdou, Judith Owen, Beatropolis, DRY and Blip Blop.

This week, we look at the summer beach novel, preferably a mystery with clues, characters, steamy scenes and exotic locales. We'll find all that and more with the help of Indy, Compulsive Behavior, Sexmusic, Benzene Vapours and Grzyb.

This week, we'll look at home, a place both physical and emotional. Where you want to return to when away and get away from whilst there. whether your feelings are warm, cold, nostalgic or presently realistic. Everyone has a home whether they admit it to themselves or not. So we will hear from Puracane, Acid42, Mudville, Syrin, Susis Manner and Datassette.

This week,we'll look at perceptions and expectations. Bringing personal prejudice to the sensory world. The slate this week includes AMY B, The Drake Equation, Sr. Aye, Balun and Saurio.

This week we look and the ominous and foreboding. The unsettling feeling that something is about to happen. Filmmakers know the power of a soundtrack to convey this and so do the six artist on Idyllic Music this week. They include IamOpen, R. Stimpson, Zero State Reflex, USB, Scanlan and Rajaz.

This week we look at matchings, successful pairings in twos and threes through the music of Garden Hose Universe, Luminous, PNFA and Jotch, Finn The Giant Meets Sandmonk and Mr. Frendo.