Idyllic Music

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.