Idyllic Music

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.