Tangerine Dream bring order into chaos and Jonathon Crompton maps out the coastline
Tangerine Dream were founded in West Berlin in 1967 by Edgar Froese, the band has had scores of lineup changes but is still going strong under the helm of Thorsten Quaeschning, who joined in 2005 - despite being younger than the band itself. Thorsten chats to Andy ahead of the band’s return to Australia about embracing old and new technologies, how their music puts “order into chaos”, and building setlists when they have 60 years of material to draw upon.Jonathon Crompton is a saxophonist, composer, and scholar. His new album, Cantata No. 1: An Island Seen and Felt, is a single extended work for his sax with guitar, two sopranos and a string quartet. Jon joins Andy from New York, where he’s now based, to talk about how he brought together influences from Bach, Renaissance counterpoint, and jazz to describe the Australian coastline.
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54:04
Ellen Stekert: a full life in folk music
Ellen Stekert, who is about to turn 90, has spent a lifetime in folk music. She got her first guitar at 13 (to assist with her rehab after contracting polio) and soon after high school she became enmeshed in the Greenwich Village folk scene, crossing paths with the likes of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Ellen released four albums of traditional songs in the 1950s and then focused her career on academia, teaching English, American and folklore studies.There’s been a resurgence of interest in Ellen’s life and music, thanks in large part to singer songwriter Ross Wylde. Ross has been helping Ellen to remaster her old recordings, leading to her first release in over 60 years: Go Around Songs Vol. 1. Both musicians are guests on The Music Show to talk about their deep love of folk music, their intergenerational friendship and how a Bob Dylan photograph for sale on eBay first brought them together.
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54:07
Kamasi Washington's Fearless Movement and Gregory Day's Southsightedness
Tenor saxophonist, composer and bandleader Kamasi Washington makes music that appeals to even the most avowed jazz haters. His latest album Fearless Movement puts rhythm front and centre and includes the voices of rappers alongside his signature sounds of choirs, double drum kits and pulsing horns. He speaks to Andrew ahead of his tour here next month about how fatherhood has made him hear the world differently and what drives his continual exploration across musical genres. Gregory Day is a musician and writer. His latest volume of poetry, Southsightedness, spans twenty years and draws on familiar themes of place (specifically the west coast of Victoria), and culture. He joins us to talk about his music and the sound of his poetry.
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54:06
Pokey LaFarge takes us to Rhumba Country, and the radical spirituality of Sofia Gubaidulina
Credited with “making riverboat chic cool again”, Pokey LaFarge brings his band in live to the Music Show studio. Pokey talks to Andy about how old Black gospel, his Christian faith and working on a farm have all influenced him on his latest album, Rhumba Country. Oľga Smetanová joins Andy to remember the composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who has died at the age of 93. Gubaidulina’s music has been described as “holy modernism”, which was a powerful provocation in the Soviet Union of her early career. The theological and musicological throughlines of her composition paint a dramatic picture, which Ol’ga reflects on with her knowledge of the woman herself.
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54:06
Three centuries of chamber music by women with Anna Goldsworthy, and where blues and zydeco meet
Seraphim Trio have been making chamber music together for over twenty years. Pianist Anna Goldsworthy joins Andy to talk about her relationship with violinist Helen Ayres and cellist Tim Nankervis, as well as the women composers – famous and lesser known – they have recorded as part of their new album Radiante.Originating in rural southwest Louisiana, Zydeco music is a blend of Cajun & Creole music, gospel and the blues. Dom Turner, one of Australia’s finest blues guitarists, explores the deep relationship between Zydeco and blues in a new collaboration with New Orleans accordion and harmonica player Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes. Sunpie is also the Big Chief of the Northside Skull & Bone Gang—a parade group that kicks off every Mardi Gras season by dressing as skeletons and waking people with song and dance, a New Orleans tradition that’s over 200 years old. And we remember Alan Lamb, the Perth-based composer, sound artist and GP, who has died at the age of 81. Lamb’s exploratory music included recordings of ‘singing’ telegraph wires on his outback property, an instrument he dubbed the Faraway Wind Organ. Hear Lamb talking to Andrew Ford about this work from the 2001 Classic FM/Radio National series Dots on the Landscape.
Australia