Friday, December 9, 2016

Lots from Steve Hauschildt!

Hi everyone,

OK, so I don't often find someone new that interests me as much as my old school favorites like Shpongle, Boards of Canada, Future Sound of London, and the like. But this Cleveland ambient composer Steve Hauschildt is someone I happened to hear at a party recently, and blew me away. His music is beautiful, moody, contemplative, sometimes rears up and kicks out some noise.

I am featuring his 2015 album, Where All is Fled, & his just-released Strands. He used to be in a group called Emeralds but, to be honest, they didn't catch my ear even close to how much his solo work has. Two hours of pleasure await ya. I think this is my last show for 2016, so I'll just say now: best of wishes to everyone for the new year. Eat good food! Listen to happy music! :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, December 2, 2016

FSOL: Environment Six!

Hi everyone,

I'm really excited to share Future Sound of London's new release, Environment Six. I love electronica, but I freely admit what I mean is I love some of what's released. Melodic, funky, mysterious, compelling music. Not the boring, samey, repetitive stuff that is most of what is heard at clubs and raves. FSOL gets that striving to make good music is hard, special work, and their sound is unique and lots of fun. So enjoy!

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, November 18, 2016

Moby - Long Ambients 1 Calm. Sleep. (Part 2)

Hi everyone,

The rest of that wonderful Moby album. Life seems to be getting scarier week by week. Worry, act, but sometimes just turn it off and flow away...

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Moby - Long Ambients 1 Calm. Sleep. (Part 1)

Hi everyone,

I didn't realize when I picked this album how much calm would be needed. But then the November 8th US election came and went, and here it is, later. If you can, sink into this peaceful, salving music for a couple of hours.

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, November 4, 2016

The Orb's COW / Chill Out, World!

Hi everyone,

I love me some Orb, always have. Darker or lighter in mood and feeling, these guys know how to find a groove and follow it all sorts of cool places. So there is their new album, and I want to quote here what Allmusic.com says about it:

Ambient techno legends the Orb spent much of 2016 touring the world to commemorate the 25th anniversary of their seminal debut album, The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld. During their travels, they engaged in several impromptu recording sessions, piecing together field recordings captured on tour, samples from records found at thrift stores, and highlights from their gigs.

So this is one of those albums put together while on tour, which sometimes works out really well, because the artists are in the creative head, and things just kind of cohere in new ways. This album is really fun. Super smart groovy fun. The sounds of a band really working together, inspired and delighted. Enjoy!

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, October 14, 2016

Grouper: 3 Glorious Hours!

Hi everyone,

Grouper is new to me, the project of a California artist named Liz Harris. But after my last two shows, I wanted to find something ambient & fresh to my ears, & I ran into her work. Her music is dreamy, & her voice is gorgeous. I talked management into letting me put on a 3-hour show of her work. So this is one where you get real comfy, shut the curtains, smoke em if you got em, & let Grouper be your guide. You'll enjoy the journey :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, October 7, 2016

Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys!

Hi everyone,

Bill Monroe was something pretty unique in music. He "invented" bluegrass music, which is a folk music involving improvising on a melody, each instrument taking a turn while the others accompany. Sounds all egghead there, but it's really just a good time acoustic dancing music that I would argue gets folks as crazy dancing as any good rave out there. That's why I like it.

Monroe pulled together this new style from older ones, and his Blue Grass Boys took it on the road for years and years in the years around and after WWII. An hour of these tunes, and you will be panting with glee!

Oh, and I think next time back to the electric stuff. But this show and the last one were totally worth the detour! :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, September 23, 2016

Show #100: Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys!!!

Hi everyone,

Wow, 100 shows in nearly 8 years on the air. Never woulda thunk it :)

This 100th episode is, I guess, for me, but to share too. When I was little, long before I knew about Boards of Canada or Shpongle or Orbital or John Zorn or ANYBODY, I found in the attic a record called For the Last Time by Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys (from 1974). I had a phonograph that nobody was using, and this was the first record I had for it.

I loved his yelps and yodels when he was excited. I loved his band. Happy songs, sad songs, all made to dance to. So I danced up in that attic a lot of days, by myself. Maybe people heard me and let me be. I don't know. But I think my love of music, like the kind of love that sticks deep and stays, began with Bob Wills.

It was his last record. He was old and sick, and he fell into a coma after the first day of recording with his old band that he had summoned for one more session. The next day, these old friends finished the record for him.

I didn't know any of this. I heard only love and happiness in it all. That's the part I think he wanted most to share.

For fun, I added some songs to fill out the hour from his glory days back in the '40s. Enjoy :) And thanks for listening. I feel so lucky to have a show!

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, September 9, 2016

For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)

Hi everyone,

Heurco S.'s new album is an ambient delight, swooping and floating dreamily along for nearly an hour. I did take the liberty is mixing the tracks deeper, but I think that was a good move, at least for this show. Enjoy!

PeaceNstarZ

Saturday, August 20, 2016

FatBoy Slim's You've Come a Long Way, Baby!

Hi everyone,

The title of this album is taken, I think, from the old Virginia Slims cigarette ad. Something about women's lib in the 1970s. Our right to get cancer with our own special cigarette, or something.

Anyway, this album just kind of defies description, save it will bounce into your heart and your dancing shoes and get you up and moving along! :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, August 12, 2016

Ian William Craig - Meaning Turns To Whispers


Hi everyone,

Here's a good description from IWC's website of this great 2012 record: "Meaning Turns to Whispers is a combination of piano improvisations and FM feedback loops, recorded over various winters in the last three years or so, and edited down/manipulated/degraded to reveal some of their hidden spaces."

It's a dark, grainy, dreamy record, old and timeless in its feel. I found it somewhat randomly, and have been enjoying ever since. I hope you do too!

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, July 29, 2016

Portishead Live!

Hi everyone,

As a follow up to my Portishead show from a couple of weeks ago, this show features them live back in 1997 and 1998. The album was called Roseland NYC Live, but some of the songs were also from San Francisco and Norway. They also have an orchestra with them. It's well done, great fun, and a good way to turn on someone new to their music. Give it a try! :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Portishead!!

Hi everyone,

This week's show is an extra long one (thanks for kind management) which features the three albums so far released by trip-hoppers Portishead. Their 1994 debut, Dummy; their 1997 album, Portishead; & their recent 2008 release, Third.

They are hard to describe easily because their music feels both organic and electronic, passionate and detachedly mysterious. But give them a listen and see if you don't decide to stick around till the end :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, June 3, 2016

John Zorn's Flaga: The Book Of Angels Volume 27!

Hi everyone,


So my show has featured John Zorn quite often. And John Zorn has been putting out "Masada" volumes for awhile. This new volume features the piano trio of Craig Taborn, Christian McBride, and Tyshawn Sorey.

Zorn said about his project: "The idea with Masada is to produce a sort of radical Jewish music, a new Jewish music which is not the traditional one in a different arrangement, but music for the Jews of today. The idea is to put Ornette Coleman and the Jewish scales together."

I can say, as more of a mystical psychedelic pagan than anything else, that Zorn's music is beautiful beyond religions, beyond naming, beyond any hindrances to anyone listening and loving it much. Give it a try!

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, May 27, 2016

Chemical Brothers: Surrender . . . Come With Us!

Hi everyone,

Some groups you keep coming back to, and some of their albums are like touchstones to your life's memories. But sometimes the music is so good that sentiment is only a small part of the reason you like a record. I loved The Chemical Brothers from their first album, 1995's Exit Planet Dust. Their music is exciting, smart, danceable, very very groovy.

But of their bunch I think 1999's Surrender & 2002's Come With Us hold a special place for me. It's like they invented this corner where electronica, folk, rock, & groovy weirdness met, & then they made a whole lot of fucking awesome music at this corner.

It's a two-hour show, ends with a nod to da boss, who seems to let me get away with whatever indulgence I want. But, man! It's the Chems! They're fantastic! :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, April 8, 2016

Underworld's Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future

Hi everyone,

Underworld has been around a long time, and some people feels bands that have done that lose their magic at some point and just slog anyway. But this British duo have made another great album. Deep grooves, sweet melodies, everything danceable as it gets. A surprise and a pleasure, and yet not a surprise! :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, March 25, 2016

Circles Around The Sun's Interludes for the Dead, Part 2

Hi everyone,

Here is the rest of Circle Around the Sun's great recent album. Hope you enjoy it! :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Friday, March 4, 2016

Circles Around The Sun's Interludes for the Dead, Part 1

Hi everyone,

Here is Allmusic.com's description for this show's featured music:


Circles Around the Sun isn't a band so much as a project; one that served a specific purpose. Neal Casal, guitarist for the Chris Robinson Brotherhood--and occasional member of Phil Lesh & Friends-- was approached by Justin Kreutzmann to provide five hours of music to accompany his visuals that would play during the intermissions of the Grateful Dead's 50th anniversary sendoff "Fare Thee Well" concerts. 

Casal enlisted keyboardist Adam MacDougall (a fellow member of the Robinson Brotherhood and Lesh's bands), bassist Dan Horne (Beachwood Sparks, Jonathan Wilson), and drummer Mark Levy (the Congress) to that end. They walked into a studio with engineer J.P. Hesser having nothing prepared, spent two days recording live, and left with their mission accomplished. No overdubs were added during post-production. Concert attendees were so responsive to what they heard that Rhino decided to assemble this double disc.

That all said, I think the bottom line here is that this music grooves seriously hard & well. It's easy to imagine some kind of loopy, trippy visuals accompanying, & a lot of Deadheads swaying between sets, but none of that matters so much as this is really good music! I hope these guys make some more.

The rest of this album next show :)


PeaceNstarZ,
V

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Moby's Play!

Hi everyone,

This show features Moby's brilliant 1999 album, Play. I remember it was a kind of grey gloomy day in Boulder, where I was passing time majoring in Art History, a degree never finished, when I was walking down the side-street there, & there was a hidden record store I'd never seen, & I had not heard music awhile, so why not? His album was in a big display up front, & the silly cover charmed me.

I kept this record in my bag for weeks, forgetting to listen to it, until this one Saturday night, when I was pretty sure I was leaving Boulder for parts unknown, & was trying to find my favorite little pipe, in my bag, & there it was. Pipe & Moby cheered me up for the first time in weeks, & I knew that what I didn't know was nonetheless going to be OK. Hence, my personal affection for this great, great album. Enjoy :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V

Saturday, January 16, 2016

BT's Electronic Opus!

Hi everyone,

BT (stage name for Brian Transeau) has been doing epic house music since the 90s. I don't listen to him too often, but his 2015 release caught my ear because it is his music played together with an orchestra. The result is like something classical, that you can kind of groove to. It's worth yer ears' time! :)

PeaceNstarZ,
V