WDIY's Space Music Program airs every Thursday at 11:04 pm.
|
Michael Brückner produces electronic music in a wide variety of styles, concentrating on
Berlin School, ambient, and drone. A self-managing artist, he has created more than 120 albums
since 1992, most of which can be ordered directly from him or via his Bandcamp page.
Since 2012, a number of his albums have been released by independent labels such as SynGate, Klangwirkstoff, Aural Films, BI-ZA Records, and Winter-Light. He has also performed in a number of European electronic music festivals. Michael is also involved in collaborations with other artists like Detlev Everling, Alien Nature, Mathias Brüssel, Cousin Silas, Mathias Grassow, Rebekkah Hilgraves, Harald Bertram, and Lutz Thuns. His collaborations include several long term projects: B4 SUNRISE, La Mansarde Hérmetique, Betzler and Brückner, and Bridge To Imla. Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. Click this banner for the Special Focus listing on WDIY's website.  |
|
|
You can find the artist at these social networks:
|
| Date | Album | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 01/04 | Astronauts Volume 2 disk 1 | Aural Films |
| 01/11 | Astronauts Volume 2 disk 2 | Aural Films |
| 01/18 | Astronauts Volume 2 disk 3 | Aural Films |
| 01/25 | Test of Time | SynGate |
Here is the
Top 20 Monthly Report for January
|
|
Mathias Grassow is a prolific composer who specializes in ambient music. His deep minimalist
style makes him a master of drones, creating music that is drifting and expansive.
Mathias is fond of collaborations and has done projects with Jim Cole (Spectral
Voices), Amir Baghiri, Klaus Wiese (ex-Popul Vuh), and Michael Brückner, to name a few.
Musically active since 1980, Mathias trained at Synthesizer Studio Jacob in Wiesbaden during the early '80s. In 1986, Mathias released his first cassette followed by his first CD in 1990. Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. Click this banner for the Special Focus listing on WDIY's website. |
|
|
|
You can find the artist at these social networks:
|
| Date | Album |
|---|---|
| 02/01 | Ambience |
| 02/08 | Namakar |
| 02/15 | Lanzarote Spirits |
| 02/22 | Psychic Dome |
| 02/29 | In Search of Sanity |
|
Here is the
Top 20 Monthly Report for February
|
|
Mark Jenkins has been described by Eurock Magazine as "the master synth musician in the UK."
His music is influenced by that of Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Jan Hammer, Mike Oldfield,
Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Richard Pinhas & Heldon, Yanni, John Tesh, Karlheinz
Stockhausen, Brian Eno, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Rick Wakeman,
Pink Floyd, Can, Neu!, Kraftwerk, Enigma, Deep Forest & Ash Ra Tempel. Many of his albums
include themes of space travel, cosmology, science fiction, ecology and exploration. He
recently became the first British musician to perform at the Greenwich Planetarium in
London and has performed throughout Europe and in the USA, Brazil, China and Russia.
Mark is influenced by the authors Iain M. Banks, Larry Niven and Richard Dawkins, and by movies including the Babylon 5 cycle and 2001: A Space Odyssey. He is an internationally published author on the subjects of music and media technology and is the editor of the online media magazine EMIX. Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. Click this banner for the Special Focus listing on WDIY's website. |
|
|
You can find the artist at this social network:
|
| Date | Album |
|---|---|
| 03/07 | Modular Sessions 11: The Spirit of Heldon |
| 03/14 | Modular Sessions 12: Live in the USA disk 1 |
| 03/21 | Modular Sessions 19: Live in the USA disk 2 |
| 03/28 | Modular Sessions 20: Superhero Landing |
|
Here is the
Top 20 Monthly Report for March
|
|
Robert released his first album Sunyata in 1982. Most of his subsequent
recordings came out in Europe until 1989, when Robert began a string of
critically acclaimed releases for Fathom/Hearts of Space, including
Rainforest (1989), Gaudi (1991), Propagation (1994) and Seven Veils
(1998). His two collaborations with Steve Roach, Strata (1990) and
Soma (1992), both charted for several months in Billboard. Other
respected collaborations include Stalker (1995 with B. Lustmord),
Fissures (1997 with Alio Die) and Outpost (2002 with Ian Boddy).
Robert's contributions to multi-artist compilations have been collected
on his solo albums A Troubled Resting Place (1996) and Below Zero
(1998). His group, Amoeba, explored atmospheric songcraft on their
CDs Watchful (1997) and Pivot (2000). Live albums such as Calling Down
the Sky (2004) and 3-CD Humidity (2000) document the unique improvised
flow of his performances.
Robert has performed in caves, cathedrals, planetaria, art galleries and concert halls throughout Europe and North America. His all-night Sleep Concerts, first performed in 1982, became legendary in the San Francisco area. In 1996 he revived his all-night concert format, playing Sleep Concerts for live and radio audiences across the U.S. during a three month tour. One of those concerts was WDIY's first over night broadcast. In 2001 Robert released the 7 hour DVD Somnium, a studio distillation of the Sleep Concert experience, possibly the longest continuous piece of music ever released at the time. It's worldwide radio premier was on Galactic Travels. Robert has designed sounds for television and film scores, including the films Pitch Black, Crazy Beautiful, Behind Enemy Lines and others. His musical scores grace films by Yahia Mehamdi (Thank you for your Patience, 2003) and Daniel Colvin (Atlas Dei, 2007, with 90 minutes of Robert's music in surround); and a video installation by Michael Somoroff (Illumination, 2007). Rich works closely with electronic instrument manufacturers, and his sound design has filled preset libraries of Emu's Proteus 3 and Morpheus, Seer Systems' Reality, sampling disks Things that Go Bump in the Night, ACID Loop Library Liquid Planet, WayOutWare's TimewARP2600, and synths by Camel Audio. Rich has written software for composers who work in just intonation, and he helped develop the MIDI microtuning specification. As mastering engineer and mixer, he has applied his ear to albums in all styles, and his studio was featured twice in Keyboard Magazine, and elsewhere worldwide. Robert has been featured on this program since the very first episode. Since then, his music has graced the 1000th broadcast as well as the worldwide radio premier of his seven hour epic, Somnium, played in its entirety. Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. Click this banner for the Special Focus listing on WDIY's website. |
|
|
You can find the artist at these social networks:
|
| Date | Album | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 04/04 | Rainforest | Hearts of Space |
| 04/11 | Yearning with Lisa Moskow | Fathom |
| 04/18 | Shamballa | Space for Music |
| 04/25 | Strata with Steve Roach | Hearts of Space |
|
Here is the
Top 20 Monthly Report for Apr
|
|
Ambient and electronic music / Musique ambiante et électronique
English: Between ambient, atmospheric and electronic, the music of Mutagénèse explores sound textures. The musical roots of Mutagénèse comes mainly from the Berlin school, but also from artists like Jean-Michel Jarre, Steve Roach, Brian Eno, Future Sound of London and Autechre. Français: Variant entre l'ambiant, l'atmosphérique et l'électronique, la musique de Mutagénèse explore les textures sonores. Les racines musicales de Mutagénèse proviennent principalement de l'école de Berlin, mais aussi d'artistes comme Jean-Michel Jarre, Steve Roach, Brian Eno, Future Sound of London et Autechre. Mutagénèse is François Vallières of Quebec, Canada. Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. Click this banner for the Special Focus listing on WDIY's website. |
|
You can find the artist at these social networks:
|
| Date | Album | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 05/02 | Errance Planétaire | none |
| 05/09 | Exploration Spatiale | none |
| 05/16 | Ganymede | none |
| 05/23 | Microcosm | SynGate |
| 05/30 | Voices | SynGate |
|
Here is the
Top 20 Monthly Report for May
|
|
Based in Toronto and tangled in patch cables, dreamSTATE's Scott McGregor Moore (Scott M2)
and Jamie Todd submerge in the studio, creating their evolving sound environments with a
collection of vintage and modern synthesizers. Their first public expression of their
electronic explorations was an ambient soundscape installation in 1996. This ever-changing,
multi-speaker creation played continuously for six months at The H5 Project, a holographic
art gallery in Toronto.
dreamSTATE's first CD release was in 1998 and they have performed at the World Electronic Music Festival, Interference Orange, THE AMBiENT PiNG, and the Junction Arts Festival to name just a few. Still working in the deep end of the ambient pool, dreamSTATE remain active ambient and electronic music performers. Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. Click this banner for the Special Focus listing on WDIY's website. |
You can find the artist at these social networks:
|
| Date | Album | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 06/06 | Passage | e-Space Recordings |
| 06/13 | A Decade of Dreaming | e-Space Recordings |
| 06/20 | Drone Day | e-Space Recordings |
| 06/27 | Stone Shore with Heiki Sillaste | paper+sound |
|
Here is the
Top 20 Monthly Report for June
|
|
Dino Frank Pacifici of Montreal began his musical studies at the age of five, concentrating on
classical guitar and began composing at the age of 13. Dee received his Bachelor's Degree in
Fine Arts (music) from Concordia University.
Grounded in ambient and chillout music with a jazz influence, Dee writes Pop-Oriented and Dance music and plays in local bands. Dee has spent many years studying, recording, and performing live in which he continuously expands his musical horizons becoming proficient with bass, keyboards, programming of electronic instruments, as well as his first love the guitar. His compositions include recordings of ambient/space and chillout/jazz albums. In 1997, Dee released "The Journey" which began his adventure into recording ambient/space compositions. To date, Dee recorded over 25 albums in many genres, including Smooth Jazz, Ambient, Space, Chill-Out, Rock, Pop, and Dance. Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. Click this banner for the Special Focus listing on WDIY's website. |
|
You can find the artist at these social networks:
|
| Date | Album |
|---|---|
| 07/04 | New Earth |
| 07/11 | Geo-Ambient Excursions |
| 07/18 | Kinetic N-R-GEE |
| 07/25 | A Boat Without Oars |
|
Here is the
Top 20 Monthly Report for July
|
|
La Mansarde Hermétique (The Hermetic Attic) was founded in 2013. It is the
electronic improvisation project of Mathias Brüssel and Michael
Brückner. Both are electronica and ambient artists from Mainz, Germany,
and are involved in solo projects and other collaborations. They have been active
in the German ambient and electronic music scene for more than 25 years.
Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. Click this banner for the Special Focus listing on WDIY's website. |
You can find the artist at these social networks:
|
| Date | Album |
|---|---|
| 08/01 | The Attic Diaries Episode 1 |
| 08/08 | The Attic Diaries Episode 2 |
| 08/15 | The Attic Diaries Episode 3 |
| 08/22 | The Attic Diaries Episode 4 |
| 08/29 | The Attic Diaries Episode 5 |
|
Here is the
Top 20 Monthly Report for June
|
|
Alias Zone is Chris Meyer of LearningModular.com. He fell in love with electronics at the
age of six and with electronic music at the age of ten. As a teenager in the 1970s,
Chris took lessons on piano, bass, and modular synthesizers, wanting to learn how to
emulate the music he heard on albums by Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Wendy Carlos,
and others.
Not wanting to be just another starving musician, Chris hatched a plan to get an engineering degree so he could afford these toys. Just a year out of college, he landed a job with synthesizer manufacturer Sequential Circuits, where he worked on numerous instruments and created a technique known as Vector Synthesis. He went on to work for Digidesign, Marion Systems (Tom Oberheim), and eventually became chief engineer at Roland R&D US. On the side, Chris taught synthesis at UCLA Extension, wrote numerous articles for Music Technology Magazine plus a column for Keyboard, and was technical chairman of the MIDI Manufacturers Association where he created and championed numerous extensions to the MIDI specification. In addition to designing instruments, Chris also used them, playing with Richard Bugg's ensemble Cosmic Debris in the Los Angeles area in the 1990s. He took his favorite performances with this ensemble and reworked them to release the first Alias Zone album "Lucid Dreams" in 2001. It debuted at #1 on the relevant college radio charts, and went on to win the AFIM award for best independent electronic/new age release in 2002. By then, Chris had moved from the music industry to creating graphics for video and film. This distraction eventually pried him away from music until 2015, when he asked himself what did he enjoy most in life? The answer: creating sound. Chris embarked on his return to music by creating LearningModular.com to teach others how to use modular synthesizers. Originally creations of the 1960s and 70s, modular synths were back in vogue again, but few musicians had a solid grounding in the fundamentals of how to use them. This work eventually led to Chris co-authoring with Kim Bjørn the now-classic book, Patch & Tweak: Exploring Modular Synthesis. Now Chris is applying his past and new experiences to create music again, still under the name Alias Zone. Today Chris is primarily a solo act, with the modular synthesizer being the core of his personal “orchestra.” He combines the modular with other instruments ranging from polyphonic digital synthesizers to primitive hand percussion to virtual instruments in the computer, along with guest performances by friends. The result is a fusing of the past and future into brand new synthetic yet still organic soundscapes, each with an underlying story. Click on the name or logo above to go to the artist's web site. Click this banner for the Special Focus listing on WDIY's website. |
You can find the artist at these social networks:
|
| Date | Album |
|---|---|
| 09/05 | Lucid Dreams |
| 09/12 | We Only Came to Dream |
| 09/19 | Water Stories |
| 09/26 | Finite Space |
|
Here is the
Top 20 Monthly Report for September
|
|
Modulator Experimental Synthesis Project (Modulator ESP) is Jez
Creek from Nottingham in the UK. He performs improvised music that
explores the boundaries of dark ambient, drone, Berlin School
sequencing, and noise using modular synthesis, real-time sampling,
sound manipulation, and live looping.
Modulator ESP has been described variously as "vintage synth overload to propel you into the outer reaches of the cosmos" and "one man will descend to (this) earth in a hail of analogue synth tones; called upon from the singular consciousness of John Carpenter and Vangelis - like a 2046 dystopian dream with the optimism of Jean Michael Jarre, and his penguins." When Modulator ESP discovered that there was more to EM than TD, Jarre, Pickford and Shreeve by finding bands like Arc, RMI, Redshift, Airsculpture, and Arcane, bands that were doing a more retro-styled improvisational take on EM, it came as a revelation to him. One of the reasons he'd left the band he was in was because he wanted to do something a bit more freeform. He knew he still wanted to play live but without playing along to pre-programmed, structured backing tracks. Things started to snowball when he discovered certain synthesizers, both hardware and software, step sequencing, and delay processors. Modulator ESP loves playing synths because he loves the electronic, synthetic, other worldly nature of the sounds. This makes Ambient, Berlin School EM the best style for his interests. Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. |
|
Modulator ESP has been a Special Focus on Galactic Travels™ before: |
|
You can also visit the artist on these social networks:
|
| Date | Title |
|---|---|
| 10/03 | Electro Positronic Systems |
| 10/10 | The Mind Caged |
| 10/17 | Signals from the Earth |
| 10/24 | Entrancing Elemental Energies |
| 10/31 | Cymatic Structures |
|
Here is the
Top 20 Monthly Report for October
|
|
The gradual development of vidnaObmana from an industrial sound sculptor in 1984
to an artist equally at home in the world of electronica and contemporary composition
has been a full dimensional story that came to a close in 2005. (Or did it?) Over the
course of more than 25 years, Dirk Serries influenced the gradual growth of
ambient music from nothing but a fleeting idea by Brian Eno to an established and
challenging genre, record the classic The River Of Appearance, write a soundtrack for
the giant aquarium of the Antwerp Zoo, and work with the likes of Steve Roach, Steven
Wilson, and a symphonic orchestra. Most of all, he would demonstrate that stylistic
limitations are purely rooted in a lack of imagination. Into The Heart Of The Eternal
captures vidnaObmana in the mid-years of his creative arc when recording for Projekt.
The digital-only release gives the listener a journey into the mind of this composer,
demonstrating how his sonic world remains a unique voice in the electronic music scene.
At this point in time, digital reissues of previously deleted albums, live recordings, unreleased music and rare compilation tracks, carefully selected from the vaults of vidnaObmana and made possible by Projekt Records are being released exclusively on iTunes, including the albums being featured this month on Galactic Travels™ as well as Landscape In Obscurity. Based in Belgium, artist Dirk Serries continues his musical journey. For more information on his current endeavors, please visit dirkserries.com. Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. |
|
vidnaObmana has been a Special Focus on Galactic Travels™ before: |
|
You can also visit the artist on these social networks:
|
| Date | Title |
|---|---|
| 11/07 | The Surreal Sanctuary |
| 11/14 | The Contemporary Nocturne |
| 11/21 | Soundtrack for the Aquarium disc 1 |
| 11/28 | Soundtrack for the Aquarium disc 2 |
| Here is the Top 20 Monthly Report for November. |
|
Mario Schönwälder and Thomas Fanger combine their passion for Berlin
School music and the classic sound of analog synthesizers to create
the Analog Overdose series of albums previously featured on this program.
Thomas Fanger is fascinated and inspired by the minimalistic music of Terry Riley and the usual suspects from Germany like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Can. He started making electronic music in 1978. In the 1990s, Thomas returned to his hypnotic and minimalistic electronic roots. Mario Schönwälder started autodidactic experiments in 1984 on a Korg MS20 synthesizer and a Korg SQ10 sequencer. He founded Manikin Records in 1992 which has released well over 100 titles by artists such as Ashra, Klaus Schulze, Rolf Trostel, Edgar Froese, and many more. With Bas Broekhuis and Detlef Keller, he is part of the BK&S trio. Thomas Fanger and Mario Schönwälder started their musical liaison in 1999, playing lots of live gigs in and around Berlin. They created the Analog Overdose saga which continues in weeks three and four of this month. Click on the name or photo above to go to the artist's web site. |
|
Fanger & Schönwälder have been a Special Focus on Galactic Travels™ before: |
|
You can also visit the artist on this social network:
|
| Date | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 12/05 | Stromschlag | Manikin |
| 12/12 | Earshot | Manikin |
| 12/19 | Analog Overdose in the Applebaum Nebula |
Ricochet Dream |
| 12/26 | Analog Overdose 5 | Manikin |
 |
is on these social networks:
|
| Last year <--Adjacent Years of Special Focus Logs--> Next year |