View from my perch

Echoes: A Music Soundscape

Some of the music I most enjoy comes from Echoes. To borrow directly from Echoes' "Intro" page :

"Echoes is a daily two-hour music soundscape, distributed by Public Radio International and broadcast on over 150 radio stations from Maine to California. With host John Diliberto, a writer for Billboard, Pulse and other magazines, Echoes brings together a wide array of styles, from acoustic to electronic, jazz to space music, the avant-garde to rock. Echoes is a sound that is cross-cultural and trans-millennial, merging cultures and forms, technology and tradition, the ancient past and the possible future."

While it is available as a radio broadcast from remotely located PRI radio stations, none are in my little corner of the world, the greater Los Angeles area. So I pony-up for the on-line subscription. Have a listen sometime, and see if you think it's worth it. (Hint: Several of the radio stations also broadcast on the Internet, e.g. via iTunes and/or their own web sites.)

Strange & Beautiful

New CD for my collection: Strange & Beautiful, by Aqualung. I first got hooked by track "Brighter than Sunshine", which I admit, I heard on Grey's Anatomy. Yes, on TV. Besides "Brighter than Sunshine" and the title track, I also like "Falling Out Of Love". Perhaps the rest will grow on me faster than moss.

Aqualung is, of course, also a song by Jethro Tull. And the name Jethro Tull is, perhaps of course, the name of a figure from early English agriculture. According to EB, he was the "English agronomist, agriculturist, writer, and inventor whose ideas helped form the basis of modern British agriculture". And being that early -- 1701 and later -- he was planting seeds for agricultural methods in the wider British Empire as well, a piece of which became America.

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Tull, Jethro. (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9073727

Llano Estacado

The Llano Estacado is one of the largest flat, near-featureless regions of terrain in the U.S. It occupies part of west Texas and eastern New Mexico. Spanish for "Staked Plains", it was so-named because early Spanish explorers put stakes in the ground to avoid losing their way.

A USGS webpage provides an interesting map and description. The page is part of the USGS's "Tapestry of Time and Terrain" website which features a union of two maps, a color-coded geologic map with a shaded-relief topographic map, of the continental United States. Fascinating for map and geology fans.

I first heard the phase "Llano Estacado" in the lyrics of a song by singer-songwriter  Michael Tomlinson. I thought it was "the yawn oh was staccato" for some time. Staccato yawning sounds like a symptom of some sleeping disorder.

Chris

While channel-cruising TV a few days ago I came across the movie The Falcon and the Snowman already in progress and watched it to the end. In the soundtrack I recognized music which I have always liked but could never identify. Consequently the latest addition to my CD collection is:

The Falcon and the Snowman: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Pat Metheny Group, also featuring Davie Bowie on "This is Not America"
c 1985 EMI-Manhattan records and David Bowie

I particularly like the track "Chris", as in Christoper John Boyce, the main character.

Just a few more CDs

Recent additions to my CD collection:

• Pat Metheny Group. The Way Up.
  Nonesuch Records Inc. c2005 Metheny Group Productions.
• Solar Fields. Leaving Home.
  Ultimae Records, c2005.
• Brian Eno. Ambient 1: Music for Airports.
  Virgin Records Ltd., c2004.