| STAR'S END Fundraiser - 23 May 2010 | ||||||
The mission of STAR'S END is to preserve, encourage and broadcast the music of artists in Ambient sound - and ultimately to provide listeners with an experience that is enriching to the human spirit. Every week for well over 30 years STAR'S END creates a deep sonic atmosphere witihin which listeners establish their own personal narrative. It's a special thing. The hours of these broadcasts belong to you - and STAR'S END does want you out there listening every week, but please don't drift off too far - we also need you calling in during the fund drives!
On the 05.23.10 broadcast of STAR'S END you were asked to do more than just tune in and listen; you were asked to call in and pledge! Many Thanks to all the listeners who called in with pledges totalling over $3300. Your generous acts not only funds WXPN but also indicates that you are serious about this unique radio show and the amazing range of music it presents. We're not asking for a few people to do a lot, we're asking for a lot of people to do a little. The donations that come in during the fundraisers are so important. Thank you for tuning in, then phoning in to the STAR'S END Fundraising broadcast of 05.23.10. There were special Thank You gifts available for those calling in (please see below), including the STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology 2CD set. Through your contributions you are making an investment in the future - an investment which keeps programs like STAR'S END on the air. Thanks very much for your support! Thanks also to the phoneroom volunteers who came in to take pledges: Pat Gerlach, Jay Polack and Bud Schoefer. Thanks also to Art Cohen for on-air co-host help! -Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END - 23 May 2010 | ||||||
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Thank You Gifts
Special premiums are available for those pledging on the 05.23.10 broadcast of STAR'S END, including albums from labels Air Space Music, Synkronos Music, DiN, Northern Echo, Ricochet Dream, TP as well as the STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD from WXPN.
The premiums pictured were donated by the artist and available (in limited quantities) as thank-you gifts to those making a credit card pledge during the 05.23.10 fundraising broadcast of STAR'S END. More traditional premiums, including the STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD furnished by WXPN, were also offered during this broadcast and throughout the Winter 2010 Fund Drive.
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| Ricochet Dream - Spyra and Friends | ||||||
  
Every composer writes in the influences they grew up with. Throughout his interesting career the celebrated German synthesist Spyra has built upon a foundation of classic 1970s era Klaus Schulze as a basic inspiration, as well as 80s Prog-Rock and 90s IDM, to create a fascinating range of original Electronic Music - which takes the listener well beyond what his predecessors and contemporaries ever imagined. With each new Spyra CD we experience a new cycle of intimacy. On SeQuest (66'09") Spyra, with Chris Lang, creates an irresistibly likable Spacemusic. With its traditional virtues of melody and harmony the resplendent tone poetry may at times be airy, but never air-headed. Even spaced rhythms pulse and echo in intriguing patterns as lead lines, bold and expressive, seem to speak directly to the listener. Unafraid to be slow and sultry, on SeQuest Spyra and Lang also realize music meant to touch the heart once it has massaged the mind. Critics often miss the complexities of this music. Spyra is among the most expressive musicians working in the EM genre. The manner in which he moves through significant moods, textures and energy levels enlivens his pieces with a mysterious emotional atmosphere - within which we as listeners are grateful to be in contact. Three-Pack includes one copy each of SeQuest, Live on STAR'S END 12.06.09 and Live on STAR'S END 02.24.08 as a Thank-You for a $144.00 or $12.00/month Credit Card Pledge • Any single Ricochet Dream title for a $75.00 Credit Card Pledge | ||||||
| TP - The Tangent Project | ||||||
   
The Tangent Project plays with the internalized classicism of musicians who have been listening to Spacemusic even in their sleep. For the duo of Jeff Coulter (synthesizers, sequencers) and Harrison McKay (guitar) music best provides the visionary gateways that open on to bigger worlds. Their studio CD Surface (70'48") is a serious work that plunges the mind of the listener into deep space. An album as good as its best parts, Surface is meant to fire-up the imagination as well as comfort and inspire. Their four detailed electronic tone poems hold nothing back. While certified synth-wiz Coulter creates a foundation of shifting sonic textures and skipping sequencer runs, McKay's expressive guitar leads expand and recede. Delightfully processed and rounded, his cerebral performances move from prog-inspired virtuosity to gentle ambient sighs. The pair keeps their sonic weirdness in check with a range of airy, hallucinatory aural designs and a beautiful union of sounds. An equal amount of compositional rigor and free-form experimentation went into these four seemingly straightforward musical head-trips. Each one relates its own vivid atmosphere and mood - communicated on a cosmic scale. Surface is everything one desires from great Spacemusic: exhilarating, startlingly fresh and rewarding upon repeated listening. Three-Pack includes one copy each of Surface, Live on STAR'S END 12.06.09 and Live on STAR'S END 02.24.08 as a Thank-You for a $144.00 or $12.00/month Credit Card Pledge • The Tangent Project - any single title for a $75.00 Credit Card Pledge | ||||||
| DiN - Robert Rich & Ian Boddy | ||||||
 
For Robert Rich & Ian Boddy, their third collaboration is the result of their first live meeting. React (63'52") is a document of this duo's performance at the STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Celebration Concerts held in Philadelphia in June of 2007. The 11 tracks include live versions of pieces from their two earlier studio CDs Lithosphere (2005) and Outpost (2001), as well as new works conceived especially for their first outing. As with their previous releases, React does not merely occupy the middle ground between two talented musicians. It is a surreal, fanciful and at times intense work that provokes and impresses with its conceptual complexity. Rich's intoxicating glissando guitar and echoing flute melodies inhabit the ether while Boddy produces deep rumbling and neuron disabling effects across a shifting digital terrain. Ravaging his keyboards, sounds stretch inside out as intricate rhythms assemble, build and change. From space-tribe drumming and wet bassline punch, to soft moonlit chords and floating synth atmospheres, this work is panoramic yet detailed. Rich and Boddy move through an interior landscape with a unanimity that usually comes with years of experience - and ask the listener to stop reacting to the external world, and to explore the internal one.
• Robert Rich & Ian Boddy - React single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge | ||||||
| Northern Echo - Radio Massacre International | ||||||
With every outing, Radio Massacre International gets a chance at greatness. Their live sets are so open and undetermined that the audience, at the outset of a concert, can but wonder at their final destination. Will we be left to ponder an impenetrable negative space? or chase starlight at the edge of heaven? We get all this and more on Philadelphia Air Shot (58'39"), which was recorded live at WXPN in Philadelphia for airing on the 11.18.07 broadcast of STAR'S END. A little structure goes a long way as this session opens with a live version of "Bettr'r Days" from Rain Falls in Grey, RMI's 2007 studio album. Here we find Duncan Goddard on bass guitar (and occasionally tweaking his sequencer), Steve Dinsdale playing organ chords with one hand and drum samples with the other, and Gary Houghton leading the power trio with the bluest, most distinct, out front and lyrical electric guitar solos he has ever recorded. After out-rocking the original by several parsecs, the pop personas recede leaving us with a staccato sequencer riff. Spiraling amidst intertwining tone patterns, each line echoes in machine-like precision. Weaving the disparate strands into a cohesive whole, the sprawling epic transforms into a slow burning other worldly meditation - where the human mind is the landscape of the work. The closing moments of this piece show the softer side of this trio and we are gently left in a much different space than where we began. On Philadelphia Air Shot RMI gave it their best shot, turning in a one-off intoxicating performance. From the immediate impact of the opening movement and the rushing intensity of the sequencer centric segment that follows, to the minimalistic patterns and quiet power of the lengthy close, RMI's voyage is still a work in progress - with each concert making the journey new.
• Radio Massacre International - Philadelphia Air Shot single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge | ||||||
| Ricochet Dream - Jeffrey Koepper | ||||||
Radiate is a sonic document of Jeffrey Koepper's set at The Gatherings on 19 April 2008 and traverses much of the same territory as his two previous concert outings (on STAR'S END and opening for Steve Roach). With an emphasis on works from his CD Sequentaria (released at The Gatherings that night) the set began with some vintage phase shifted synth pads, heroic E-drums and dancing arpeggio scales. Drawing on the musical era that spawned such albums as Poland, Logos and White Eagle; Koepper ran through a fascinating range of sequencer based pieces - his full-throated lead lines soaring above. His stage set-up included several keyboards, among them vintage museum grade synths - right alongside the latest retro analogue technology. Between each of the rhythmic sections Koepper lulled the audience with deep drones and airy synthetic harmonies and effects. To close out the night, Jeff played lovely chord progressions on the Prophet-8 over a simple run of tones from the arpeggiator on the Jupiter-6. Looking back, this uncluttered and pure piece of music was a perfect way to wind the concert down - with a few quiet and intimate moments spent between the artist and audience. At The Gatherings Concert Series complex stories are often told with simple sounds. Radiate is full of these human details, spoken in the public luster of the live concert. • Jeffrey Koepper - Radiate single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge | ||||||
| Air Space Music - Jeffrey Koepper | ||||||
 
Renowned for his technical abilities and restorative powers, Jeffrey Koepper is distinguished for his work in maintaining and reviving vintage electronic music equipment. His music is realized through a mastery beyond the technical side of his craft - and alternates between analogue bubbles and digital ice, and bright, smooth, spacious tonal landscapes. Applying his vast technical knowledge of music making equipment towards programming evocative ethereal sounds and strong rhythmic designs, Koepper produces music of impressive depth and rare intelligence. • Jeffrey Koepper - any single title for a $75.00 Credit Card Pledge | ||||||
| Synkronos Music - The Ministry of Inside Things | ||||||
   
The Philadelphia based Spacemusic duo The Ministry of Inside Things exist outside the confines of the recording studio and in the realm of the live performance. As MoIT, Art Cohen (guitar) and Chuck van Zyl (synths) continue a tradition of bringing an otherwise methodical studio based artform out into the spontaneity of the performance environment. Their third CD Ambient Elsewhere feels dark and isolated when compared to their two earlier releases. While Everlasting Moment explored the edges, dynamics and tension of space and atmosphere, and Contact Point embraced the more unified themes of cosmic, biospheric and macrocosmic interaction, Ambient Elsewhere moves through a strange new territory in-between and outside of traditional Spacemusic. Drawn from a range of chilling themes, this album sonifies wintertime, desolate landscapes and the midnight of the soul. Moving through the timbral badlands of the empty quarter, their music offers up a courageous intimacy. Always bringing their own influences and innovation to the music process, MoIT produces a sound that is uniquely individual and personal. • Synkronos Music Label Three-Pack includes one copy each of Ambient Elsewhere (2CD), Contact Point and Everlasting Moment (2CD) by The Ministry of Inside things as a Thank-You for a $144.00 or $12.00/month Credit Card Pledge • The Ministry of Inside Things - any single title for a $75.00 Credit Card Pledge | ||||||
| STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD | ||||||
To mark 30 years of continuous broadcast of STAR'S END, WXPN has released the STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD. This double CD contains over 120 minutes of live music from 11 renowned artists. The unique performances were culled from on-air in-studio radio concerts by some of our community's greatest talents. Included on the disc are previously unreleased live selections donated by: The Ministry of Inside Things, Orbital Decay, Ian Boddy, AirSculpture, Radio Massacre International, Robert Rich, Rudy Adrian, Jonn Serrie, Jeff Pearce, Saul Stokes and Steve Roach.
The STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD is available for a $60 donation to WXPN, which includes membership and all of its benefits. Current WXPN members can receive the STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD for a $25 donation. Access the online Pledge Form to support WXPN and aquire your CD. Please indicate "STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD" in the comments box. Call 1-800-565-WXPN or send an email to WXPN Member Services for details. CDs are currently being sent out to donors by the WXPN Membership Department - which may be reached by telephone at: 1-800-565-WXPN or via email. Thanks very much for your support!
STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Celebration
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