Winter Fundraiser : 12 February 2017

STAR'S END Fundraiser - 12 February 2017
One of the problems with commercial music is that at some point the artist realizes that they cannot go any further in a new direction without alienating their audience, and their record company - which has resulted in the stagnation of the genre. As Electronic Music has no real economic mandate, it can flex, expand and contract in natural and often unpredictable ways. We have been hearing examples of this creativity every weekend on STAR'S END for over 40 years. This music does not necessarily reflect a bigger world, but rather a bigger inner-world. It's a weekly deep-dive into your own psyche - where the ridiculously small universe of everyday life turns into a vast open expanse. STAR'S END is also dependably listenable. Within each broadcast we find ourselves connecting to many musical moments - places where we may feel encouraged or saved. STAR'S END is a digital immigrant. It can remember a time before The Internet, smart phones and digital files. STAR'S END also remembers how time spent away from external stimulation and demands is time spent working to develop the self. If you are a STAR'S END listener, then you are unique, enlightened, and reassured by the power of this music - and most certainly comprehend the part you play in this quietly amazing effort. Giving to public radio is not a meaningless gesture. In making a contribution you are living up to your responsibility as a listener. So, this weekend... will you be just a witness? or will you be an actor - one who commits to our complex endeavor. Let's please keep this wonderful thing going - and in our listening space every week. Sincere Thanks to everyone who tuned in, and then phoned in with a donation to the WXPN/STAR'S END Winter Fundraising broadcast of 02.12.17. Thank You for your generosity and support. From 61 callers we received $6895 in donations. Many Thanks! Please Note: The 02.12.17 broadcast of STAR'S END offered Special Thank You Gifts available to those calling in with a donation made using a valid credit card. Many Thanks to all the artists and labels who pitched in their resources to help STAR'S END with fundraising, and of course, Sincere Thanks to all the listeners who called in with a donation. -Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END - 12 February 2017
Thank You Gifts Special premiums were available for those donating by phone on the 02.12.17 broadcast of STAR'S END, including albums from labels/artists DiN, Saul Stokes, Slobor Media, Hollan Holmes, Ombient, Projekt, Guitar Pilots and Relapse. The CD premiums pictured were donated by the artist/label and available (in limited quantities) as thank-you gifts to those making a credit card pledge by phone during the 02.12.17 fundraising broadcast of STAR'S END. More traditional premiums furnished by WXPN were also offered during this broadcast and throughout the Winter 2017 Fund Drive.
STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD
To mark 30 years of continuous broadcast of STAR'S END, WXPN 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 was thought to be out of print. However, a limited number have recently been discovered, and made available to STAR'S END donors. • STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD - double CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Originally Released in 2007 by WXPN STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Celebration STAR'S END 30th Anniversary CD Anthology (includes audio excerpts)
Up & Out by Guitar Pilots
Resisting the digital dark of the laptop set, Art Cohen and Scott Watkins get in touch with the currents of creativity by way of the currents of electricity running through their guitars. Their duo Guitar Pilots has realized a profound double CD showcasing a unique and singular vision. Up and Out demonstrates that the hand moves faster than the thought, as it celebrates the messy vitality of creative collaboration. Featuring seven tracks across two discs, this work hums with undercurrents and sings a heavy metalized message. Jaw-dropping virtuosity is substituted with mind-warping sounds, as heady-mental crosstalking leads give way to dense metal meditations and a woozy submerged feel. Driving and precise, then dreamy and rhythmic, this real-time performing pair use electric guitars, and the associated processing effects, to design a rich and varied palette of textures and tones - which makes for a constantly renewed sonic interest. Along with the looping riffs, sustaining e-bow leads and studies in glissando guitar, Guitar Pilots also include The Beam; a large amplified stringed instrument - meant for plucking, picking, rubbing and generally producing a range of unearthly sounds and tones. Whether resounding on its own, or joining the ferrous forces of echoing guitars, The Beam adds a distinctive, somewhat sub-sonic attribute to this album. These low notes murmur and vibrate like no known instrument, and often presage more kinetic passages. As riven lead lines spin out their cosmic protest at free-fall velocity, a foundry of melting sounds waits below. Once the atonal mass has hardened into a stronger alloy, the duo lights out to even further atmospheric realms. From a single point of charged spark, to an expanse of ethereal limbo, Up and Out is brilliant in its imaginative scope. It aligns with the values of good Spacemusic - and creates a mental state that runs counter to that of the outside world. Mastery of this kind of music is not found in its physical performance, but rather in its design and spiritual effects. After a good listen to Up and Out, it will be easy to regard Cohen and Watkins as among the most eloquent guitarists this side of the dark side of the moon. From bleeding distortion to clean strummed strings, GP moves us steadily between eerie darkness and the reassuring light, then back again - with their revelation from a dark star, to the third stone from the sun. • Guitar Pilots - Up & Out double CD $100.00 Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by Guitar Pilots
Sectio Aurea by Ombient
The CD Sectio Aurea (78'01") can hardly be contained by the room it is playing in. Mike Hunter (a.k.a. Ombient) finds inspiration in an almost mythical past of 1970s Berlin, while pursuing the present day's desire for modernity. Sectio Aurea is in part Hunter's own interpretation of the classic Departure From the Northern Wasteland - a further cultivation of Michael Hoenig's imaginings by a musician who recognizes the value of this work. Working in a genre often thought of as too dependent on hardware, Hunter explores the ways this music may convey the truth of complex subject matter. With a whirlwind intelligence in its glowing prime, he connects to strategies central to Spacemusicians across the globe. We are swept away by an enveloping sense of magic, forgetting for an instant our critical spirit. Electricity is transformed into sound through an impressive collection of vintage and modern modular synthesizers and keyboards. Large sonic forms dominate the soundfield. The engaging locomotive power of Hunter's sequencer manipulations and breakdowns bring a pumping pulse to Sectio Aurea. An ever-evolving rotating syncopation feels captivating to us - gained as the firing order of arpeggio notes spiral down into unpredictable slots. A highly specific set of possible chromatic symmetries support a range of confident synth lead lines. Declaring the musician's narrative these full-bodied analog expressions sing in electric ribbons of sound. Echoing notes repeat and resound in synchronized layers of mechanized rhythms, until the concluding track resolves this journey, settling the listener into the drifting reverie of gently humming circuits and charged solid states. A blood member of the clan of electricity, Hunter makes a spark, in the night, in The Universe. Sectio Aurea is a work perfectly in tune with itself and its maker. This album is also about doing the work of music - as, when in pursuit with one's heart and mind, all else fades away. It is a reflection, realized through action, intervened upon by spontaneity, which leads both listener and musician into contemplation - and that wonderful mental realm of unburdened temporal continuity. • Ombient - Sectio Aurea single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by Ombient
Cub by Steve Moore
Synthesist Steve Moore is perhaps most well known as one half of the noted 70s-inspired, synth/prog duo Zombi. In addition to their several albums, Moore has a prolific and thriving solo career - releasing music that ranges from electronica/dance to trance music, movie soundtracks and Sequencer Spacemusic. Although Steve Moore makes Spacemusic from 30 years ago sound new, maybe we should be listening to this work on its own terms. He hears his world through fresh electronic ears, and has plugged into the adventure in a way few synthesist have. For those of us sentenced to live inside of our own heads, we might as well keep the space sharp - and filled with music of this kind. • Steve Moore - Cub single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by Relapse Records
Sleek Nucleus by Saul Stokes
Saul Stokes makes Electronic Music that sounds like it is coming straight out of the wall outlet. Over the years he has become known for his concerts of sonic improvisation and albums of complex atmospheric energy. His work has always been, and continues to be, based on crafting original sonic elements and forms into beautiful realizations of texture and consonance. More recently Stokes has been embracing his internal contrasts. On Sleek Nucleus (54'42") he produces music that registers in both the body and in the mind. Sleek Nucleus is front-loaded with catchy, engaging tracks - but although this CD's songs may be easier to grasp, this accessibility in no way represents a scaling back of ambition. While overlapping rhythms push Sleek Nucleus to the dance floor, for all its heat and beats the most interesting elements transpire quietly. His one-of-a-kind aural ideals bring a unique aesthetic to the field. This album is full of infectious rhythms, kinetic throbbing and subliminal pulse, but the thoughtful listener will also find grainy tones, chirping modulations and fascinating timbres amidst Stokes' melodic sound designs. Never succumbing to formula, Stokes uses ideas and imagination as maps. He is the musician who speaks most directly to our contemporary condition, but has always been too far out there and unclassifiable to gain the following he deserves. Not one of his works are less than perfect. • Saul Stokes - Sleek Nucleus single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by Saul Stokes
Awaken the Electric Air - Convocation - Matt Borghi & Michael Teager
There is more than one reason to take part in a live to air broadcast concert on STAR'S END Ambient Radio. Most participants think that it is a good way to get their music out to thousands of radio listeners, which it is - or that this activity is just the thing to do after a stimulating performance at The Gatherings Concert Series, held earlier in the evening within the nearby church sanctuary of St. Mary's Hamilton Village. But Matt Borghi & Michael Teager used their late-night session to further explore and build upon that which was presented on their studio album Convocation. This activity surprisingly yielded the quite magical Awaken the Electric Air, an album from the recording made on STAR'S END of 20 October 2013. Borghi & Teager were the third of three distinctive live sets produced on STAR'S END that night (also appearing were Dave Luxton and Vic Hennegan). Tasked with filling the 4:00AM to 5:00AM hour Borghi & Teager's music created the perfect atmosphere and mood to compliment this most deep and searching zone. Routing his electric guitar signal through a myriad of delays, reverbs and effects Borghi strummed, plucked and rubbed the strings of his instrument into a vast wash of gently undulating sound. Through this timbral front Teager contributed various saxophone and flute lines, beautifully reverberating into the soundfield and providing a sparse melodic narrative to bring the listener back from the slow thoughts of dreaming reverie. No synthesizers or computers were used during this realization, therefore Awaken the Electric Air possesses a rare textured density, unusual compared to the flattened spaces of digital music. In their serious play Borghi & Teager lift the audience to a different place. A night time companion, small of gesture, large of heart, this album is subtle and in places moving - as it rescues us from the darkest corners of our own being. • Borghi & Teager - Awaken the Electric Air single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Borghi & Teager - Convocation single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • all two CDs $120.00 ($10/month) Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by Slobor Media
Elemental by Ian Boddy
Ian Boddy's music consistently sounds fresh; seeming to exist in an eternal now. Continually coming up with new ideas and approaches on each release he is involved in, Boddy is always redefining his relationship with Electronic Music. His innovative contributions to Electronica retain fragments of a time gone by and make for a daring and passionate vision of a present constantly slipping into the past. His album Elemental (52'11") possesses more than just the tricks and technology of its time. Its eight songs of innocence and experience cast a wide resonance - one that speaks from the past to the present. This work emits a significant amount of energy by way of swinging drum grooves and throbbing electro-rhythms. Boddy's deliberate and dramatic pacing construct these forms gradually, adding layer upon layer of enticing arpeggios and coarse-grained loops to a point just prior to where production and tech power would outshine the subtle emotion of this disc. Separating the power tracks are ambient stretches of stark intimacy. In these regions Boddy sets an altogether different mood. Complex synth modulations and uniquely manipulated sound samples lead the listener to a cool introspective space. From these chilled out regions the listener may notice the many peaks and depressions on Elemental, and how Boddy, using a keen musical sense fueled by pure curiosity, ably navigates. • Ian Boddy - Elemental - single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by DiN
Conundrum - Praposition - Moire by Berhnard Wöstheinrich & others
Good collaborations can bring out latent voices. On Conundrum (56'43") the duo of Klaus Hoffmann-Hoock and Bernhard Wöstheinrich speak in a language of unexpected affinities and easily traced influences. For Hoffmann-Hoock it is Eastern thought and 60s psychedelia while technology and abstract expressionism inform Wöstheinrich's contributions. Working together on Conundrum the duo manages to combine their individual musical traits into a cohesive sonic statement. Electronic beats, pops and squeaks drop in hard, then relax beneath ethereal guitar leads. The cerebral energy of the rhythms activates the mind as languid melodies play to the heart. Prog-Rock influences inundate Hoffmann-Hoock's guitar riffs. Drifting glissando clouds, slow E-bow solos, breathing chords and straight-ahead liquid leads flow amidst Wöstheinrich's electronica flare. With their hot beats and cool guitar this duo conjures up multi-faceted inventions both cosmically abstract and molecularly detailed. • Conundrum - single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Praposition - single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Moire - single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • all three CDs $180.00 ($15/month) Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by DiN
iNdex05 by Various Artists
iNDEX05 is the fifth DiN compilation album and includes two tracks each from the titles DiN41 - 49. The artists on show this time are Ian Boddy, Node, ARC, Dave Bessell (one of the members of Node) and collaborations between Parallel Worlds & Dave Bessell, Ian Boddy & Markus Reuter, Erik Wollo & Bernhard Wostheinrich and Parallel Worlds & Self Oscillate. As with the previous four DiN samplers DiN label boss Ian Boddy has mixed and cross-faded the 18 tracks into a continuous ambient mix that not only showcases the albums featured on the release but presents an exciting and varied title in its own right. It also highlights the varied and intriguing music that the DiN label offers on its releases from deep analogue synth grooves through vibrantly melodic instrumentals to powerful, epic ambient atmospheres. An intoxicating mix of the old and new beautifully presented in a slimline cardboard wallet with an extra flap which just adds to the value and collectibility of this release. • Various Artists - iNDEX05 - single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by DiN Records
The Spirits of Starlight - Incendescent by Hollan Holmes
While The Spirits of Starlight (62'07") may be reaching for the celestial realm this music is truly about us, the Earthbound. On his fourth CD Hollan Holmes again provides the mind with an artificial environment then pushes us through that environment in wonderful ways. The first few of the nine tracks each move along like a precision timepiece. Evincing a liveliness and emotional drama we must admire Holmes' engaging sequencer fabrications, metrical patterns and pure structure. This language in which sonic objects move together in time communicates an interesting energy, one that is akin to neurons firing inside a thinking brain or the mechanical motions of the Cosmos. The further in we travel with The Spirits of Starlight the calmer and more cerebral the musical territory becomes. These slower spacier synthesizer pieces play with unforced tenderness and warmth - their stillness achieved from the music's electronic emotionality. Arising from the combined action of melodic contour, harmonic transition and shifts in dynamics these modulating musical shapes soon have our thoughts moving in ways they ordinarily do not. This music calls to the entire person, with the message from The Spirits of Starlight emanating from a region quite close to its source. • Hollan Holmes - The Spirits of Starlight CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Hollan Holmes - Incandescent CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • all two CDs $120.00 ($10/month) Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by Hollan Holmes Music
Five CD Set - Hollan Holmes
Phase Shift (64'20"), the third album by Hollan Holmes, more than lives up to the burden of high expectations. A spiritual sequel to his CDs A Distant Light (2011) and The Farthest Fringes (2011), Phase Shift journeys along the strange, twisting paths of a spacey and intensely ambiguous digital landscape. Utilizing great dynamic range variations, crescendos and diminuendos, as tools to create a deeper spatial dimension and psychological impact, Holmes makes music that seems to hang and yet resolve all at the same time. Phase Shift travels from the rhythmically interlocked intensity in the first two tracks, to the slow moving and harmonically complex remaining three movements with some ease. The opening two sequencer pieces risk overload. Brief works of cycling electronic patterns grow in an uncommon hushed intensity. Drifting through the echoing pulsation is a soft reed-like melody. Synthesized to counter the machine precision of the sequencer the wandering lead line rises and softens the minimalistic logic of these pieces. From motion filled music Holmes moves to works with a slowly building sonic range - upon which to rest our thoughts. The remaining three realizations are seemingly tranquil, somnolent ambient meditations. From dreamlike stillness, to fierce brilliance, to pure seduction, Holmes locates new paths and branches of sonic exploration. His music acknowledges the physical power of sound without forgoing the chance to stimulate intellectual responses. • Hollan Holmes Music Five-Pack includes one copy each of The Spirits of Starlight, Phase Shift, The Farthest Fringes, A Distant Light and Incandescent by Hollan Holmes as a Thank-You for a $240.00 or $20.00/month Credit Card Pledge
Blue Radiance & Visions by Erik Wøllo
A top-level fantasist, Erik Wøllo provides the song - while his audience provides the story. Blue Radiance (67'17") is made up of 11 expertly delivered, immaculately produced instrumentals. Leaving the listener drenched in wistfulness for air castles or a misty fantasy realm, this music advances along an intriguing dynamic arc. The listener follows Wøllo's composed currents through introspective still states, then to the focused charge of building rhythms - found amidst a highly listenable melodic and harmonic interplay. With synth strings keening through cavernous reverberation, and mounting percussion loops steadily energizing the listening space, authoritative guitar leads course ahead - and then take us back to the slow motion of more fragile forms. The purring energy of Blue Radiance comes out of Wøllo in his convincing guitar craft. Whether in clean plucked lines, fuzzed out tones, or completely synthesized structures, he brings forth an uncommonly expressive intonation. While possessing a certain command of his instrument, Wøllo always remembers to share its space with each track's tempo ornaments. It is this disciplined aesthetic that imbues Wøllo's work with its unique atmosphere, and allows us the freedom to drift off into easy dreams and pleasant mental wandering. This moving music seeks to transport us to a higher place. Not just above the clouds, but somewhere whither we will be left with some hope for the future. • Erik Wollo - Blue Radiance single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Erik Wollo - Visions single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by Projekt
Possibilities of Circumstance by Various Artists
Carrying on the tradition of Projekt's unique multi-artist collections, Possibilities of Circumstance is an international gathering of electronic and ambient artists featuring seven previously unreleased tracks by Steve Roach, Tim Story & Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Robert Rich, Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters, Larry Fast & Synergy, Jeff Pearce, Nathan Youngblood & Soriah, and Erik Wollo • Various Artists - Possibilities of Circumstance single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by Projekt
Skeleton Keys - Emotions Revealed - Etheric Imprints - Dream Tracker
Etheric Imprints (73'54") may first feel like mere weightless flight within a mesmerizing drone. But, if used to fill the many cold hours before dawn, it will reveal more. Our most reliable spark in the dark, Steve Roach opens this album with the unknown wants of mild dissonance. Along with his well-warmed synthesizers and affective atmosphere Roach introduces cavernous piano notes. Uttering the undertone of this work this acoustic component opens Etheric Imprints into a constant twilight at the edge of forgetting. A spider webbing of force beams sets and gets the tone just right - and as sound pours around the listener this cool music smolders just a bit. Passing through the night, diffuse sounds rise against a much larger backdrop. Twinning and twisting, the tempest eventually lulls - and chromatism rolls into consonance. With starlight chords shining in a shadowy midnight, waves of rounded electronic notes produce tranquil zones for inward contemplation. Throughout the moody flow of its sensory effects Etheric Imprints elicits emotion and appeals to the imagination. Traveling through the vague zones of its four tracks, Roach saves his lyrical moments until the end. In a solo voiced electronic motif, a gently recurring theme brings this album to its most motile point. Steve Roach is certainly aware of this music's past, present and hopes for its future - but in this particular arrangement of sonics he wishes to transmit its expansive promise. • Steve Roach - Skeleton Keys CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Steve Roach - Emotions Revealed CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Steve Roach - Etheric Imprints CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • Byron Metcalf + Dashmesh Khalsa + Steve Roach - Dream Tracker CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • all four CDs $240.00 ($20/month) Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by Projekt
Vanishing Point 1 & 2 - AirSculpture
Vanishing Point 1 & 2 offers a kind of audio document of AirSculpture's November 2011 regional tour of the USA... and with track titles such as "Infinity Halt", "Jersey Greys" and "Necrophone", it must have been a strange holiday. While Vanishing Point 1 (80'31") presents music from various stops at radio stations and elsewhere, Vanishing Point 2 (109'50") features the recording of AirSculpture's 12 November 2011 performance at The Gatherings Concert Series in Philadelphia. With its two epic main tracks, plus the encore, this album is a wonderful example of this trio's talent for spontaneous composition within the context of an improvised live performance. In a brace of free improvisation AirSculpture flaunts angelic harmonies, just as easily as they mine subterranean frequencies - a faculty which enables unexpected excursions. Either in the restrained propulsion of a slow shuffle, or a whirlwind of sequencer patterns bristling with electrical current, this music's pulse sets the pace of thought. Reverberant Mellotron flutes, horns and strings light out in expressive fanciful flights. Deployed alongside rounded synthesizer leads, their lines solo, then meet and intertwine, in a keening consonant concord. All the while, sonorous passages are building their message above a rumbling motorized meter. But it is more than these musical elements that captures our imagination. From the primitive utterances of a minimally defined netherworld, to charged focused performances of melodic and rhythmic flight, the two volumes of Vanishing Point feature works of passionate intensity, music that could hardly be contained within the room in which it was being played. • AirSculpture - Vanishing Point 1 single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge • AirSculpture - Vanishing Point 2 double CD $100.00 Credit Card Pledge • all two CDs $120.00 ($10/month) Credit Card Pledge • Furnished by AirSculpture
STAR'S END broadcasts every Saturday Night/Sunday Morning from 1:00AM til 6:00AM (ET) on: 88.5FM WXPN Philadelphia, PA 88.7 FM Middletown, York and Lancaster, PA 90.5 FM WKHS Worton/Baltimore, MD 99.7 FM Harrisburg, PA 91.9 FM Hackettstown, NJ 104.9 FM Lehigh Valley, PA W285DH Whitehall, PA and live on the world wide web at: http://xpn.org
Update	On-Air Fundraising	Background	Playlists	Reviews	Home