| STAR'S END Fundraiser - 17 May 09 | ||||||
STAR'S END has been airing in its time slot on WXPN for over 30 years. It would be difficult to find a show of this nature, scope and duration elsewhere on the radio dial. Every week you hear works by an international cast of musicians drawn from an amazing library spanning several decades. How has STAR'S END remained relevant to the public for over three decades? Because its weekly presentation of exceptional creative realizations in music has forged a unique and intimate connection between the listener and the radio show. Please think about your relationship with this music. Surely STAR'S END and WXPN deserves your support in this broadcast effort!
You listen to STAR'S END because you are seeking music with substance - expressions of the human spirit. STAR'S END and WXPN seek to facilitate the broadcast of these unique artistic realizations - and the creation of an intimate listening space for contemplation and reflection. Please help us continue to have a pivotal role in Philadelphia's radio and cultural landscape as a presenter of original contemporary works. We're not asking for just a few people to do alot, we're asking for alot of people to do just a little. Thank You for calling in on the 05.17.09 broadcast of STAR'S END and pledging! Your generosity and support are sincerely appreciated - and are needed to keep WXPN going!
During the STAR'S END portion of the WXPN Spring 2009 Fundraiser, 59 listeners called in with pledges totaling $4998.00 (a $2.00 pledge did come in - at literally the last minute - in hopes of pushing us to an even $5000.00, but was unable to be entered into our total before 6:00am and therefore went to the next program's tally).
Thanks also to The Ministry of Inside Things and Kathy Jeffries who were featured on-air in seperate live in-studio interviews. Thank You All Very Much! -Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END - 18 May 2009 | ||||||
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Thank You Gifts
Special premiums are available for those pledging on the 05.17.09 broadcast of STAR'S END, including albums from labels Air Space Music, Synkronos Music, Timeroom Editions and the group AirSculpture, 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 05.17.09 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 Spring 2009 Fund Drive.
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| Timeroom Editions - Steve Roach | ||||||
 
Over the years STAR'S END has hosted many live in-studio on-air concerts, usually with artists fresh from The Gatherings Concert Series stage. Having played to a sold-out house earlier at The Gatherings, Steve Roach embarked on the second leg of the aforementioned music marathon on the 05.20.07 broadcast of STAR'S END. The radio concert began pretty much in the same zone as where the public performance left off. But playing on STAR'S END is meant to open up a space for discovery, and Roach turned from music for The Gatherings community to atmospheres for an audience each in their own dream space. From this two-hour excursion Roach has culled the CD Landmass (67'51"). With its six distinctive phases, the album ingeniously moves from skipping synth patterns and icy tone clusters into echoing sequencer runs and a palpable sense of propulsion. A different kind of motion is present in the slower textural sections as sounds move in waves - more like on the ocean than through the air. There is an interesting energy arcing through this work. The act of playing a second more private concert after a public event often provides a sense of summation to a powerful experience. But the live music played on STAR'S END is more than a beautiful artifact of a big Philadelphia weekend. Descending into himself Roach realized this music completely in the moment, and listening to Landmass one gets a sense of the vastness of the eternal now.
• Steve Roach - Landmass single CD $75.00 Credit Card Pledge | ||||||
| Hypnos/Binary - Saul Stokes | ||||||
 
Operating at the heart of electronic music, Saul Stokes' work has been primarily an exploration of timbre and the character of sound. On Villa Galaxia (55'45") Stokes does not ditch the experimental ambiance he took so long to develop, and surprises us with eight tightly arranged and focused works. With the path of each piece following imaginative accelerating percussion and charged synthetic rhythms, the energy level of this CD wanders into the realm of more contemporary releases. Yet, with its fascinating arrangement and wealth of original tones and sonic coloration, Villa Galaxia will please the bobbing club hipster as much as the prone head-tripper. In this finely tuned collage of grainy beats, squiggly synths and twisting tones each song bursts with vitality and warmth. An album of its time, spanning and transcending electronica's musical moment, Stokes channels the era of the synthesizer.
• Saul Stokes - Villa Galaxia 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. • Air Space Music Label Three-Pack includes one copy each of Sequentaria, Momentium and Luminosity as a Thank-You for a $180.00 or $15.00/month Credit Card Pledge • 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, Contact Point and Everlasting Moment by The Ministry of Inside things as a Thank-You for a $180.00 or $15.00/month Credit Card Pledge • The Ministry of Inside Things - any single title for a $75.00 Credit Card Pledge | ||||||
| TranceAtlantic by AirSculpture | ||||||
 
AirSculpture, the synth trio from the UK, made their east-coast concert debut in Philadelphia at The Gatherings Concert Series on 17 April 2004. Recordings of this concert, and that of their STAR'S END live radio concert later that night, were fashioned into the double CD TranceAtlantic and released in Autumn of 2005. Made up of Adrian Beasley, John Christian and Peter Ruczynski, AirSculpture has been using concert spaces to facilitate electronic experimentation since their first live event in September of 1995. Over the years they have found that the atmosphere of the venue, the attention of the audience and several other immeasurable factors, have a significant affect on the interaction between players and acts as a fuel for their performances. The music on TranceAtlantic is structured somewhat differently than on previous CDs. Dwelling more in the realm of Ambient Music, this release is a journey inward to the dark abstractions of the dreaming mind. With this work, AirSculpture explores the fabric of sound, its range of subtleties and the dramatic possibilities of music organized without a tonal center. A lilting piano improvisation opens each disc but soon the mood spirals downward into a shifting timbral plane. Drones build amongst a narrative of humming synthetic sound and constantly transforming tonal color. Set against these sections is the imaginative and engaging sequencer driven patterns AirSculpture is known for. Even here the group pushes beyond their earlier work and into new and unique depths of throbbing pulse, bouncing echoes and spacey beats. The result is a cool combination of inspired play, chance occurrence and the magnification of minute shadings of sound.
• AirSculpture TranceAtlantic double CD $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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STAR'S END broadcasts every Saturday Night/Sunday Morning from 1:00am til 6:00am (EDT) on:
and live on the world wide web at: http://xpn.org/stream.shtml | 
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