23 May 2023: Quintessence; Mari Boine; Francisco Lopez

 KMXT is live broadcasting the Kodiak City Council work session which may run past 9 pm.  

The show will begin as soon as the work session ends or 9 pm if the meeting ends early.

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The music you hear on tonight's show is available on the artists' Bandcamp pages and websites. (links below) 

We urge you to support the musicians you hear on FreeForm Radio.

 


Self is the fourth studio album by the English group Quintessence. It was the final album by the band to feature Maha Dev and Shiva Shankar Jones as both were fired from the band by Raja Ram prior to the release of Indweller.[citation needed]

Self Review

by Dave Thompson

By 1972, the magical aura that once surrounded Quintessence had long since dissipated, just as the band itself had shed much of the evocative panache that characterized their greatest moments. One more album on the unfamiliar pastures of RCA was not going to correct their decline, but Self emerged a delight regardless, chiefly courtesy of the live second side that caught the band in full flight at Exeter University. Despite being just two songs long (""Freedom"" and ""Water Goddess""), the performance rolls back the years so effectively that the faintly workaday weight of side one is barely even relevant to the album's glory. There, of course, the band's customary blending of Indian mantra and jazzy heartbeats is as eclectic as ever, and the only downside is that the group has not really moved on from its original vision.

 

Track listing

Side one – At Olympic Studios 1972
  1. "Cosmic Surfer" – 3:48
  2. "Wonders of the Universe" – 3:27
  3. "Hari Om" (not credited on album) – 0:44
  4. "Vishnu Narain" – 6:26
  5. "Hallelujad" – 4:14
  6. "Celestial Procession" – 1:20
  7. "Self" – 3:05
Side two – Live at Exeter University, 11 December 1971
  1. "Freedom" – 6:45
  2. "Water Goddess" (includes "Gange Mai") – 14:20

CD bonus tracks

  1. "You Never Stay The Same" (single B-side, 1971) – 6:13
  2. "Sweet Jesus" (single A-side, 1971) – 2:57

Personnel

  • Sambhu Babaji – bass guitar
  • Maha Dev – rhythm guitar
  • Shiva Shankar Jones – vocals, keyboards
  • Jake Milton – drums
  • Allan Mostert – lead guitar
  • Raja Ram – flute, percussion

 


  •  

    Not only the fjords, reindeer fields and northen light are the drive forces for Mari Boine’s compositions. As a Sami activist singing in her mother tongue, Mari Boine always dares to go beyond the cliches. In her 9th solo album, Sterna Paradisea, she embarked to South Africa for inspiration and collaborations. Recorded in Cape Town, the album features guest appearances by legendary South African stars: singer Madosini Latozi Mpahleni, and the a-cappella ensemble Abaqondisi Brothers. The album is a blend of classic folk guitar, choir sounds, pop, TripHop and a twist of jazz by trumpeter Ole Jørn Myklebust who co-produced the album with bass player Svein Schultz.

    1. Lene Májjá – Lene Májjá
    2. Conversation with God – Ipmiliin hálešteapmi
    3. Courting Jewellery – Soagŋosilbbat
    4. Soria Moria Palace – Soria Moria Palássa
    5. Sterna Paradisea – Čuovgga áirras
    6. Claudine’s Song– Claudiinna lávlla
    7. The Mischievous – Skealbma
    8. Dawn – Iđitveiggodettin
    9. For My Daughter – De mana, ráhkásan
    10. Entranced – Lihkahusat
    11. When Night Is Almost Done – Go idja nuossa                      

      Musical style

      Boine's songs are strongly rooted in her experience of being in a despised minority. For example, the song "Oppskrift for Herrefolk" ("Recipe for a Master Race") on her breakthrough CD Gula Gula, sung in Norwegian unlike the rest of the songs which are in Northern Sámi, speaks directly of "discrimination and hate", and recommends ways of oppressing a minority: "Use bible and booze and bayonet"; "Use articles of law against ancient rights".[10]

      Boine's other songs are more positive, often singing of the beauty and wildness of Sápmi, the Sámi lands of northern Scandinavia. The title track of Gula Gula asks the listener to remember "that the earth is our mother".[11]

      Boine sings in an adaptation of traditional Sámi style,[12] using the "joik" voice, with a range of accompanying instruments and percussion from indigenous traditions from around the world.[13][14] For example, on Gula Gula the instruments used include drum, guitar, electric bass clarinet, dozo n'koni, gangan, udu, darbuka, tambourine, seed rattles, cymbal, clarinet, piano, frame drum, saz, drone drum, hammered dulcimer, bouzouki, overtone flute, bells, bass, quena, charango and antara.[15]

      In 2017, she released See the Woman, her first English-language album.[16]

                                                                                                                                   

      Dynamo is a large-scale suspended artwork specifically developed for the atrium of the Spanish Pavilion at Expo Dubai 2020. Created by Daniel Canogar in collaboration with composer / audio-artist Francisco López, and produced in cooperation with the Spanish Agency for the Promotion of Cultural Projects –AC/E, the artwork is composed of sculptural screens that form three interlaced loops. Surrounding the artwork is a spiralling ramp that descends to the lower level of the atrium and allows the public to contemplate the artwork from multiple vantage points. Built-in inside the walls at the upper level of the atrium there is a large-scale, multi-channel sound system arranged in a ring of sixteen concealed speakers that project sound into the space, in ever-changing sonic combinations triggered by the visual patterns from the screens. The public can interact with the sculptural screens via an interactive system built into the ramp’s handrail: hands placed under the handrail’s sensors translate into animated sparks on the screens. The more the public activates the sensors, the more vibrant Dynamo’s visual and sonic content becomes. Mimicking the workings of an electromagnetic dynamo, the artwork eventually collects enough energy to generate a thundering experience that resonates through the atrium. This moment captures the intense roar of so many machines of the past echoing through our modern history –technologies that we behold with a mixture of fear and fascination. The ecstatic discharge is followed by a calmer phase evocative of the circulatory systems of living entities. This quieter mode gives way to a new cycle of gradual build-up, through an iterative repeating process of “collect and release” that is so much part of energy systems both biological and technological.
      Dynamo is a meditation on the circulatory nature of energy and the synchronization of biological and technological systems. It is also an invitation for us to imagine and participate in the dynamos that will energize our future.
      www.danielcanogar.com/work/dynamo
      Studio Daniel Canogar: Daniel Canogar, Artist; Diego Mellado, Project Manager; Diogo Queirós, Developer; Ana Saracho, Production; Ana Bazán, Production; Jorge Anguita, Artistic Production; Iván Hernández, Technician; Aída Navarro, Architect; Marta Galindo, Communication.

      Collaborators:
      Andoni Trecet & Aitor Hijar, ALFA Arte; Darien Brito, Programmer; André Almeida & tarquino Mota, Artica; César Saracho, Engineer; Alberto de Juan, Galería Max Estrella; Raül Estrada, NNConcept.
      Spanish Pavilion: Acción Cultural Española, Temperaturas Extremas, Empty.
      (c) (sound composition) francisco lópez 2021 – www.franciscolopez.net

      Dynamo [original soundtrack]:
      Created at ‘mobile messor’ (Los Angeles, Den Haag, Reykjavik, Dubai), 2020-2021.
      Edited and mastered at ‘Hundred Islands Studios’ (Rosclave enclave), 2022.
       

      released April 6, 2023

      REVIEWS

      Vital Weekly
      It is not often that we see on the cover of a release all the accomplishments of the musician, but this one has all the facts about Francisco López. Much of which I gather regular readers of these pages already know. In the world of sound that is López, absolute sound plays an important role. Many of his releases are untitled so as not to direct the listener in any way. Sometimes there is a title, which means there is some direction. 'Dynamo' is such a work. López provided the musical side to an installation for the Spanish pavilion at the Expo Dubai 2020. The cover details lengthy what this installation is about, and it is too much to repeat, even in a few words... well, I try; there are three sculptural screens, loop-like with sixteen speakers, and the audience can react with the handrail. More people means more energy, hence the name dynamo of the piece. This fits exactly the world of sound that is López; very silent and very loud. Throughout the years, he shifted his methods towards more computer-based processing of field recordings instead of a more analogue treatment of sound. And as always, this might not be the case; I am, as always, merely assuming this kind of thing. It's been a while since I had a conversation with mister López, even when he's been residing in this beautiful country of mine. I hope López allows me to disconnect the audio from the visual here to look at the audio work as an independent work because, even with the description, we have no natural visual feeling here. Also, the music is disconnected from the work via the release of the CD. In the five pieces, each averaging fifteen minutes, López uses field recordings that are highly obscured from their original sources and, no doubt, from the extensive archive of López. There is a slightly industrial feeling here, like walking along a conveyer belt in a big industrial building. Machines buzz and hum, and there is a strong, energetic flow to the sounds here. Sometimes the sound of water sets events in motion, like a good old waterwheel but with a more electric feeling. Each piece ends abruptly, followed by some silence, again in true Lópezian style. There is some mighty intense music here, even without the tactile feeling of the installation. (FdW)

      Touching Extremes
      touchingextremes.wordpress.com/2023/05/15/francisco-lopez-dynamo

      Luminous Dash
      luminousdash.be/reviews/album-reviews/francisco-lopez-dynamo-unexplained-sounds

      Avant Music News
      avantmusicnews.com/2023/05/14/amn-reviews-francisco-lopez-dynamo-2023-unexplained-sounds-group




      Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the main figures of the experimental music and audio art scenes. For over forty years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion. He has realized hundreds of concerts, projects with field recordings, workshops and sound installations in over seventy countries of the six continents. His extensive catalogue of sound pieces –with live and studio collaborations, as well as projects curated and directed, with more than a thousand artists– has been released by over 450 recording labels / publishers all over the world. Among other prizes, López has been awarded five times with honorary mentions at the competition of Ars Electronica Festival and is the recipient of a Qwartz Award for best sound anthology.


      Published by ©Unexplained Sounds Group
      Sound Composition: Francisco López
      Photography by Francisco López
      unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com
      © 2023. All rights reserved
      experimental avant-garde drone improvisation musique concrete sound art Italy

      about

      Unexplained Sounds Group Italy

16 May 2023: Pulsar; Shylock; Mysterium, Incubus et Terror. Music inspired by Edgar Allan Poe stories

Be sure to follow KMXT FreeForm Radio on Facebook and Bandcamp.  

Please support FreeForm Radio and KMXT by going to KMXT.org and pledging your support - 

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The music you hear on tonight's show is available on the artists' Bandcamp pages and websites. (links below) 

We urge you to support the musicians you hear on FreeForm Radio.

I also host the Rural Electric (Mostly) Country Music show Tuesday from 7-9 pm ADT

This week featuring Gordon Lightfoot

 

 Pulsar's second album, 'The Strands of the Future', is one of the definite and undisputable masterpieces of French prog, and together with their next recording 'Halloween', incarnates the band's peak in terms of inspired writing and skillful performing. Their style keeps on being somewhat inspired in 73-75 era Pink Floyd, but there are also obvious references to Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre's electronic excursions (powerful presence of multiple layers of synths and mellotrons), and also some compelling pastoral passages of flute and acoustic guitar in the 3-minute coda. (from "Orexis of Death" blog)
Studio Album, released in 1976 
Songs / Tracks Listing

1. The Strands of the Future (22:08)
2. Flight (2:37)
3. Windows (8:47)
4. Fool's failure (10:17)
Total Time: 43:49
Line-up / Musicians
- Victor Bosch / drums, percussion
- Gilbert Gandil / guitars, vocals
- Roland Richard / flute, strings
- Jacques Roman / organ, Mellotron, bass, synthesizers



 Debut album released from this French outfit which has reached "cult status". "Gialorgues" has found its way onto many "best of" lists that I have seen and for good reason. SHYLOCK are from the KING CRIMSON school of progressive rock in style but have certainly their own unique style and delivery. For the most part SHYLOCK were a three piece band who brought in some guest musicians along the way. SHYLOCK deliver complex and involved prog which has a dark forboding theme and feeling to it. Guitars soar from your speakers and drumming is nice and complex with ever changing tempos. Songs are well constructed and seem to create different mood swings - from hyper driving acid laced guitar to the quiet dark atmospheric chamber-prog. If you like great speaker seperation then "Gialorgues" is just for you as SHYLOCK move from speaker to speaker creating some mind bending moments sure to make you smile. Oh yes I should also mention that this an all-instrumental piece of work. If you are looking for a real find and a very polished and professional sounding prog then SHYLOCK is just for you.                                               Review by loserboy   PROG REVIEWER

 


 

Mysterium, Incubus et Terror. Music inspired by Edgar Allan Poe stories

Edgar Allan Poe’s power to inspire artists of various different mediums and styles has been a significant factor of his enduring popularity, as has the man and the mystery himself. Whilst the academia hauntings of M.R. James and the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft have experienced something of a renaissance in recent times, E.A. Poe has always been a lingering presence. His meandering stories featuring such things as the onset of plague in a quarantined complex, troubles at sea, a murderer preying upon victims in their homes in the streets of Paris and quite frequently the haunting phantasms of guilt and grief and loss. At the times the supernatural drifts in, it is frequently with a disconcerting subtlety, even when wreathed in Gothic robes. His horrors are relatable, timeless and ultimately haunting and therefore they and Poe endure.
Poe found his way into the lives of other readers and other creatives – the visual artists, the filmmakers and writers such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Lemony Snicket and even Marvel comics creator Stan Lee, his influence and inspiration remains a persistent vitality like the echo of a beating heart or a strange mewling behind the walls. And there’s another thing, possibly more than any other author of strange tales, Poe has proven inspirational to many musicians – Sergei Rachmaninoff, The Alan Parsons Project, Philip Glass, Lou Reed, Tangerine Dream, are just some of the diverse acts to release music motivated by Poe.
Andy Paciorek (extract from the preface to the anthology of stories “E.A. Poe - Mysterium, Incubus et Terror” published by Eighth Tower).

To pay the right tribute to the literature of Edgar Allan Poe, Eighth Tower has called musicians from various countries and asked them their musical interpretation of 10 classic stories from the superlative productions of the American Master.
 

credits

released May 5, 2023
Our thanks to Raffaele Pezzella for providing us with a copy of this release.
Published by Eighth Tower Records
Curated and mastered by Raffaele Pezzella (a.k.a. Sonologyst)
Artwork by John D. Chadwick
© 2023. All rights reserved


09 May 2023: Ian Boddy - Modulations III (DiNDDL31)

 KMXT is live broadcasting the Kodiak City Council work session which may run past 9 pm.  

The show will begin as soon as the work session ends or 9 pm if the meeting ends early.

Be sure to follow KMXT FreeForm Radio on Facebook and Bandcamp.  

Please support FreeForm Radio and KMXT by going to KMXT.org and pledging your support.

The music you hear on tonight's show is available on the artists' Bandcamp pages and websites. (links below) 

We urge you to support the musicians you hear on FreeForm Radio.


 
The Modulations series is a way for DiN label boss Ian Boddy to showcase his many, varied modular synth concerts and events. The first two released in 2020 & 2021 were released in digital format on the DiNDDL series as well as limited vinyl pressings in conjunction with Greek label Kinetik Records. However all live events came to a sudden end with the Covid pandemic and Boddy like the majority of musicians had to postpone any further Iive shows until this health crisis dissipated.

Resuming toward the end of 2021 Modulations III spans just over three hours of Boddy’s recent modular synth events with concerts in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. There are also tracks from an art exhibition opening, an outdoor performance and an exclusive track for the Werra Foxma label magazine.

The core of the instrumentation in these tracks are Boddy’s mobile Eurorack cases but this was bolstered by gear from Buchla, Serge and Moog as well as an array of pedals and effects and with the Liverpool concert his beautiful French Connection Ondes Martenot style keyboard.

As ever Boddy builds audio landscapes that organically build, drift and vanish into the ether. Analogue bass lines grow and act as a bedrock for a myriad of scintillating higher register sequencer parts. Mysterious atmospheres evolve and mutate with graceful beauty. Soft focus orchestral string sections emerge from dark spaces and bring light and calm to the music. The audience is taken on a journey which follows a different path on every performance.

A listening guide detailing each track and its associated release alongside exclusive photos accompanies the Bandcamp download.
 

credits

released May 5, 2023

Barry West for curating the Earth Requiem show at the Washington Arts Centre.
Tony Adamo and Chris Wave for organising the Seventh Wave Festival in Birmingham.
Alan Hempsall for organising the Subliminal Impulse Festival in Manchester.
Frazer Brown from Werra Foxma.
Neil Campbell for organising the concert at the Capstone Theatre in Liverpool.
Phil Booth for the Seventh Wave concert photo.
Wendy Carroll for cover artwork, all the other concert photos and running the DiN Merch stand.
All of you who attended the shows and concerts.

license

all rights reserved
ambient berlin school em electronic electronic music electronica dark ambient downtempo modular synth space music Sunderland

05 May 2023: BANDCAMP FRIDAY!

 Today is Bandcamp Friday when Bandcamp waives all seller fees so artists receive full payment for the music you purchase.


A good place to start your Bandcamp journey would be my personal Bandcamp page where you will find many of the releases and musicians featured on FreeForm Radio.

02 May 2023: Jethro Tull; Daniel Biro; jarguna

Be sure to follow KMXT FreeForm Radio on Facebook and Bandcamp.  

Please support FreeForm Radio and KMXT by going to KMXT.org and pledging your support - 

You can still support the Spring Fund Drive: Donate Now!

The music you hear on tonight's show is available on the artists' Bandcamp pages and websites. (links below) 

We urge you to support the musicians you hear on FreeForm Radio.

I also host the Rural Electric (Mostly) Country Music show Tuesday from 7-9 pm ADT

 


From Hugh Fielder:

From Christianity to paganism - the Jethro Tull revival continues. Just as it seemed that Tull were fizzling out amid a welter of live albums, orchestral albums and anniversary reissues, not to mention lan Anderson solo albums (confusingly using the same musicians) that picked at the bones of Tull's past, the band have been reborn as a viable contemporary outfit.

Their 2022 album The Zealot Gene, themed around verses from the Bible, restored Jethro Tull to the UK Top 10 album chart for the first time since Thick As A Brick back in '72. Now, just over a year later, Tull are back with RökFlöte which has forsaken the Bible in favour of the paganism of Norse mythology, a more popular rock'n'roll inspiration that has given rise to a whole musical genre.

But anyone expecting a death metal album from Jethro Tull is going to be disappointed. Ian Anderson is more interested in the characters and the cruelty that proliferate amid the myths and sagas of the Norse lands than in the comic-book manifestations that the subtlety-free death metal bands suck up so eagerly.

What's surprising is that Anderson can kick up more menace with his flute than any number of hoarse roaring voices and thrashing guitars. Rökflöte opens – and closes –with some metal-sounding flute feedback that makes for a chilling atmosphere. On the opening Voluspo, that's followed by a ponderous theme to underscore the portentous implications of the prophecy that lies at the heart of Norse mythology.

Anderson introduces the family of Nordic gods-including the one-eyed Odin and his son Thor whose murderous exploits make up the various sagas-with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of themes and melodies that are every bit as descriptive as his lyrics. And his flute playing has reached a maturity that enables him to capture the complexity he uncovers in Thor's character, on Hammer On Hammer, while also making a lyrical allusion to Putin. Likewise the howl he produces on his flute at the beginning of Wolf Unchained is more effective than the real thing, hinting at the carnal power that makes the image of the wolf so disturbing,

The music lightens up when Anderson moves on to the sagas themselves, but the intricacies remain. As do the idiosyncratic allusions - such as the Mae West flotation jackets worn by the pilots who protected Britain during World War Two that crop up in Guardian's Watch, a song about those who protect the gods.

Daniel Biro (born 1963 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a London-based keyboard composer, keyboard player, improvisor, and producer. Stylistically, Biro's music is a combination of his early influences (70s jazz-rock, Berlin-style cosmic synths, ECM label-style jazz, Motown soul and West-coast rock) with more experimental ambient electronic minimalism. As an improvisor, Biro specializes in exploring the sonic depths of the Rhodes piano and vintage analog synthesizers, with which he performs regularly.

 Daniel Biro:    Synthrospections are improvised solo keyboard performances. No music is prepared in advance and nothing is pre-programmed apart from the initial sound of each keyboard. It’s all about capturing ‘in the moment’ ideas, warts and all, and retaining the original structural flow of the event.

Once recorded, I slightly edit some of the too obvious ‘warts’ and give the ensemble a decent mix. No other instrument layers are added, even though that would sometimes enhance the music, and every idea is kept in the chronological order in which it appeared during the improvisation.

My aim is to play. Not press ‘Play’. To play my keyboards in real time without any constraints. To allow myself to find, as opposed to look for, musical ‘objects’ and explore them for a while until the next idea comes along. An instant composition creating itself.

I have no pre-conceived idea of which musical genre to inhabit. Categories are irrelevant. Things can go from very melodic tunes to experimental atonality, from groove-based jazziness to ambient soundscapes. All the music that is inside me is given an equal opportunity to emerge.

My keyboards are an eclectic mix of vintage and new. Each instrument has its strengths and character (which sometimes includes not working properly…). The unpredictability of tweaking synths in real time is part of the fun. For these recordings I don’t use any computer-based instruments or plug-ins. No mouse-clicking. Pedal loopers are used to ‘freeze’ some ideas into spur-of-moment backdrops on which I can build.

Improvising is a fine balance between being in control and giving up that control. Being a composer and being an interpreter. Trying and not trying. Thinking and not thinking. Obviously this can be risky as one can get stuck in a place where nothing very interesting is happening. Or have playing mistakes ruin a good bit (that’s where the editing comes in…). But using mistakes as sparks for new ideas is inherent in the quick-thinking improvisational process. It’s a dangerous path. But that’s the challenge: to jump off the cliff and hope you’ll levitate.
 

credits

released May 25, 2021; complimentary copy provided by Daniel Biro
All music written, recorded and produced by Daniel Biro

Recorded live for Soundcellar livestream concert on May 6th 2021 at the DB Studio, London.
alternative jazz fusion progressive rock ambient electronic electronic experimental electronic synth synthesisers London

 


In the words of jarguna

I’ve been wanting to make an album like this for some time. The sound searches for pure drones, introspective textures, absent from time and space, recall when I was looking for these sounds with my first synthesizer (Korg M1), around 1993. The biggest evolution has certainly been the experience during many productions, this is the 48th, but over the years I have also enriched my instrumentation, and since 2014 I have started assembling my modular synthesizer. These sounds come above all from this instrument, research but also spontaneity, a free flow of introspective energy, textures that try to make me enter a cathartic, meditative mood, at times light, suspended, floating, at other times, abysmal, material, dark and restless.

Some tracks of the album make a clear reference to some psycho-active substances, more romantically called entheogens. It is a story almost as old as man, to the point that some cultures have developed behind some of these substances, even becoming sacred for some cults, transforming the perception of reality and hypothesizing structures or entity of other dimensions. The deception of the senses has always been one of my favourite themes, an impudent art that seeks by all means to make people understand that man interfaces with the world only and thanks to his sense organs, but what if these organs were altered, like a radio picking up other frequencies?

credits

released April 13, 2023
Our thanks to Raffaele Pezzella for the complimentary copy of this release.

REVIEWS

Avant Music News
avantmusicnews.com/2023/04/16/amn-reviews-jarguna-explorations-of-the-unconscious-2023-reverse-alignment/



Marco Billi, aka jarguna, born in Florence (1973), is a constant traveller. He visited Nepal, China, India, Indonesia, and in 2001, took a trip of research along the Amazon. He meets the local people and engages in a study of their music-symbolic rituals and shamanic medicine, studies the characteristics and performs direct and indirect experiences through rituals and meditations. Going through all these experiences, he understands how the simplest sounds as well as complex music structures, may play a beneficial and therapeutic role. Agreements and frequencies, may intervene by acting on the entire body, involving mind and body, and also acting on the subtler planes. The relationship between music and the environment remains focused in the soul of jarguna.



Published by Reverse Alignment
Music by jarguna
Mastering by Raffaele Pezzella
Cover Design by jarguna
© 2023. All rights reserved
ambient dark dark ambient drone ambient industrial post-industrial Sweden

25 April 2023: Celebrating the new release from the Kurt Michaels Continuum: "Stones From the Garden"

  Be sure to follow KMXT FreeForm Radio on Facebook and Bandcamp.  

Please support FreeForm Radio and KMXT by going to KMXT.org and pledging your support - 

You can still support the Spring Fund Drive: Donate Now!

The music you hear on tonight's show is available on the artists' Bandcamp pages and websites. (links below) 

We urge you to support the musicians you hear on FreeForm Radio.

I also host the Rural Electric (Mostly) Country Music show Tuesday from 7-9 pm ADT


The first half of tonight's show will feature the Kurt Michaels Continuum recent release, Stones From The Garden, in its entirety.   Just released this month, this releases showcases Kurt's songwriting and musicianship in a variety of styles.  He is joined by a number of guest musicians including Billy and Michael Sherwood and Amanda Lehman.  The second half of the show will focus on his more ambient tracks from his first two releases, Inner Worlds and Outer Worlds.

We are proud to welcome Kurt back to FreeForm - we featured his first release, Inner Worlds, a collection of ambient pieces back in 2003; this new release really showcases his songwriting skills.

From the liner notes:
 
Stones From The Garden by Kurt Michaels Continuum (April 2023) The long awaited follow up to Soaring Back To Earth....a harder hitting collection of newly penned originals that include guest appearances by Billy Sherwood (Yes), Michael Sherwood (Sammy Davis Jr, Toto and The Monkees), Amanda Lehmann (Steve Hackett), John Abbey (John Cale) and Dennis Johnson (Survivor, Dennis DeYoung & Chase)

And here’s what a few folks had to say about the music:

“Kurt is a class act...and like a friendly port in the storm, he is always a welcome sight to behold. His innovative creations speak for themselves” Denny Laine (Moody Blues and Paul McCartney & Wings)

“For those of you who like old school massive rock production Brit style” Jack Douglas (Producer John Lennon, Patti Smith and Aerosmith)

“I’ve worked with Kurt in the past and quickly discovered that he is a true artiist. Caring for music and composition the way it should be....he has a great sound I’d recommend to any music lover.” Billy Sherwood (Yes & Asia)

“This is truly a strong “progressive” piece of music, with a really good memorable melody and captivating words. Easy to follow, nice feel to it and wonderful “musical” vocals...highly recommended by me! Annie Haslam (Renaissance) about “I’m In Love With That Dream”
“Listening to your music I feel like I am back in London England on Oxford Street at AIR studios with Sir George Martin.
 
Very Nice music!” Ralphe Armstrong (Mahavishnu Orchestra & Aretha Franklin)

“Prog love! Cool concepts, lots of textures and some nice chordal twists and turns.” CJ Vanston (film composer Spinal Tap, songwriter & producer: Toto, Spinal Tap, Joe Cocker &Def Leppard)

Kurt Michaels Continuum is the platform of creative musical expression for Chicago based singer/songwriter/guitarist Kurt Michaels. A touring veteran who has played with or shared a stage and/or contracted musicians for legendary rock icons, including: Spencer Davis, Joey Molland (Badfinger), Denny Laine (Moody Blues & Paul McCartney/Wings), Ike Willis (Frank Zappa), The Babys, Carl Palmer (Emerson Lake & Palmer), Carl Verheyen (Supertramp), Tom Brislin (Kansas), Chris Squire & Alan White (Yes), Wolfman Jack, Otis Day, The Drifters, Coasters & Platters, Fabian, Dickey Lee, Temptations, Bobby Vinton and others....


Venues performed at include Wire, SPACE in Evanston, Mayne Stage, Reggies, Chicago Theater, Shank Hall, Bloomington Center For The Performing Arts, GSU Performing Arts Center, Park West, Raue Center, Northlight Theater @ Potowatomi Casino and many others....


Discography


Inner Worlds part one by Kurt Michaels (Eitux Records - 2003) debut solo studio release of
atmospheric/instrumental/electronic music sprinkled with guitar . all instruments: Kurt Michaels


 

 
Outer Worlds by Kurt Michaels (Umbrello Records -2007) a live compilation of improvised guitar-based soundscape
duets, as accompanied by Jim Gully, Michael Cosentino and John Melnick



Soaring Back To Earth by Kurt Michaels (Self Released 2011) a diverse collection of harmonically inventive original rock songs with narratives that reflect adult themes. Includes guest appearances by Billy Sherwood (Yes), Tom Brislin (Kansas) and Michael Sherwood (Sammy Davis Jr, Toto and The Monkees)


 


Action Moves People (2013) A spoken word compilation celebrating unity and universal love. Includes Kurt Michaels’ “Moments Like These”. Other artists contributing to this project included John Wetton (King Crimson/UK/Asia). A comment from Paul Simon: “I whole heartedly support the producers’ excellent efforts, which were put into the album,
Action Moves People. I think it is well done, promoting a better future for everyone, and I’m all for that.”