The Way Out

Here's the playlist for the 2-hour set Ambient 2: Music for Studying, which was broadcast on Tuesday, May 12, 2015:

Steve Reich - "Pulses" (Music for 18 Musicians, 1996 revisited version)
Brian Eno - "An Ending (Ascent)"
Tony Scott - "Satori (Enlightenment)"
Paul Horn - "Agra"
Cluster - "Im Suden"
J.D. Emmanuel - "Part I: Attaining Peace"
Don Slepian - "Awakening" (excerpt)
Peter Maunu - "Out of the Red Mist"
Aeoliah - "Tien Fu: Heaven's Gate" (excerpt)
Deuter - "Call of the Unknown"
Steve Roach, Kevin Braheny & Michael Stearns - "Cloud of Promise"
Richard Souther - "The Long Riders"
David Lanz - "Cristofori's Dream"
Constance Demby - "Part II" (Novus Magnificat)
Weather Report - "Morning Lake"

Check out Ambient 1 here.

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

It's final exam week here at UW-Madison. Technically, this show fell on "study day"; the university gives students an entire day off between the last day of classes and the first day of exams. Can you believe that, one whole day to prepare for your exams?! Whatever the case, we figured we'd offer the students some soothing sounds for their study sessions (holy alliteration, Batman!). What started off mostly as a joke - I (Andrew) thought it'd be funny to do a whole set of super chill new-age music - turned into a fairly serious set of classic ambient music from the 1960s-1980s.

Most of this music (though maybe not all of it... I'm looking at you, Michael Jones) is actually very good and well worth your listening attention. I'll spare you my "in defense of new-age" lecture for another time, in part because this set ended up leaning a bit more heavily on electronic, progressive, minimalist, and other ambient music styles that evade the "new-age" tag. (We've got plenty more of this music set aside, so expect an Ambient 2 set in the very near future - that one will likely delve more deeply into the heart of the 1980s new-age music genre/movement.)

By the way, this was our last show of the Spring semester and our last show for awhile in our regular Saturday night slot. We're not able to keep to a normal schedule this summer. But we'll still host some broadcasts over the next few months, they'll just be a bit sporadic - follow our Twitter for announcements about future appearances.

Here's the playlist for the 2-hour set Ambient 1: Music for Studying, which was broadcast on Saturday, May 9, 2015:

Vangelis - "Hymne"
Iasos - "Formentera Sunset Clouds"
Steven Halpern - "3rd Chakra: E"
Patrick O'Hearn - "Malevolent Landscape"
Kitaro - "Silk Road Theme (Shichu No Michi)"
Steve Roach - "Towards the Dream"
Popol Vuh - "Ah!"
Ashra - "Deep Distance"
Tangerine Dream - "Phaedra"
Terry Riley - "Across the Lake of the Ancient Word"
Andreas Vollenweider - "Hall of the Stairs/Hall of the Mosaics (Meeting You)"
Harold Budd & Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois - "Late October"
John Fahey - "View (East from the Top of the Riggs Road B&O Trestle)"
William Ackerman - "The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit"
Michael Hedges - "Spare Change"
George Winston - "Sea"
Michael Jones - "Morning Mist"
Mark Isham - "Raffles in Rio"
Jean Michel Jarre - "Oxygene (Part II)"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 4 of The Synth Show, which was broadcast on Saturday, April 25, 2015. 

The Cure - "The Walk"
Silver Apples - "Oscillations"
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - "Joan of Arc"
Depeche Mode - "Shake the Disease"
Japan - "Quiet Life"
The Human League - "Only After Dark"
Heaven 17 - "The Height of the Fighting"
Cabaret Voltaire - "The Operative"
Soft Cell - "Chips On My Shoulder"
Tom Verlaine - "The Scientist Writes a Letter"
Martin Rev - "Mari"
Wire - "In Vivo"
New Order - "Your Silent Face"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 2 of Coldwave (1980s French Post-Punk & Underground Rock), which was broadcast on Saturday, April 18, 2015. 

Martin Dupont - "Just Because"
Exces Nocturne - "L'ennemi"
Opera Multi Steel - "Regret Qui S'Ecaille"
Lucie Cries - "Clara"
Guerre Froide - "La Chanson D'Ian"
Modernes - "Ver L'est"
Les Garcons - "Les Deux Amants"
Act - "Ping Pong"
Polyphonic Size - "Je T'ai Tojours Aimee"
Indochine - "Miss Paramount"
Orchestre Rouge - "Je Cherche Une Drogue (Qui Ne Fait Pas Mal)"
Opera de Nuit - "Invitation"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for our Saturday, April 11, 2015, broadcast, which was a loosely themed 1980s-1990s (but mostly 90s) Britpop and U.K. indie-pop show (with a few Kiwi tracks thrown in). 

Hefner - "The Greedy Ugly People"
Television Personalities - "Smashing Time"
The Pastels - "Comin' Through"
Comet Gain - "Movies"
Heavenly - "Pet Monkey"
The Clean - "Beatnik"
The Bats - "Made Up in Blue"
The Pooh Sticks - "Time to Time"
The Soup Dragons - "Slow Things Down"
Supergrass - "Lose It"
Suede - "Moving"
Sultans of Ping F.C. - "You Talk Too Much"
Spare Snare - "As a Matter of Fact"
Adorable - "Still Life"
The Charlottes - "Liar"
The Chills - "Singing in My Sleep"
The Family Cat - "Pass Away"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for our Saturday, March 21, 2015, broadcast, which adhered to no particular theme. It's just a good batch of songs for a Saturday night in late March in Wisconsin:

Can - "I'm So Green"
Ride - "Close My Eyes"
Swervedriver - "Duel"
Sonic Youth - "The Sprawl"
Suicide - "Girl"
Moon Duo - "Slow Down Low"
The Brian Jonestown Massacre - "Vacuum Boots"
Bedhead - "Haywire"
Christie Front Drive - "Lot"
Tom Verlaine - "At 4 A.M."
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - "Inside the World of the Blues Explosion"
Destruction Unit - "Slow Death Sounds"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

This episode of our I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star series - the seventh so far - is a little different than most, in that it focuses on a man, Alan McGee, best-known as a record label owner, not a musician. McGee was in fact a musician (pictured above right with his 1980s indie-pop band Biff Bang Pow!) but he made his name as the notorious, outspoken head of the U.K. label Creation Records, which introduced the world to many of the best indie-pop, shoegaze, and Britpop bands of the 1980s and 1990s: The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Felt, The Pastels, Teenage Fanclub, and Oasis, to name but a few.

Here's the playlist for "Alan McGee's Creation Stories: Riots, Raves and Running a Label," which was broadcast on Saturday, March 14, 2015:

Swervedriver - "Red Queen Arms Race"
Biff Bang Pow! - "Love's Going Out of Fashion"
Slaughter Joe - "I'll Follow You Down"
The Loft - "Up the Hill and Down the Slope"
Television Personalities - "Part Time Punks"
The Jesus and Mary Chain - "In a Hole"
My Bloody Valentine - "Feed Me With Your Kiss"
Slowdive - "Slowdive"
Ride - "Drive Blind"
The House of Love - "Destroy the Heart"
Felt - "September Lady"
Teenage Fanclub - "What You Do to Me"
Primal Scream - "Higher Than the Sun"

Here's the playlist for "Kim Gordon's Girl in a Band" - the sixth installment in our I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star series - which was broadcast on Saturday, March 7, 2015:

Sonic Youth - "Shaking Hell"
Theoretical Girls - "You Got Me"
DNA - "Blonde Red Head"
Destroy All Monsters - "Vampire"
Lydia Lunch - "Lazy in Love"
Sonic Youth - "Tunic (Song for Karen)"
Royal Trux - "Up the Sleeve"
Free Kitten - "Revlon Liberation Orchestra"
Big Nils - "Cuba Swag"
Pussy Galore - "Yu Gung"
Ciccone Youth - "Addicted to Love"
Sonic Youth - "Little Trouble Girl"
Body/Head - "Last Mistress"
Public Image Ltd. - "Flowers of Romance"

Here's the playlist for "Alex James's Bit of a Blur" - the fifth installment in our I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star series - which was broadcast on Saturday, February 28, 2015:

Blur - "Go Out"
New Order - "Blue Monday"
The Teardrop Explodes - "Reward"
The Clash - "Bankrobber"
Blur - "Country House"
Oasis - "Roll With It"
Elastica - "Never Here"
The Sugarcubes - "Delicious Demon"
Blur - "Threadneedle Street"
Fat Les - "Vindaloo"
Françoise Hardy - "To the End"
Graham Coxon - "R U Lonely?"
Assembly Line People Program - "Noise Vision 80"