There's no place like Earth, and we've got the music to prove it. Ten songs (and one field recording) that celebrate the uniqueness of Planet Earth.
This show is dedicated to the Northern Hemisphere's turning from Summer to Autumn and the Autumnal Equinox.
Dedicated to the memory of singer-songwriter Russ Arlotta, Episode 0125 — "Our Planetary Home" — follows the word, the concept, and the longing on a winding path from the rocky tip of Cornwall to the coast of Senegal, from the plains of Venezuela to the vast skies of Hawaii.
As floods inundate and wildfires consume a planet that seems to be running a fever, we move through multiple spiritual traditions to confront the twin elemental forces reshaping our world, from Jamaican rocksteady to Haitian Voudou, from Celtic flame to Hawaiian volcano.
From the machine-haunted fields of County Cork to the drought-stricken soil of Buenos Aires, "Our Hunger for Land" assembles thirteen artists in a global meditation on humanity's relationship to the earth we plant, plunder, mourn, and revere.
From the peat bogs of Australia to the bayous of Louisiana and the fog-haunted folklore of the Old World, Episode 0122 — "Will o' the Wetlands" — wades deep into the music, mystery, and teeming life of the world's most liminal landscapes.
Host Bart Everson presents "Cicada Buzz" — an episode years in the making, sparked by a tip from a loyal listener and opening with a miraculous gift: the brand-new single from Dead Can Dance, whose mythology of the cicada leads straight back to the Muses themselves.
Host Laura Dedelow, still slightly damp from a real Indiana deluge, celebrates summer precipitation in all its forms — rain, heat lightning, hail, and even virga — threading a field recording by Bart Everson through an hour that moves from London indie-pop through Kentucky country and deep into the gospel and R&B soul of New Orleans.
Host Bart Everson frames an hour of healing music, spoken word, and field recordings from Belgium, England, Argentina, Indiana, Seattle, Chile, and Slovakia as a prayer to the living planet — opening and closing with two different songs called "Gaia," and threading his own dawn recordings through the hour. Perhaps the first act of ecological reverence is simply to listen.
From Jimetta Rose's gospel choir invocation of the Los Angeles sun to Lilli Lewis's firefly closing the New Orleans evening, host Laura Dedelow gathers thirteen artists from three continents to celebrate summer in all its aspects: the light, the storms, the flowers, the fledglings, and the brief, luminous dark.