The Audio Ecotone

 

"We have a tropical situation where there are thousands of 'species' of music around and they're all constantly cross-breeding and hybridizing. It's very exciting, but you can't keep up with it easily." -- Brian Eno

Ecotones are zones of transition between different habitats and often have a vibrant diversity of species. The Audio Ecotone explores the rich species diversity, cross-breeding, and hybridizing of music of the past 100 years: rock, jazz, pop, r&b, soul, country, ska, electronica, J-Pop/C-Pop/K-Pop, afrobeat, and many more from the 1920s to the 2020s.

DJ(s): 
Replays Tuesday 7-8am, Saturday 6-7pm
Live Friday 3-4pm
Podcast
Music programs are only online for two weeks after they are broadcast.

Duck Days! (Apr 25th, 2025)

In celebration of the Yolo Basin Foundation's annual California Duck Days event, this week's show takes on a "ducky" theme, with music from The Ugly Ducklings, The Bats, the Carl Stallings Project, the Bonzo Dog Band and Morphine. We also feature new releases from Pink Martini, PORTIA and M(h)oal and a tribute to David Thomas of Pere Ubu, who passed away this week.

Love Your Mother! (Apr 18th, 2025)

The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970. Initially devised as a national teach-in on the effects of 150 years of unfettered industrial development, Earth Day helped to galvanize the nascient environmental movement and was a catalyst for a decade of progress in regulating pollution that included the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and the Occupational Safety and Health Act. As we face the nihilistic rollback of the 55 years of environmental progress made since the first Earth Day and the darkening spectre of human-induced accelerated climate change, our Earth Day 2025 themed playlist includes music from Common, Justin Townes Earle, Stevie Wonder and John Legend, Vermillion Lies, Bo Diddley, Anthony da Rosa and more!

Spring! (Mar 21st, 2025)

At 2:01 a.m. Pacific Time on March 20, the sun crossed the plane of the equator, marking the vernal equinox and the start of spring! Across the centuries and cultures, the vernal equinox and coming of spring has not only had practical meaning (time to start sowing seeds, coming of hay fever season, etc.), but has also naturally been imbued with including meaning and symbolism -- Rebirth, Rejuvenation, Renewal, Love, Youth and the Passing of Darkness. Couldn't we all use a little bit of that right now?

On today's Audio Ecotone, we celebrate those themes and the coming of spring with music old and new from Elvis Presley, The Flaming Lips, Blossom Dearie, Cibo Matto, Caroline Polarchek and a few other surprises. 

Nicole Laurenne interview extras

Since our interview with Nicole Laurenne included far more great topics of discussion than could be contained in a single hour, we're posting some of the exerpts from the interview that didn't make it to air. In these selections, Nicole discusses touring and maintaining a 50-year-old Farfisa Fast 3 organ, visiting the Farfisa in Italy, the differences in artist support between Europe and the US, how she manages her downtime, catching a surprise Mystery Lights show in the UK and the visual aspects of her performance. We hope you enjoy them as much as we loved hearing them.

Nicole Laurenne of The Darts (U.S.) and Black Viiolet! (Feb. 28, 2024)

This week's Audio Ecotone features Nicole Laurenne of The Darts (US) and Black Viiolet. Nicole sat down with KDRT DJs Eddy Owt and Jess Goddesse to discuss touring, musical parenting, her Davis connections, balancing legal and music careers, Journey, the pitfalls of dating a musician, the Michigan Marching Band and her mom's punk rock BFFs!

Additional exerpts from the interview are available at https://kdrt.org/audio/nicole-laurenne-interview-extras.

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