All Postclassical Radio, All the Time

I’m slow on the uptake when it comes to technology, but I’ve learned more about Iridian Radio, the station I enthused about a couple of days ago. It’s one of the independent digital stations at Live365.com, which offers you the opportunity, for a monthly fee (though it’s cheaper by the year), to set up a playlist and broadcast your own music selection. Iridian Radio is the audio domain of Robin Cox, a violinist, composer, and director of a new-music ensemble in Southern California. He includes his ensemble’s recordings on his intelligently mellow playlist, and is expanding, so keep listening.

Live365 doesn’t offer “postclassical” or “new music” as categories, but it does offer “experimental,” and there are a few other similar stations. First of all, I didn’t realize (I’m so obtuse sometimes) that this is the site through which the American Mavericks radio program (for which I wrote the script) streams its “smooth” and “crunchy” listening rooms. I love those “smooth” and “crunchy” labels (which were not my idea) - you know exactly what they mean, and although they divide new music into two types, they’re too down-to-earth to imagine anyone getting into a huffy argument of the how-dare-you-presume-to-decide-whose-music-fits-the-crunchy-category type. Also the record label Innova runs several stations, including Innova-mu.experimental, which plays, as they describe it, “Radical music you won't hear elsewhere: Harry Partch, electroacoustic, experimental, computer generated, homemade instruments.” Among these evolving playlists, there’s a pretty good range and quantity of new music out there on the new, non-commercial, internet radio format. (And I’m toying with the idea of adding to it. Stay tuned....)