Died and Went to FM Heaven

I’m listening to the radio station of my dreams. It’s on the internet, and it’s called Iridian Radio. I swear it sounds like they’re going though my CD collection. They sent me the link this morning and I turned it on and immediately recognized Paul Dresher’s Channels Passing. I left it on and was startled by my friend Eve Beglarian’s voice suddenly coming through my computer in her piece Landscaping for Privacy. I heard Pamela Z before I tuned out, then came back tonight for David Lang’s Cheating, Lying, Stealing and a chance to hear the Tin Hat Trio, whose music I’m not very familiar with yet. It’s an all-new-music station, 24/7/52, with no commercials. They even repeat pieces during the day, as AM radio does, and I like it – even in Landscaping for Privacy, which I was familiar with, I heard things the second time tonight that I’d never noticed before. There are no announcements, and to find out what you’re listening to, you have to look at their playlist window, with the result that I’ve been surprised a few times how attractive some pieces are that I had remembered not thinking much of. This is absolutely postclassical radio as I used to dream we might finally have it someday.

Sometimes I get the feeling that maybe I am the only person who really cares about this music – and I got that feeling a couple of weeks ago from the utter indifference to it of the classical critics in the Critics Conversation, and from Rockwell’s impatience that I still even bother to write about this stuff. And then something like Iridian Radio comes along proving that we do have an audience, that we do have a unified and interrelated repertoire, that this stuff is wonderful to sit around and listen to. I’m enjoying Iridian more than any classical station I’ve ever heard.

They’re playing Dan Becker’s Gridlock!

UPDATE: They played Arnold Dreyblatt’s Escalator, and now they’re playing Belinda Reynolds’ Circa. Who’d have ever thought that I’d hear this music on the radio?!