This week, we'll look at the need to move beyond our troubled pasts and embrace hope for the future. Each of these tracks evokes a specific moment particular to American political history. We'll hear from Downliners Sekt, Naoned, Sans Edge, Tryad and Silence.

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This week, we'll look at the path to redemption. Waiting to hit bottom to know when to climb back up often ignores the notion that the journey may well be circular. Redeeming them selves for us this week at Owen, DigiTube, Argon 40, Vate, 33Canales and Babbaracos.

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This week, we'll look at the mind expanding possiblities of travel. Whether global or microbiological, it the movement of bodies, objects and, ultimately, ideas, that allow us the benefits of progress. And so We'll hear from enLounge, Victoria Mosley and The Sublimes, Indidginus, Null Device and Electric Salmon.

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This week, we'll look at a human weakness. Whether physical, emotional or spiritual, we all make blunders and mistakes. It's what we do afterward that counts. We'll hear from five artists who realize this and take the next step toward growth and healing. We'll begin with something new from Peach Stealing Monkeys.

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This week, we'll look at what's underneath. Not necessarily inferior, lesser, or subordinate but from the unique perspective of looking up. Gazing upward are Dive Index, Alikproject, Under, Asa Zen Sei and Nenes.

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This week, we'll take a look at idea that the visible world is pervaded by invisible forces or spirits, which affect the lives of the living. It's a belief that predates most mainstream religions and remains in many ways we may not immediately recognize. Much of today's electronic club music employs many techniques shared by shamanism. The beat, repetitive vocal samples and binaural beats. There is a reason we call it Trance. Displaying some of this otherworldliness are Kmotiv, Secret Archives of the Vatican, Bone Shaman, Banderlog and Sara Ayers.

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This week, we'll look at Strange Overtones. It's not only the title of a new collaboration between modern music Giants, David Byrne and Brian Eno but also in a harmonic sense, it's a complex and intriguing musical tone. We'll hear from six artists who take this familiar but different approach to their sound. There is Dikital, Cling, Lesley Dodd, David Byrne and Brian Eno, J-CLX and Vincent Wood.

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This week, we'll look at cosmetics or altering the appearance without affecting the body's structure or functions. It's by definition superficial but can change perceptions of oneself and others often for the better but not necessarily. Musical remixes are in essence cosmetics but so are tattoos and eyeliner. Setting the foundation for us are Pipo Pegoraro, Obedientbone, Mavro, ElodieO and Crystal Palace.

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This week, we'll listen to the percussive side of World Music. Seven bands will add subtle electronics to the inherently primitive act of striking a note. Providing the variation for us are Sub Dub, Conduct Unbecoming, Fraud Fix, Lendi Vexer, DJ Diganta, Queenie and Siberian Newspaper.

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This week, we'll look at the essential symbiosis of independent artist and podcaster. This mutualism is best put forward by an association of cooperative relationships. In particular, an Association of Music Podcasting. Visit myspace.com/musicpodcasters to learn how artists and podcasters can help each other in a world of tight play list and tighter labels. We'll hear from Anneke Laurent, Yimino, Gilo, Nihaya Tree and Annie Goliath. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, it's the many flavors of America's great art form. Jazz. For more than a century this style of music has refused strict categorization. From Bop to Rag, Funk to Swing the cool sounds of Jazz are always mixing with and attaching itself to other genres. Today the polyrhythms, syncopation, and blue notes blend seamlessly with electronic beats, bass and melody. Exploring this musical confluence are Avatar, Psychedelicious, Sharon Robinson, Chillerstadt, Groove Inc and Beatropolis.

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This week we'll try unlikely pairings. Nowhere are they more readily accepted than in music. When Joe Venuti's violin first played jazz, or Kraftwerk hit the top of the charts with computer music, listeners nodded and said "Yeah'. When Kate Bush brought the mystery of Eastern European harmonies to the west or the Beatles covered Little Richard new rock n' roll music, the world got a bit smaller, less separate and more inclusive. Today we listen to songs by people from across the globe we would, likely, not have had a chance to hear in a lifetime. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, it's feedback and reverb, the mathematics of sound and physics of music. Looking into this super symmetry are Way, The Stringed Theory, postscript, Roll Film and Ronan Dec. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, we'll look at artists in exile. Not those forced from their homes through political or legal turmoil but the more romantic expatriation of the kind envisioned by Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene. The 'Lost Generation', living in hotels, on allowance and awaiting inspiration. Finding their muse this week are Azoora, Kesakoo, My Toys Like Me, Juliet Hotel, Darren Scott Nesbit and The Chill Conspiracy.

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This week, we'll examine the creative process. Painter Kimberly Brooks offers up and octet of stages of which six match the songs on this episode of Idyllic Music. They are Vision and Hope. Excitement, Clarity, Obsession and Resolution. Look for these in music of Screenatorium, Lasswell, Synthetic, Electric Hippies, Fauna and Endlos. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, we'll look at the tension created when fashion comes full circle. As Massive Attack's Tricky points out you have "A dread of the past and fear of the future. You're brand new, You're retro" Finding that singular point for us on the edition of Idyllic Music are Polished Chrome, Return To Mono, Letters In Numbers and Cassettes Won't Listen.

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This week we'll spotlight mendacity. There was a time, not long ago, when you could assume a benchmark of truthfulness. Not from everyone or about everything but you could feel fairly secure in the notion that you weren't being lied to about the big things, all the time, with a straight face. Exploring the sad state of this tendency to lie are Trifonic, QuiOui, the silk demise, Orange Crush, DRT, Humus Luminus-Quinslonn and Tacet.

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This week, we'll look at ruins and relics. Places long abandoned for more promising prospects. Whether ancient or post-modern they recall a measure of greatness that evokes more sadness than nostalgia. Leading our tour on this episode of Idyllic Music are Steric Hindrance, NeiLicis, Clear Plastic, Rude Corps, Sardinia Bass Legalize and Electric Salmon. I'm Jim Nye

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This week we'll explore the edge of the world. A point on the horizon that marks the end of what is known and all that lies beyond. It's a gray, ill-defined area that defies the usual measurements. Making concerted efforts to try this week are The Uberkids, The Artificial Sea, Monotronaut, Dive Index, onkgusD, Stabilizer and Schev.

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This week, we'll feature the music of the Orb. Of all the bands that inspired us and helped formulate the scope of this program, it was The Orb's determination to move the mind as well as the hips. Blending the pioneering electronica of Tangerine Dream and the beats of Chicago's warehouse scene with the deep dub of Scratch Perry and Byrne and Eno's Bush of Ghosts sampling, The Orb remain a central pillar of today's electronic music.

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This week, we'll look at the great choice each of us must make between the physical and the moral, happiness and virtue. How we choose to define the greater good sets the path we follow in life. The great challenge is to find a way to bring these mutually exclusive, incompatible values together and find some way of reconciling them. We'll hear from Canola Tenderfoot, Salaryman, Scanlan, I Awake and Elika.

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This week, it's another globetrotting episode of Idyllic Music as we find inspiration in 3 continents in a mashup from 5 countries including Italy, Senegal, The U.S. Sweden and the Netherlands. We'll hear from Ten and Tracer, l Orchestre A-Dakar, Black Era, MarinuZz and Please. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, we'll take a poke at Satan, The Devil, Beelzebub or El Diablito. Whether or not you think he is an actual being or a manifestation of our universal need to personify evil, the concept of hell is as pervasive an idea as there is. From Robert Johnson to the White Stripes, there is no denying the fear or promise of hell has been a part of music for a long time. Sorting it all out for us this week are Inadubstate, Soo P and the Outsider, Yamasaki, Dr.Awkward, Atomica, Jah Wobble and Foa Hoka.

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This week, we'll look at metaphors, similes and allegories. These Figures of Rhetoric color our languages and influence the way we describe music. Adding relish and piquancy to this addition of Idyllic music are Iambic, Karmacoda, Plastercluster, TCK and Rafael Aragon.

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This week, we'll look at the excitement, obsession, twists, and serenity of first romance. The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end. Exploring the first time on this edition of Idyllic Music are Kristin Hersh, Merlune, Weigl and Hoffman, Telafonica, Mudville and SoundShifter.

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This week, the chillout continues in the land of the long winters. Five artists from the Baltic region provide the heat for this frigid episode of Idyllic music. They are Fauna, Milieu, Sirk, Bersarin Quartett and Margareds. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, we'll look at the coming and going, beginnings and ends and the state of things at those two points. Starting and stopping with us on this episode are Korev, Artemis, Lex Nasa and Savoir Vivre.

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This week we'll consider the boarding house. Where people of all stripes rent rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes weeks, months and years. Boarders who otherwise would have nothing in common might share evening meals and a common living room. And so this week's Idyllic lodgers include Fringe, Musetta, Jamdeluxe, Minor Chill, Echo TM and Peach Stealing Monkeys. I'm the proprietor, Jim Nye.

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This week, it's adventure. The kind imagined by the great turn of the century authors like Kipling, Burroughs, Wells and Verne. 100 years hence on Idyllic Music, we offer Sublimatus, Daakoon, Conrad Belfort, Juno6, Orbique and Synthastazia.

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This week, we'll look at the Sun. The periodic table lists 117 elements in the universe yet the sun is mostly just hydrogen and helium. Its simplicity belies its enormous life giving value in both a physical and spiritual sense. Exploring this paradox for us on this edition of Idyllic Music are Cling, Omihoshbin, Subtronik, 2 Bone Giants, Vim Cortez and Amanda Jayne.

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This week, on the 100th episode of Idyllic Music, we hope to honor the many regular listeners of this podcast with CD ready mixes of the best instrumental tracks heard on the show over the past two years. Don, Mika, Stephen and I have gleaned the archives and will offer up these two mixes unencumbered by the usual patter so that you can burn them directly to the blank CD of your choice. We have two podcast mp3 files of nearly 80 minutes worth of the best music featured over the two years.

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This week, on the 100th episode of Idyllic Music, we hope to honor the many regular listeners of this podcast with CD ready mixes of the best vocal tracks heard on the show over the past two years. Don, Mika, Stephen and I have gleaned the archives and will offer up these two mixes unencumbered by the usual patter so that you can burn them directly to the blank CD of your choice. We have two podcast mp3 files of nearly 80 minutes worth of the best music featured over the two years. Picking only these songs proved difficult.

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This week, we'll contemplate the patient ear. The following five tracks require time. At least they did for me. Each one finds its stride at precisely the right moment for that song and that make them special. Taking their own sweet time about it are HerbalJ, Audiokonstrukte, Terence Blanchard, Wurlitztraction and Misosoup. At the end of the program, I'll have a few words about our 100th episode and give away.

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This week, East meets West for a soft clash or happy mesh of global culture. It's the musical migration that may be our best hope toward understanding and acceptance of each other. Helping us along are DubDriver, Tokyo507, Omnisine, Mystic Village and Soma Sonic.

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This week, we'll look at fair-trade music. Over the past several years, three things have changed the course of popular music, for better or worse. First came the marriage of music and video and the overwhelming marketing power it presented. It was an expensive tool requiring serious funding by record labels loathe to take chances on what they viewed as a commodity. Next was the advent of personal digital recording allowing bands to record professional quality music on a shoestring and finally the Internet offered the ability for bands to market their own music. Fair-trade music acknowledges this and offers a new relationship between artist and fan. Embracing the new paradigm are Laki Mera, The Chill Conspiracy, Lich, to the sea with me and Radio Orphans.

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This week, we'll look beyond the Lost Horizon for the mythical places, hidden and elusive. They are known by names like El Dorado, Shangri-La, Avalon, Atlantis or Utopia. Guiding our way on this episode of Idyllic music are AguaFlames, Neko Neko, Alu, Neil Smith, Indidginus and Orange Crush.

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This week, we'll look at transportation. It's the getting from one place to another that takes up so much of our time whether it's physically or spiritually. So we'll explore the conventional and not so conventional ways of getting around with the help of USB, Under, Crisopa, Aquanaut and HypNo.

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This week, we'll look for the lost, the secret, the rushed and hypnotic with the help of four bands who have made distinctive contributions to independent music in their home countries. They are Bluba Lu, Kalahari Surfers, QuiOui and Volfoniq.

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This week, we'll look at city life and the effort it takes not to be overwhelmed by it. Taking us through the structure, disorientation, density and sanctuaries of respite are DJ Shiro, Dive Index, Confused Man, Danieto and Macrostructure.

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This week, we'll look at the brusque and abrupt. It seems as if we live in a time of rapid change, speeding up yet halting in fits and jerks. It is demonstrated in the area of climate change, where the theory of abrupt, tipping point change is becoming more widely accepted. On this episode we'll hear 7 songs whose precipitous changes and Unexpected endings represent that new reality. They are from Alif Tree, I am Open, Krael, Gisela, Jeff Mallon and Anji Bee. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, we'll look at the One and no other. Novelist Iris Murdoch said 'The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries" It explains how years after love goes sour, you can be haunted by that failure. Accepting no substitutes this week are Blind Divine, Chris Martin, Dive Index, Countertop Hero and Lemonchill.

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This week, we'll look at the blue side of love. The agonizing reappraisal that comes after infatuation with the help of Big Wheel, Kristin Mainhart, The Banjo Consorsium, Fez Dispenser, Velvet Chain and Deerfoot. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, we'll hear five songs by artists and musicians who have internalized the sounds of their adopted homes or stepped outside their native cultures to embrace the beats of another. They are Amanda Jayne, Virculum, Suzanne Vega, Stervhia and the Lion of Joppa Soundsystem. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, we'll look at sister cities. Not in any formal sense but closely related nonetheless. We have four bands and four cities whose cultural and artistic proximity could just as easily be one. They are Mavro, Chill Factor-5, Tricky and Bubblelawn. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, we'll look at foreknowledge and hindsight. The ability to know what might happen and inability to profit from that knowledge. Like Camus' unused train ticket found at his fatal car crash or lyrics of a song made clear over time. We'll visit that paradox with Jamdeluxe, Nihaya, Owen, Tryad, and Coil.

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This week, we'll search for the empty space, the gap or missing part. A spot devoid of all things but meaning through the help of the definitive Lacunae, Aaron the cutter, DS-Art, Max Cavallera and Egon.

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This week we'll look at points in time that determine an endless series of possibilities. Paths that diverge then meander back and cross again. The future may be unwritten but which future. Presenting their respective cases are Motionfield, Ecovillage, SAHR, Peach Stealing Monkeys, Waverider and Gabriel. I'm Jim Nye

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This week, we look at ones and zeros, the choice of on or off. Calculations for a digital age where the earthly pursuits of the past are but nostalgia. Forging on and remembering the old at Jeankal, Synthastazia dot exe, Frank Molder, Mabafu and Jah Wobble.

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This week's Rorschach looks at things that might have been had we taken the time to see what was hidden in plain sight. Providing the hindsight without recrimination are Calm, Mr.S, Peeping Tom, Two Loons for Tea and Terence Blanchard.

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This week, we'll look at sustainability and cooperation. One of the searing truths of the music you listen to is that it don't come easy. Musicians create and if they are good enough or plain lucky, they can take their songs on the road and sell a few tickets. Independent artists ask only a bit of cooperation from us. This podcast is entirely dependent on the bands that offer up their music for us to play for free. In turn, they ask only that you buy a ticket or a song or a CD directly from them. One of these is the enormously gifted songwriter Kristen Hersh.

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This week, we'll explore the essentials. In fact, The Sun and water are the key ingredients for life, as we know it. I'd like to suppose cool music to that short list as well. We'll hear all three in the voice of Portal, Surbahar, Omihoshbin, Band of Mad Women, and The HellBus.

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This week, it's the current state of electronic music. It's become the laziest handle for a genre since Alternative. For a long time it was defined as music played on synthesizers but that time has come and gone. Today's electronic music is so broad as to defy easy categorization but for one element. It is, more often than not, assembled digitally. So, we'll peer into the electronic future with the help of MoShang, Ikarus, K-Shan, The Silk Demise, The Twombley Spiders and Toneless Symphony.

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Just as a sad movie can raise your spirits and the blues make you joyful sometimes being alone can be rejuvinating, This week we'll feel out the many aspcts of being alone through the music of Simone and Flu, Grove of Hellion, All About Max, Hungry Lucy, Chico Correa and Ici Aussi.

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This week, we'll look at that short period between emerging from sleep to actually opening your eyes. A state of near consciousness through the music of Natalie Walker, cognitive dissonance, Karmacoda, A Weekend At Lesters, Blue Vitriol and Org.

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This week, we'll examine the illusion of contact. The sheer counter-intuitiveness that on a sub-atomic level nothing ac