FREE PLANET RADIO
LIVE in-store performance & taping for WNCW’s Tower of Song Series
Saturday, Jan 24 – 3pm
Join us for this unique and very exciting one with le difference!!

If you’ve eaten at the Pita House or The India Palace and enjoyed the food or the music playing you will likely be at home with this CD or the first one from these guys. This is an enthralling new CD showcasing some of the nicest acoustic world world beat blends coming out of the many aromatic sonic flavors of Eastern and Middle Eastern origin. Grab this perfectly balanced mixture of jazz, ethnic, chamber music and a dash of funkiness. The Unravelling is a carry out I can’t live without. An absolute stunner and it’s from Asheville and heard very often on WNCW.org! —Gene

Here is the deeper story: Free Planet Radio is the shared vision of three multi-instrumentalists exploring the infinite and seamless relationships between musical cultures through the universal language of sound. “The Unraveling” is their latest release and includes special guest appearances by Turkish master musicians Omar Faruk Tekbilek (ney flute) and Hasan Isakkut (kanun).


An evening with Free Planet Radio offers a richly unique aural experience which includes the exotic sliding string sounds of the Indian Dotar dancing around a pulsing jazz bass accented by the shimmering jingles of an Egyptian Riq Tambourine. Free Planet Radio weaves Middle Eastern, Indian, and North African melodic and rhythmic structures and blends them expertly with the subtleties and harmonic vocabulary of Western classical music, underscored with the improvisatory element of jazz.

Free Planet Radio consists of Chris Rosser, exploring melody on a variety of Indian and Turkish stringed instruments, guitar, piano and melodica; River Guerguerian on an extensive array of global percussion instruments including Middle Eastern frame drums and doumbek, Latin American cajon, and Western drum set; and multi-Grammy award-winning bassist Eliot Wadopian on electric and string basses, leaping effortlessly between rhythm and melody.

These artists emerged from three of the country’s finest conservatories, and each has established himself in concert halls and studios, appearing on over 200 recordings and in 30 countries. Their immense individual talents have garnered worldwide recognition in performances from Carnegie Hall to the Hong Kong World Music Festival; from the Sydney Opera House to the Madrid International Jazz Festival. These versatile musicians now unite their expansive talents, instruments, harmonies and rhythms to create their shared world vision; a phenomenal blending and harmony of global traditions in music.

“Music like this is good for us — it’s healthy to find a piece of art to lose yourself in. Go find this album and get lost in the world for a while. It’s a nice place. 5 big fat stars all around.” —Chris Cooper, Smoky Mountain News

On the scene: The best of ‘08
Here are the best shows I saw in 2008:
Free Planet Radio at Columbia Museum of Art: The band – Chris Rosser, River Guerguerian and Eliot Wadopian – played dynamic jazz that frequently gets categorized as “world music” because of Rosser’s exotic instruments. He plays the Indian dotar and Turkish cumbus oud, along with piano and guitar. FPR are tone technicians, and the band brilliantly peeled layers of sound, making it easy for the listener to engage the movements.
—Otis Taylor Jr. The State newspaper, Columbia SC

Free Planet Radio “the unraveling” on CD