[2007.12.30] Girls' Generation (snsd) Hey Micky Kbs Gayo Daejun 2007

Arriving at the twilight of the 1960s, Santana were psychedelic pioneers who ushered Latin rock into the mainstream with their first three albums: Santana, Abraxas, and Santana III. Thanks to their appearance at Woodstock, their eponymous album was a smash hit right out of the gate, with its single "Evil Ways" making it into the Billboard Top Ten in 1969. They remained at the top of the charts until 1973, when leader and namesake guitarist Carlos Santana began exploring esoteric, spiritual jazz fusion on his own.

With a voice that sounds like a more mainstream version of the late jazz cult superstar Eva Cassidy and smoky raven-haired looks to rival a movie lot's worth of young ingénues, it's a bit of a surprise that Katie Melua has remained so unknown in the United States, despite the chart success the Eastern European-born songstress has achieved in her adopted home of the United Kingdom. It seems like she should be at least as popular as, say, Regina Spektor or Nellie McKay. Pictures may not help that much, however, because in comparison to its fairly straightforward jazz-tinged singer/songwriter predecessors, Melua's third album takes a bit of a left turn into the self-consciously quirky. It's a wonder that it took so long, because Melua's producer and part-time songwriter is Mike Batt, a minor legend of the U.K. music scene who has fashioned a decades-long career out of deliberate eccentricity…

Scion of one of Italy’s most musical 17th-century families, Giovanni Bononcini became such a force in an era when the oratorio was king that he rivaled Handel in popularity across the continent. Venturing from Italy to England and back again, Bononcini was branded something of a political malcontent, though the music heard in this set has all of the political dogma of a John Clare poem: which is to say, none at all, a music of mead and meadow, an image that I assume the sylphs on the booklet’s cover are meant to conjure in their contented gazes.

On some obscure releases of the early '70s, Majority One wrote and recorded material in the manner of some of the more foppish late-'60s British psychedelic pop, though the style had been out of fashion for a couple of years or so. The group evolved out of the U.K. band the Majority, who issued eight singles on Decca between 1965 and 1968 without reaching the British charts. After a lot of personnel turnover and a spell backing British singer Barry Ryan, the group moved to France and issued one final single as the Majority, "Charlotte Rose," though this was only released in some European territories. In 1970, still based in France, they changed their name to Majority One, issuing a few singles in 1970 and 1971 and a self-titled album in 1971, though the latter only came out in France and Holland at the time.

Para Além da Saudade is the third studio album bu Portuguese Fado singer Ana Moura. It was released in 2007 and published by World Village and Universal. Contains 15 tracks, with the opening theme, "Os Búzios," it became Ana Moura's most commercial single to date. The album met with favourable reviews. Rascunho gave the album a favourable review and said: "Leafing through the pages of the small book that accompanies this third record of original, never fail to jump out at you names like Faust, Amélia Muge, Patxi Andeon or Tim Reies - the latter surely the most unsuspecting strangers, but also not sounding that the oddness of names.

Cycle I (2007). This French band incorporate two Fender Rhodes players, a female vocalist, drums, bass and sax. James MacGaw from One Shot and Magma guests on guitar here as well. By the way Udi Koomran mastered this beauty. To the casual prog fan this venture by French band Setna just might be the best way of approaching the Zeuhl brand. The mad and overtly gibberish laden characteristics that often sound like showering opera singers and piano playing walruses here are exchanged for something softer and far sweeter…