Motörhead have an overabundance of rarities in their vaults, as evidenced by the bonus tracks included on the 2001 Castle reissues of their early releases. Somehow, the group even had more rare tracks lying around, which comprise the 2002 double-disc set Tear Ya Down: The Rarities…
The definitive Podington Bear collection includes 10 CDs, 135 songs, and over 8 hours of music. Podington Bear is a modern music internet phenomenon. Profiled on NPR, Wired, heaps of blogs, and selected as a Best of 2007 podcast by the iTunes Music Store, P. Bear's original method of music delivery has reached listeners far and wide. He serves up thousands of songs every day via his podcast on iTunes, cycling through the parade of music now contained in The Box Set. The music itself is 100% instrumental, inventive, delightful, and accessible. The sonic palate varies widely, juxtaposing acoustic instrumentation with synthesized and distorted sounds. The songs are constructed of simple melodies that mutate modally with surprising twists of composition. Touchstones would be Hot Chip, Björk, The Album Leaf, or early Múm. Little is known about this character except that he lives in Portland and prefers to work anonymously. This body of work is represented uniformly by a simple line drawing of a bear, invoking a legacy and an ethos that surrounds the music. It is a collection that works in the foreground or the back.
Features two small booklets and 10 CDs with 135 songs. Currently shipping complete with 135 tracks on 10 discs. Hooray!
The final release of conga master Sabu Martinez is an out-in-the-psychedelic-ozone masterpiece. Featuring a politicized Martinez reciting poetry, his own manically exotic percussion ensemble, and a slew of reeds, woodwinds, and brass, this is a heady brew of poetry expressing Latino and indigenous pride, political indictments against the white man, and killer Afro-Cuban jazz. Think of Archie Shepp's Attica Blues or Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite done by Chano Pozo and you are getting the idea. The layers and layers of congas and djembe drums, the wailing saxophones à la Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, and swirling flutes played as if they were Eric Dolphy or Prince Lasha, hypnotically elocuting Martinez's poetic recitations – after he's finished speaking.
Almost Heaven is the tenth regular studio album by European-American pop group The Kelly Family. Based on a concept by Dan Kelly, it was co-produced by Kathy and Paddy Kelly and released in 1996 throughout most of Europe. Following the major success of previous albums Over the Hump and Christmas for All and the number-one single "I Can't Help Myself," the album debuted number-one in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. It also entered the top 5 in the Netherlands and Norway and made it to the top 20 in Belgium. Almost Heaven eventually sold more than three million copies worldwide, making it the band's second biggest-selling release to date.