A Treasury OF XX Century Murder Compendium I

The Best of A Flock of Seagulls is an excellent 12-track roundup of A Flock of Seagulls' best material. Their catalog wasn't particularly deep outside of the hits "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" and "I Ran (So Far Away)," but they did do some good new nomantic synth pop, particularly on cuts like "Nightmares," "A Space Age Love Song," and "Telecommunications," all of which are here. As a matter of fact, this really does contain all of the group's best material, and while new wave fetishists will likely go for the actual albums anyway, most listeners will be more than satisfied with this.

Landowska's custom made harpsichord was a giant beast, with a powerful, percussive sound and a variety of available registrations that she exploited to the maximum. She was trying to get the attention of people who had Rachmaninov in their ears, and today her playing would seem over the top if it weren't so intelligently put together. The Dances of Poland album is definitely an oddity, but the pulsing rhythmic power of Landowska's playing makes the music work surprisingly well. Hear the very first work on the album, Michal Kleofas Oginski's Polonaise No. 1 in A major, "Farewell to the Fatherland" – a rousing work that sounds like a predecessor of Chopin's "Revolutionary" Etude.