Ann Perry

A smorgasbord album, the cast list includes Bjork, Siouxsie Sioux, Brendan Perry, and long-term sidekick Barbera Googan. As expected, the mood is cold, often somber in tone. Only on "The Long Voyage," a springy ditty fronted by Suzanne Vega and John Cale, does the album ascend from the depths. Some of the gloom works, like in "Havet Stomar," a brilliant slow burner with B.J. Cole's pedal steel guitar and ECM artist Lene Willemark's chilling howls. "Annukka Suaren Neito" presents what must be the closest to an Eskimo rap you can get. Mark Isham provides freestyle trumpet that almost sounds like seagulls swooping the skies. The Jane Siberry-fronted "She Is Like the Swallow" is a beauty, as soft as it is light. Hector Zazou's electronics are in fine check too. The canvas expands to new textures, such as metallic percussion in "Adventures in the Scandinavian Skin Trade".

Monsigny and Sedaine's brilliant opera-cotnique Le Deserteur, was an immediate and lasting success for its melodic charms and musical variety, its blend of comedy with moments of great sentiment and pathos, and its intellectual radicalism prefiguring the humanitarian ideas of the 19th century Romantics. This recording features the musical items only from this forerunner of the 'rescue' opera, in which the heroine Louise extricates her fiance Alexis from prison and a death sentence.

I have a collection of 135 titles (142 CDs) issued by Goldmine/Soul Supply record company. This is not a box set but rather it is a collection of albums that are similar in that they all are rare soul compilations by the same company. There are some tracks that are on more than one album but considering the scope and magnitude of this collection, the number of duplicated tracks is small. Some CDs have good artwork, some have none, most have some artwork of varying quality. All are 320 CBR MP3 and are fully tagged. Original post now has added CDs.