By all rights, the album that came to be known as Big Star's Third should have been a disaster. It was written and recorded in 1975, when Alex Chilton's brilliant but tragically overlooked band had all but broken up. As Chilton pondered his next move, he was drinking and drugging at a furious pace while writing a handful of striking tunes that were often beautiful but also reflected his bitterness and frustration with his career (and the music business in general). Production of the album wasn't completed so much as it simply stopped, and none of the major figures involved ever decided on a proper sequence for the finished songs, or even a title. (The album was also known as Sister Lovers and Beale Street Green at various times.) And yet, Third has won a passionate and richly deserved cult following over the years, drawn in by the emotional roller coaster ride of the songs, informed by equal parts love, loss, rage, fear, hope, and defeat.
This recording of lute music may be of most interest to fans of the lute and of the Renaissance-Baroque transition era, but it will be of considerable interest to them: it marks the first recording of the Libro d'intavolature di liuto, or Book of Lute Tablatures, of Vincenzo Galilei (1584). Galilei was the father of none other than astronomer Galileo. The work is given the title The Well-Tempered Lute here; that was not Galilei's title, but the music was apparently the first collection intended to demonstrate the possibilities of equal temperament that Bach would exploit so dramatically a century and a half later. Some scholars have opined that this was a primarily theoretical work; as music, it is both technically difficult and a little monotonous, consisting of groups of dances that may or may not have been danced to. Lutenist Žak Ozmo makes a good case for these little pieces as performer's music, differentiating learned counterpoint from works of a more expressive character.
Digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition of this 1981 album. The original release of Fourth Drawer Down gathered The Associates' inventive, genre-defying singles released on Situation 2 on one LP. This new CD edition expands the original single LP to a two disc collection. The booklet features extensive liner notes, reproductions of original promotional material, previously unseen memorabilia and unpublished photos. Formed in in 1976 by Billy McKenzie and Alan Rankine, The Associates made lavish, genre-bending pop music.
Preoccupations is a Canadian post-punk band from Calgary, Alberta, formed in 2012 under the name Viet Cong. The band consists of Matt Flegel (vocals, bass), Scott Munro (guitar, synth), Daniel Christiansen (guitar) and Mike Wallace (drums). The group's musical style has been described as "labyrinthine post-punk".
The two CDs forming Vol. 2 are also based on a new collection and edition of the extant musical materials. The order of the pieces on the recording initially adheres to the sequence of the chorale settings in the musicological edition. The result includes programs with special thematic Christmas, Passiontide, Easter, Psalm settings, and catechism songs. This new recording is an invitation to listeners everywhere to rediscover Pachelbel's versatility as a keyboard composer.