Cat Stevens Eac

Jazz has always had a certain fascination for the moon. After love, it is one of the more common topics for jazz standards, and for Nils Landgren is no exception. For some time he has planned a ballad album as a sequel to his highly successful "Sentimental Journey", which according to the newspaper Die Welt "stole the hearts of the audience".
These songs include jazz standards, such as Henry Mancini’s "Moon River" or Herbie Hancock’s "Stars in Your Eyes", as well as folk and pop songs like Kris Kristofferson’s "Please Don’t Tell Me How The Story Ends" or "Moonshadow" by Cat Stevens, and he also includes South American song by Kurt Weill called "Holofotes" alongside his own compositions. As such, "The Moon, the Stars and You" has grown into a concept album with a whole spectrum of different moods - meditative, longing, occasionally funky yet continuously inspired and swinging.

Burn to Shine presents proof positive that you can always distill the essence of rock & roll down to a solitary man alone with his guitar and conscience. It sounds inventive yet firmly rooted in the blues-rock singer/songwriter/guitarist tradition of Taj Mahal and of Neil Young and Cat Stevens at their most confessional. Harper's guitar with falsetto vocal in "The Woman in You" even suggests a Curtis Mayfield tune in the hands of Prince. "Steal My Kisses" is one of those uncluttered, radio-friendly rock shuffles that simply makes you bob your head and feel better. Even Harper's detours - like the wobbling New Orleans shuffle with the Real Time Jazz Band, "Suzie Blue," and charred Black Sabbath metal in "Less" - prove worth exploring. Other cameos include guitarists David Lindley and former Bob Marley sideman Tyrone Downey. Burn to Shine is a minor masterpiece that may prove to be not so minor.

It starts off jumpy and jazzy, but a pretty layer of English art-rock fog creeps into Brian Protheroe's pop as the album goes on…

Recorded in the late 1960s and early '70s, this collection of cover songs presents Elton John in his formative years, just on the verge of major success, though clearly not there yet. (John, aka Reginald Dwight, is erroneously – and humorously – referred to as "Reg Bright" by a press clipping in the liner notes.) On these work-for-hire sessions, Captain Fantastic is still very much in the music-industry trenches, running through hits such as "In the Summertime" for release on budget-priced British LPs. Despite the unglamorous origins of these tracks, there are plenty of gems, as John can't help but let his charm seep through, even when trying for John Fogerty's vocal grit on Creedence's "Travelin' Band" and "Up Around the Bend."/quote]

Unlike the majority of bubblegum bands, the Lemon Pipers' albums are actually quite good, not least because they were one of the few bubblegum bands who were a proper band with their own songwriters (although outside writer/producers did provide the two hits, the inescapable "Green Tambourine" and the actually even better "Rice Is Nice," a sweet, harp-laden depiction of a wedding day). Even the album tracks are pretty groovy, like the Cat Stevens-like character sketches "Shoeshine Boy" and "The Shoemaker of Leatherwood Square," which effectively use trippy string sections and playful harmonies. The snottier folk-rock of "Ask Me if I Care" and the far-out "Fifty Year Void," to say nothing of the nine-minute freakout "Through With You," give Green Tambourine a harder edge than most bubblegum albums, though it's still closer to, say, the Cyrkle than Cream. Seek it out, bubblegum snobs: you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Recorded in the summer of 1972 and released the following year, Nigel Lived is Murray Head's first solo LP. A rarity for this singer, it takes the form of a concept album. A songwriter found the diary of a stranger and wrote songs out of some fragments. The booklet reproduces pages of the fake diary along with the lyrics, weaving a believable fiction that helps in distancing or objectifying the autobiographical nature of the songs.

Wim Mertens - Whisper Me (1988) {Windham Hill WD-1079}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 190 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 90 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 26 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1988 Les Disques du Crépuscule / Windham Hill Records | WD-1079
Classical / Minimalism / Neo-Classical / Contemporary Instrumental

One can imagine how a composer like Wim Mertens could appear on the Windham Hill label and – to some people's surprise – in the late '80s he appeared twice. Whisper Me is a compilation of tracks from his other Crepuscle releases, a mini-overview of his style, and a way of hearing some tracks from the then-impossible-to-find Maximizing the Audience. Mertens has more depth to him than other pianists on the label, and a darkness creeps in at the edges of these works.

By dropping the needle on classic rock cuts and forgotten ‘70s pop confections, The Guardians of the Galaxy flipped the conventional thinking of soundtracks on its head. The blockbuster continues this fine tradition on the sequel, pulling from a dusty crate of one-hit wonders and FM rock. Vol. 2 bounces along with ELO (“Mr. Blue Sky”), glam (“Fox on the Run”), power pop (“Surrender”), and more than one guilty pleasure (“Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”).

It was fifty years ago today Thousands of young people from across the United States descended on the Haight- Ashbury district of San Francisco, igniting a cultural revolution. They were drawn by the promise of a new social order and by the music. The Sixties began before the Summer of Love and continued long afterward, but the Summer of 1967 was the moment that it all coalesced. The Summer of Love had a special look and a special feel, but above all it had a special sound. Jefferson Airplane, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, Stevie Wonder and many others!