Curio 8.4.1

Of all England's living Knight-Conductors, Richard Armstrong is perhaps least represented on record. For 13 years, director of the Welsh National opera, he is best known for his work in that medium with just a handful of recordings.
In 1986, Marks and Spencer the famous department store decided to make its own in-house recording of the Enigma Variations coupled with the Introduction and Allegro and Serenade for Strings and booked Armstrong into EMI's Abbey Road Studios in July with the London Philharmonic to record this disc. The London Philharmonic had this music in its bones by then thanks to Adrian Boult and others, but Armstrong coaxed versions from them that are uniquely his own. Midway between Boult and Barbirolli, Armstrong's interpretations are scrupulously played but also at moments energetic, thoughtful and above all heartfelt. You get the feeling this conductors connects with the music.

Recorded in 1988 during the European tour for The Fixx's sixth album CALM ANIMALS (for some reason not released until 1996), REAL TIME STOOD STILL is a well-played, crisply-recorded, well-chosen set that shows The Fixx at a critical stage in their career. After 1986's "Secret Separation," The Fixx never had another US hit, and the English group refocused their energies on their continuing European success. Judging by the sound of the audience, The Fixx were big in Germany at this time. Only about a third of these 17 tracks were US hits, including of course "One Thing Leads to Another" and "Stand or Fall," and most of the rest of the disc is devoted to the less commercially successful WALKABOUT and CALM ANIMALS discs. REAL TIME STOOD STILL is an interesting curio for American fans.

"A newly reissued private-press curio from 1974 captures the bygone sounds of daily life in Portland, Oregon, in dreamy, proto-ambient form." Ernest Hood’s Neighborhoods was released some two decades after the Portland, Oregon born and raised musician’s first forays into field recordings. These very recordings, and those captured over intervening years, define the universal sound and aural images of childhood, a theme memorialized by Hood’s privately-pressed opus of 1975.

This 1997 follow-up to The Naked Truth repeats the basic "live and acoustic" formula of that album, but it isn't the uninspired retread one might expect. Since the last album used most of the group's familiar numbers, this collection of songs digs deeper into the group's catalog to highlight some lesser-known gems that will delight Golden Earring fanatics. Two of the best examples are "Buddy Joe," a rousing adventure tale that translates perfectly to the acoustic setting, and "Bombay," a tune that takes an almost hoedown-style quality when stripped of its electric guitars. The set list also includes a few covers that appeared on Love Sweat, "Who Do You Love" and "This Wheel's on Fire."

The title says it all: Although not steeped in heavy metal riffs or gothic sound effects, this 1976 effort from Grand Funk Railroad creates a mood gloomy enough to rival the darkest moments of Black Sabbath…