Dance Orchid

In these collections, music is used to convey the diverse characteristics of tea and flowers to listeners. The composers blend the different features of Chinese instruments such as the paixiao, gaohu, guzheng and pipa with sound of nature to create a vivid representation of new age music.

As Yanni's first album of original material in five years - he revisited the past on 2014's Inspirato and recast Mexicanísimo as My Passion for Mexico in 2012 - Sensuous Chill doesn't feel rushed, nor does it feel lazy. At nearly 70 minutes, it does feel a little bit long but Yanni doesn't keep the 17 tracks treading water. Occasionally, he trades in placid surfaces, letting a slight Middle Eastern flair drift into view, but he often ratchets up the R&B beats while threading in spectral soul vocals straight out of Pink Floyd, letting things glide into a full song and then slide away back to a realm that can only be identified by the title's claim. If the production and aesthetic of the record feel slightly out of date - it feels like it could've been cut in the '90s - there's also a charm to its traditionalism: Yanni knows what he does well and he does it proudly here.

The shortest album of Black Sabbath's glory years, Master of Reality is also their most sonically influential work. Here Tony Iommi began to experiment with tuning his guitar down three half-steps to C#, producing a sound that was darker, deeper, and sludgier than anything they'd yet committed to record…

Everybody knows that Black Sabbath's legacy rests on their first four albums – after that, they lost their luster, or more precisely their mythic power. At their peak, which is how they are remembered, Sabbath were all about myth and power. Their very name had an ominous resonance, capturing their murky, foreboding sound perfectly…

The Tikiyaki Orchestra exist in a class by themselves. There really is no other band quite like them on the planet. They take the Exotica tradition as established by pioneers Denny, Lyman and Baxter and bring it into the 21st century. Their unmistakable sound is a blend of the coolest retro styles–exotica, lounge, space-age bachelor pad, crime jazz, spy, surf, spaghetti western and more. They headline sold out shows, have appeared at the major Tiki festivals and have had their music featured in numerous television shows and Tiki documentaries.

In this collection, 101 Strings Orchestra performs some melodies from Hawaii with rhythms that make you dance with Hawaiian style. 101 Strings was a brand for a highly successful easy listening symphonic music organization, with a discography exceeding a hundred albums and a creative lifetime of roughly thirty years.

In his seminal book on the composer’s life and music, Debussy, His Life and Mind (London, Dent & Sons Ltd, 1980 revision) Edward Lockspeiser, who spoke with many of Debussy’s own friends and colleagues and thus knew his subject particularly well, called his hero “ a unique artistic phenomenon in the history of music” (Lockspeiser 162). His analysis has clearly stood the test of time.