Date With an Angel (1987)

Jim is soon to be married to Patty, but when he wakes up after a bachelor party thrown by his friends, he finds an injured angel in his pool. When Patty sees her, she thinks he's seeing someone else and gets upset and tells her father. Now he has to figure out how to; cure the angel, tell Patty what happened, keep his friends from taking the angel to the papers, and keep Patty's father from killing him. It's no wonder he has a headache.

k.d. lang's first major-label album (and debut American release) was a bit of a switch from the polished retro-country of her best-known work; with Dave Edmunds in the producer's chair, Angel with a Lariat often sounds more like rockabilly or roots rock than classic C&W, with a big, snappy drum sound, plenty of guitars mixed upfront, and lots of slapback of lang's vocals (a production decision lang mentioned with little enthusiasm several years after the album came out). "Turn Me Around" and "High Time for a Detour" rock significantly harder than most of lang's body of work, and "Watch Your Step Polka," "Diet of Strange Places," and "Tune Into My Wave" find lang and her band (who are in fine form throughout) indulging her sly sense of humor, which tended to get lost in the shuffle on later albums such as Ingénue.

Art Hodes - Midnight Blue (1989) {Jazzology JCD172 rec 1987}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 246 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 130 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 11 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1989 Jazzology Records | JCD 172
Jazz / Hot Jazz / Dixieland / Piano

Hode's trip to Britain in 1987 was a laying-on of hands, a chance to make contact with someone who belonged to an apostolic line back to the origins of jazz. Traditional jazz players of all sorts made their way to listen to and sit in with the great man. The results are pretty uniform, with most of the best music coming in solo performances by Hodes himself. … The larger groups [i.e. than on Jazzology JCD 237 & JCD 307] called on more seasoned and experienced musicians and the playing is better in proportion, with some excellent moments from that Chris Barber stalwart, Pat Halcox. Fawkes is still underrated and Greig is as good in this style as one could hope to find.

Death Angel was formed in 1982 by cousins, guitarists Rob Cavestany and Gus Pepa, bassist Dennis Pepa and drummer Andy Galeon. Mark Osegueda, who is second cousin to the founding members and was their roadie, joined as the vocalist in 1984…

There's a cult of Meet Danny Wilson lovers and if you ever ask them about the album, a Steely Dan comparison is bound to come up. It's not without merit, and considering that the other bands the album might remind you of – Deacon Blue and Fairground Attraction – aren't on the tip of much of anyone's tongue, Steely Dan is at close as it comes. But the Dan never sounded this lively, this exuberant, this finger-snapping. If that makes them sound light as feather, keep in mind that Lloyd Cole loves this record. Head songwriter Gary Clark shares some of Cole's love of literate and clever lyrics that fit just right with the notes they land on, but he prefers a horn-section blast to Cole's guitar jangle (plus Clark has more Jimmy Van Heusen records than Cole does, no doubt). The sweet "Mary's Prayer" is the almost-hit, barely making enough impact to call the band a one-hit wonder. It's only part of the story for an album that effortlessly hurls clever arrangements and lyrical stingers out of the speakers. Opening with the syncopated and humble "Davy" and then switching to the Vegas hipster, Bobby Darin-for-the-'80s "Aberdeen" makes for a killer opening, and the album keeps minding the pace.

Viktor Lazlo is the self-titled second studio album by French-Belgian singer Viktor Lazlo. Belgium was responsible to host the Eurovision Song Contest after Sandra Kim had won in 1986 with her song J'aime la vie. Lazlo was asked to host the event as she is fluent in several languages and thus her self-titled album became very successful all over Europe, entering the Top 20 album charts in Holland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It spent 19 weeks on the German album charts. The first single off the album was Breathless, which was co-written by Lazlo herself and features backing vocals by James Ingram and Bunny DeBarge. An official video was shot for the song and she also performed it at the beginning of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1987. The song reached No. 7 on the Belgian single charts. The songs Take Me and You Are My Man were also released as singles.