When David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash created this pop super trio in 1968 after their splits from the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and The Hollies, respectively, it would have been a pipedream that a hits package released 37 years later would sound as eternal and essential as this one. The 19 songs straddle the four-album, landscape-altered timeframe between 1969's post-Woodstock debut Crosby, Stills & Nash and 1982's Daylight Again, which helped inaugurate the MTV era. Unbalanced sequencing–which randomly bounces 12 years ahead and five years back–is rescued by the superb harmonies, unique songwriting and divergent personalities of the three members. With politics and culture always at the forefront, Stills bookends the band's trademark canon with "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "Southern Cross," Nash incorporates Eastern influences to "Marrakesh Express" and folk timber to "Just a Song Before I Go" and "Teach Your Children," and the ever-capricious Crosby leads the way lyrically with the lingering "Delta" to the Robert Kennedy tribute "Long Time Gone".
Considering that Max Richter's soundtrack work far outpaces the rate at which he releases his own albums, this Deutsche Grammophon collection of four of his earliest works is a welcome reminder of their magic. Retrospective gathers his instant-classic, Franz Kafka-inspired 2004 album The Blue Notebooks, which features the Tilda Swinton collaboration "On the Nature of Daylight" and introduced Richter's expressive mix of classical and electronic music to many listeners; the like-minded Songs from Before, which featured Robert Wyatt reading Haruki Murakami texts over Richter's sensitive, piano-driven compositions; 24 Postcards in Full Colour, an eclectic and emotive collection of ringtone-inspired miniatures; and Infra, a piece composed for the Royal Ballet and inspired in equal measure by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Franz Schubert's Winterreise. The collection also includes bonus tracks for each album, including a full orchestral version of "On the Nature of Daylight" and an essay by Paul Morley. Retrospective offers a wonderful way for fans to experience these albums to their fullest, and for newcomers to learn what all the fuss is about.
Preservation Act 1 (1973). Preservation is Ray Davies' most ambitious project - a musical that used the quaint, small-town nostalgia of Village Green as a template to draw the entirety of society and how it works. Or, at least that's what the concept seems to be, since the storyline was so convoluted, it necessitated three separate LPs, spread over two albums, and it still didn't really make sense because the first album, Preservation, Act 1, acted more like an introduction to the characters, and all the story was condensed into the second album. Davies intended all of Preservation to stand as one double-album set, but he scrapped the first sessions for the album, which led to record company pressure to deliver an album before the end of 1973 - hence, the appearance of Preservation, Act 1 in mid-November…
Althea W. is the brainchild of outstanding Dutch composer and producer and multi instrumentalist Bram Schenk. Schenk once started his musical career as a drummer but found his musical voice when he toured as a keyboard player with a band called Painting House during the Seventies. His mindset and attitude towards the world was pretty much shaped by the Flower Power era. Like many other artists around the world his experiences during this revolutionary era opened his mind for foreign cultures, especially those of the Far East, which have a strong influence on his music.
Like you ve never seen him before. As Joe Bonamassa grows his reputation as one of the world s greatest guitar players, he is also evolving into a charismatic blues-rock star and singer-songwriter of stylistic depth and emotional resonance. His ability to connect with live concert audiences is transformational, and his latest project, the live acoustic Blu-ray Joe Bonamassa: An Acoustic Evening at the Vienna Opera House captures the magnetism and maturity Bonamassa showcases as an artist. Joe Bonamassa: An Acoustic Evening at the Vienna Opera House, to be released in March 2013, was recorded at the historic Vienna Opera House last July during a very special two-week long unplugged tour, played to a limited audience over seven exclusive European shows. Varying from his predominantly electric blues shows, this presentation was an all-acoustic concert performance, making it a unique and very special show fans had been waiting years to experience.
Amid the ever-growing tide of Deep Purple box sets (this was at least their eighth in nine years), Listen Learn Read On stands alone, not only as the ultimate round-up of the band's greatest moments, but also as the answer to more collectors' dreams than most collectors were even aware they'd had. You want Deep Purple's long-legendary, but forever unavailable BBC sessions? They're here. You want the killer live encores that other albums omitted? They're here. You want a solid introduction to the band members' pre-Purple passages? They're here. And, of course, you want the hits. So they're here as well…
The Comsat Angels were an English post-punk band from Sheffield, England, initially active from 1978 to 1995. Their music has been described as "abstract pop songs with sparse instrumentation, many of which were bleak and filled with some form of heartache". They have been credited as being an influence on later post-punk revival bands such as Blacklist, Bell Hollow, Editors and Interpol. The Comsat Angels toured heavily in the UK and western Europe, especially in the Netherlands; the band's two concerts in August 1982 in Iceland had a strong influence on the music scene in Reykjavík. They also toured the United States twice. Their music has been extensively reissued and recompiled since 1995 by various record labels.