Detachment (2011)

A collection of 6 CD, which includes all the studio albums by American alternative rock band from Sacramento at the moment. Best-known for their ubiquitous hit "The Distance," Cake epitomized the postmodern, irony-drenched aesthetic of '90s geek rock. Their sound freely mixed and matched pastiches of widely varying genres – white-boy funk, hip-hop, country, new wave pop, jazz, college rock, and guitar rock – with a particular delight in the clashes that resulted. Their songs were filled with lyrical non-sequiturs, pop-culture references, and smirky satire, all delivered with bone-dry detachment by speak/singing frontman John McCrea. Cake's music most frequently earned comparisons to Soul Coughing and King Missile, but lacked the downtown New York artiness of those two predecessors; instead, Cake cultivated an image of average guys with no illusions and pretensions about their role as entertainers. At the same time, critics lambasted what they saw as a smugly superior attitude behind the band's habitual sarcasm.

Kevin Ayers - Songs For Insane Times: An Anthology, 1969-1980 (2008) {4CD Box Set Harvest-EMI 521 5570}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.60 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 668 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 45 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1969-80, 2008 Harvest / EMI Records | 521 5570
Rock / British Psychedelia / Canterbury Scene / Art Rock

2008 four CD anthology that covers Ayers' musical career from 1969 to 1980; a period most fans and critics deem his best. Ayers remains one of Rock's oddest enigmas. He makes ordinary subjects extraordinary with his rich low vocals and inventive wordplay. He projects the image of a Prog-Rock beach bum writing about life's absurdities with a celebratory, relaxed detachment, yet he is also one of Prog- Rock's more important innovators, helping to launch the Soft Machine, and working with noted progressive musicians Mike Oldfield, Lol Coxhill, and Steve Hillage. Ayers' solo material reflected a Folksier, lazier, and gentler turn than Soft Machine. He was often compared to Syd Barrett, but without the madness and is never less than enjoyable and original, Discs One to Three contain 49 hits, album tracks and more while Disc Four was recorded at The Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on 25th May 1973.

A relaxed, easy vocal stylist who clowned with the Rat Pack, developing into an extremely popular ballad singer and light comedian.

This generous double disc survey of Saint-Saens' chamber music offers the listener over two hours of unalloyed pleasure and contains a judicious selection of works for various ensembles that range across his career - indeed the three sonatas for bassoon, clarinet and oboe respectively are very late pieces and were part of an intended series of such works for each member of the standard woodwind family, a project only curtailed by the composer's death in 1921.

The Lindsay Quartet have set a high standard of Tippett interpretation, with that special authority that stems from working on the music with the composer. Whatever else Tippett has done, he has not inhibited these players: their performances are characterized by a distinctive freshness and spontaneity, a well-balanced homogeneity of texture and a fine sense of rhythmic flow, essential if the music is not to coagulate around its multitude of contrapuntal details.