Dramatis

Three CD set. Following 2021's Musik Music Musique 2. 0 set, the third volume in the series looks at the electronic pop scene as it came to dominate the airwaves. A period which saw the 1980's credible musical landscape evolve from gritty post-punk to shamelessly aspirational polished pop. Featuring countless artists who would become household names (many of which remain active today) alongside lesser-known scene mainstays, independent innovators and novelty opportunists, Musik Music Musique 3. 0 explores the evolution of synth pop from anything resembling a 'scene' into the standard musical form of the day, soon to be embraced by everybody from power balladeers to quasi-rock stadium acts. From chart staples and nightclub anthems to rarities, curios and collectables, this set gives equal airtime to all, basking in the breadth of ideas and innovation being explored as the musical world moved towards the mid-80s.

Variants of Perception was originally released on Carpe Sonum Records in Spring of 2022. Comprising of tracks recorded between 2019 & 2020 the album sees me returning to my trademark mixture of deep Ambient tones & atmospheres with a mix of various electronic music influences with moments of Intricate IDM beats, Dub & downtempo breakbeat etc but with a generous sprinkling of improvised leads and emotive melodic flourishes. Resulting in a rather personal exploration of what it is to be human and triggers memories, feelings & emotions through contemporary & sometimes experimental electronic sound.

This exhaustive document of Pink Floyd’s sonic explorations contains some tantalising glimpses of the different paths they could have taken – as well as 15 versions of Careful With That Axe, Eugene…

Pergolesi’s comic opera Lo frate ’nnamorato (The Brother in Love) from 1732 was his ticket to the Royal Chapel in Naples. Its huge success was due to the beautiful score, showing Pergolesi’s talent for opera compositions, and the exquisite Libretto by Gennarantonio Federico. Lo frate ‘nnamorato especially owes its wit and exuberance to the comic resources of improvisational theatre, which is refl ected in the narrative structure and relationships between the dramatis personae. Love triangles, marriage plans that come to nothing, intrigues and more lead the opera along to the unsuspected outcome.

Although Druid's future seemed promising, the band failed to record more than two albums, leaving only 1975's Toward the Sun and 1976's Fluid Druid to their name. In 1995, BGO packaged both albums as a two-disc set, saving fans the hassle of locating each album separately. Druid is guided by lead vocalist Dane, who harbors a voice that is both high and sharp, but manages to customize it with the surrounding instruments. Both albums contain lush, relaxing harmonies with simple articulation and a free flowing folk-infused style that's illuminated by the keyboard and Mellotron applications. With parallels arising to that of Yes in Druid's musical composition, the songwriting isn't as intricate or as sensational, but it is delicately poetic and even romantic at times…

The first collaboration ever between conductor William Christie and director Luc Bondy with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, this production of Hercules has been a major event. Hercules returns from the war with Iole, a princess he fell in love with. Mad with jealousy, Déjanire, his wife, ends up totally insane after poisoning her husband. Half theatrical performance, half secular oratorio, Hercules wasn’t originally meant to be performed in front of an audience. Luc Bondy chose to show the dramatis personae as ordinary people, victims of their passions. The superb Chorus of the Arts Florissants, both mediator and prosecutor, is the main witness of this tragedy of women’s jealousy.

Although frequently classified as an oratorio, C. P. E. Bach's Auferstehung und Himmeelfahrt Jesu is really a cantata. There are no named dramatis personae and it is evident from Emanuel Bach's own comments that he intended the work to have a partly didactic function. He also considered it, in his own words as "pre-eminent among all my vocal works in expression and in the composition". The author of the text was Karl Wilhelm Ramler, an important poet of the German Enlightenment whose texts had earlier attracted Telemann. Ramler and Bach engaged in a close collaboration over the Auferstehung and between Bach's setting of it in 1774 and the eventual publication by Breitkopf in 1787, composer and poet entered into a lively correspondence concerning the details and shape of the cantata. The first performance took place in Hamburg in 1778 when it was warmly received. Many subsequent performances were given culminating in three directed by Mozart in Vienna.

As massive and hefty as a cinder block, Pink Floyd's The Early Years 1965-1972 is no conventional box set. It is an archive in miniature, offering 28 discs - 11 CDs with the remaining discs being DVDs and Blu-Rays that offer duplicates of the same audio/visual material - alongside replicas of original poster art, fliers, press releases, 7" singles and ticket stubs, all here to offer a deep, multi-tiered portrait of the years when Pink Floyd were fumbling around trying to find their voice. This isn't precisely uncovered territory - during the eight years covered on this box set, Floyd released eight studio albums, and their early singles have been compiled on several collections, including 1971's Relics - but what's available on this box is almost entirely rare, with much of it being unheard and unbootleged. This isn't limited to the audio tracks, either…

In the U.S., Gary Numan is remembered as a one-hit-wonder, while back home in his native England, he continued to crank out hit after hit and became a superstar in the process. His icy space-age persona and sound may be forever associated with early-80's British new wave (Flock of Seagulls, early Duran Duran, etc.), but he was the originator, and today seems pretty darned original. Numan was a scholar of the David Bowie Ziggy Stardust-era, and used Bowie's space alien approach as a starting point. While retaining his futuristic lyrics, Gary stripped Ziggy's sound free of the distorted guitar riffing and posturing, and replaced it with clinical synthesizers and a standoffish stage persona. His music also gives off a paranoid vibe at times, as evidenced on the hits "I Die: You Die" and "Are 'Friends' Electric?" But Numan's songs can also sedate you ("Down in the Park"), while other times sneak up on you (the unexpected punk rocker "Bombers"). And of course there's his sole U.S. hit, "Cars," which sounds like a not so distant ancestor to fellow futuristic weirdos Devo.