End Day (2005)

Definitive two CD anthology of much-loved 1970 British psychedelic/progressive LP that failed to get beyond test pressing stage at the time. Includes several previously-unissued tracks from those 1970 sessions. Among the rarest vinyl albums of the era, the last original copy to be openly offered (in 2017) sold for £4000. In early 1970, Sussex-based power trio Iron Prophet linked up with former Scots of St James/ Fleur de Lys member Graham Maitland to cut an album at IBC Studios under the name Five Day Rain. They worked on the album throughout 1970, with the intended release pressed up as a demo LP that summer. That version was then rejected, although a number of cuts were salvaged and added to new recordings in the autumn for another test pressing-only album at the end of the year.

As part of the celebration of B.B. King's 80th birthday Virgin released the double-disc set Original Greatest Hits in September of 2005 the week B.B. turned 80. Since there have been so many comps of King's long career, all bearing titles similar to Original Greatest Hits, it's easy to assume that this collection is yet another recycling of the familiar B.B. standards from the late '60s and '70s, but that's not the case at all. Instead, this 40-track collection is one of the first American reissues to offer a comprehensive survey of his recordings for RPM and Kent in the '50s and early '60s (both sides of his debut 45 for Bullet, "Miss Martha King"/"When Your Baby Packs Up and Goes," are added to the end of the collection for good measure). While the material has been reissued extensively overseas, most notably on the U.K. label Ace, which has offered an exhaustive overview of the majority of his RPM and Kent sides, there has never been a good U.S. comp of this material until this deceptively plain-titled Original Greatest Hits.

Frank Bridge couldn't write a tacky note to save his life. It's instructive in this respect to compare this premiere recording of his early tone poem Mid of the Night to Hyperion's recent release of Granville Bantock's almost exactly contemporaneous Thalaba the Destroyer. Where Bantock stitches shameless cribs from Tchaikovsky into a ramshackle and repetitive musical structure, Bridge's thematic material covers large, well-sustained spans and consistently holds the listener's interest. The lovely central melody introduced by English horn against softly murmuring strings has real lyrical beauty, and Bridge times his climaxes with unerring precision. Isabella, dating from 1907 (three years later than Mid of the Night), features some splendidly passionate string writing and an even more tightly integrated structure.

There's something about Julie London's voice… sultry, sexy, super-cool… that perfectly captures the feel of the night. And, if you only know of her through "Cry Me a River" - as most people do - then you're in for a real treat because between the mid 50's and the late 60's she produced a huge amount of similarly beautiful music.
Featuring 50 tracks, most of which are "standards", virtually all of which are near-perfect examples of how to inject pure "atmosphere" into a song, and an incredibly large number of which are better than their more famous originals, this superb compilation will leave you wondering why she wasn't ranked up there with the great artists of her time… and, more interestingly, given the huge popularity of recent "jazz-cool" artists such as Norah Jones, why she's still so undiscovered.

David Bowie is not a man one would expect to revel in the accidental. It is as much of a cliché to divine cold strategy in his every move as it is to pretend that strategy didn't exist for, say, Janis Joplin. For those preferring to see Bowie as a contortionist auto-Svengali, the main revelation of the reissued live albums David Live and Stage will be how unafraid of imperfections he could be. These panoramic snapshots of 1970s Bowie (David Live came out in 1974, with Stage following mere four years later) mostly sound surprise like a good rock band at work, not a collection of virtuoso day laborers supplicating at the feet of the Artiste.

The Ramones may or may not have invented punk rock, but they were inarguably the most important band in punk history, creating the stylistic prototype that would be followed by countless bands who emerged in their wake. They were informed by the thunder and flash of the Who and the MC5, the speed and primitivism of Iggy and the Stooges, and the alternately sullen and goofy musings of '60s garage rock, but the Ramones synthesized their influences into something raw and revolutionary, a fury of pounding rhythms and downstroked guitars married to rudimentary melodies and comically absurd lyrics that both mocked and celebrated popular culture and teenage life. The Ramones were tuneful, aggressive, and challenging in their embrace of minimalist fury, and while bands from the Clash and the Sex Pistols to Rancid and Green Day would build on their formula, it's essentially impossible to imagine any of those bands, or punk as we know it, without the Ramones' guiding example.

The White Queen sleeps and will not wake. Black shadows have fallen across her kingdom. The balance between Dark and Light is broken and only the MIRRORMASK can restore it. So Helena, a stranger in a strange land, embarks on an epic quest to find the missing charm before darkness envelops the Dreamworld forever. Written by award-winning fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, MIRRORMASK is a phantasmagorical treat for the eyes and mind, a wondrous blend of live action and CG animation, where strange, magical creatures dwell in a fantasy world of unbridled imagination and scope, as told through the spectacular, cutting-edge visuals of designer/director Dave McKean.

3 CD retrospective of Kristy's work between 1979 and 2000. Contains all her singles & unreleased tracks including demos from the family archive. EMI. 2005.