Exposure 2001

Adelmo Fornaciari is the real name of the talented Italian musician more commonly known to the world by his nickname Zucchero ("Sugar"), given to him by an elementary school teacher. He began playing the guitar in his home province of Reggio Emilia, focusing on music in the blues/R&B mold. As a teenager in the early '70s, he founded a local band called Le Nuove Luci. He formed another group, Sugar and Candies, in 1978, and began writing as well – Italian pop songs for other artists, and more blues-oriented material for himself…

Although they were often dismissed as a fluffy singles group in their day, Sweet crafted a handful of strong albums in the mid-'70s that sported some surprisingly muscular hard rock. A fine example of this trend is Sweet Fanny Adams. Although this album got little exposure in America on its own, over half of this album's contents ended up on the American edition of Desolation Boulevard. Sweet Fanny Adams' tone is set with the opening track, "Set Me Free," a fiery rocker that blends ultrahigh vocal harmonies to a furious succession of guitar riffs that jack the song up a level of speed metal frenzy…

Consistently on the front lines of the drum'n'bass battleground, the duo of Dego (McFarlane) and Marc Mac (Mark Clair) nevertheless failed to receive the exposure of luminaries like Goldie and Roni Size, mostly because they didn't release much 4hero material during jungle's crucial crossover years, from 1994 through 1997.

Many seem compelled to call The Antichrist the 'comeback' album for Destruction, but this not chronologically nor logically the case. The sound here is one lifted straight from its predecessor, All Hell Breaks Loose, but pummeled into perfection…

A Different Light is a look back at the career of Art of Noise member and soundtrack composer Anne Dudley. Although the album features songs from her most successful compositions, Dudley reworks them to create new pieces for her second solo album.

Many seem compelled to call The Antichrist the 'comeback' album for Destruction, but this not chronologically nor logically the case. The sound here is one lifted straight from its predecessor, All Hell Breaks Loose, but pummeled into perfection. That album was a fresh act of violence borne from a stagnant musical relationship, while this is like a freight train hitting you at a thousand miles an hour, a mushroom cloud being formed over your conscience, an instant window to everything you loved about this band in the 80s and then some…

Karl Weigl’s music demonstrates once again that the great Austrian/German symphonic tradition did not die with Mahler, but continued to thrive well into the 20th century. Weigl (1881-1949) worked under Mahler in Vienna and enjoyed a fine reputation until, as we’ve heard often by now, the Nazi seizure of power, which forced his emigration to America where he died in comparative obscurity. He nevertheless composed a substantial body of orchestral and chamber music, including six symphonies. If this one is typical, it’s a legacy that urgently calls out for wider exposure. Composed in 1945 and dedicated to the memory of President Roosevelt, the “Apocalyptic Symphony” received its premiere in 1968 under Stokowski.