Face IN The Rain

Depending on the personal state of mind: rain can be perceived as unpleasantly wet or wonderfully refreshing. At all times and across all genres, composers and musicians have been dealing with rain. Bear Family Records delivers a wonderfully relaxed CD compilation that spreads good cheer in rain as well as sunshine with songs like Raindrops, Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head, Just Walking In The Rain, It Might As Well Rain Until September or Crying In The Rain. Stylistically, we cover a wide range from R&B, soul and blues to country, doo-wop and pop.

Multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Sarah Mary Chadwick is not a new face to Melbourne's music community. After moving to Australia from her native New Zealand to pursue a career in music, Sarah spent a decade fronting the grunge band Batrider. Eventually becoming tired of the collaborative requirements intrinsic to band life, Sarah shifted her focus to songwriting independently, drawing inspiration from “weird old New Zealand musicians” like Peter Jefferies, Chris Knox, and Australia’s Pip Proud and the way they tinker away and work for decades for “little to no commercial success.” This inspiration is obvious in Sarah’s performance as she simultaneously savors and mocks the pedestal that her creativity affords her, acknowledging that “it's a position of power being on a microphone” and how “it's a desperate demand to be seen. It's funny and really sad.”

Deluxe 13 CD box set from the veteran Greek composer and instrumental/electronic music pioneer. Delectus gathers together digitally remastered and expanded editions of Vangelis' seminal albums Earth, L'Apocalypse Des Animaux, China, See You Later, Antarctica, Mask, Opera Sauvage, Chariots of Fire, Soil Festivities and Invisible Connections, plus his collaborative recordings with Jon Anderson as Jon & Vangelis - Short Stories, The Friends of Mister Cairo and Private Collection. The mammoth collection includes all of his albums on Vertigo and Polydor, recently remastered for the first time ever under the legendary composer's own supervision. Presented in a lavish box with an essay and a plethora of rare photographs, the discs are housed in two die-cut, gatefold disc holders within a rigid 242mm square slipcase, and accompanied by a 64-page book illustrating a period of his prolific career of the iconic Maestro. "I always welcome remastering my old work for two basic reasons" - explains Vangelis - "firstly, I get the opportunity to bring the sounds to today's standards, secondly, it gives me the chance to go through the experiences and memories of the time."

Beautiful, orchestral music performed by one of the best teams, gathered under the guidance of an outstanding arranger and conductor Jean Paul de la Tour. Magnificent execution of beautiful music.

Dinah Washington (born Ruth Lee Jones; August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was an American singer and pianist, who has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s". Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including blues, R&B, and traditional pop music, and gave herself the title of "Queen of the Blues". She was a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.