Farm

Combining nu-metal with serious pop polish and structure, Alien Ant Farm always felt like a band that lived in two worlds: not quite heavy enough to be metal, but a little too fast-paced for the pop set. And while Alien Ant Farm's genre might be unclear, their entry in the 20th Century Masters series gives fans a bird's-eye view of their career and another opportunity to try nailing down what these guys were up to. Given the musicianship on tracks like "Movies" and their cover of the Michael Jackson classic "Smooth Criminal," while it might be hard to describe, it sure did work.

The Farm were never one of the great Madchester bands, writing only one truly memorable single ("All Together Now") and turning out a bunch of pleasant, nondescript baggy. The Best of the Farm collects all of the singles and highlights from the group's three albums. There aren't any hidden treasures here, but anyone nostalgic for the pleasures of loping beats, baggy clothes, neo-psychedelia and buckets of Ecstasy should be pleased with this collection.

The 2014 founded vocal group ensemble Beauty Farm is made up of members of top international ensembles such as the Huelgas Ensemble, Vox Luminis, Collegium Vocale Gent or Graindelavoix. Their second CD is also dedicated to motets by Nicolas Gombert, a grand master of the Franco Flemish polyphony.

In Elle B. White's delightful second Finn Family Farm mystery, farmer Charlotte Finn and her sleuthing baby pig are neck-deep in strawberries and crime. …

The music of the Renaissance appears to reflect little of the dangers, horrors and violent conflicts of its time. Music written during the Hundred Years War or the French invasion of Italy gives hardly any impression to todays ears of the precariousness of existence of which its composers, singers and listeners must have continually been aware. Nor do the two masses by Jacob Obrecht (1457/8 1505) on this recording betray anything of the restless spirit of the age, despite them both being based on models referring to suffering and misery. Founded by Markus Muntean and Bernhard Trebuch- out of passion for vocal polyphony and a kind of despair about the break in the interpretation of this music which took place in the 1980s- beauty farm gathers young singers, leaving traditions behind, willing to experiment and exploring new musical territory.