Forsaking

Academy of Ancient Music, Cambridge Handel Opera Company, Cambridge Early Music and Julian Perkins are proud to present the first professional recording of John Eccles’s Semele (ca 1707), a notable early setting of the great English libretto by William Congreve better known in a version by Georg Friedrich Handel from 1744.

Shirley & Dolly Collins - The Harvest Years (1969-1977) {2CD EMI 50999 2 28404 2 4 rel 2008}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 843 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 339 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 46 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1969-1977, 2008 Harvest / EMI Records | 50999 2 28404 2 4
Folk / Celtic / Acoustic / Early Music / Medieval / Renaissance

This is a fabulous release with two albums from Shirley and Dolly Collins recorded on Harvest records and collected together. CD one brings us the album Anthems in Eden. Anthems in Eden is perhaps the most famous album and the most creative one from Shirley and Dolly Collins. This sixth album from Shirley is from 1969 and it is an incredible project. The album has been released and re released a few times. Here on this fabulous album Shirley provides her unique vocals along with Sister Dolly on portative organ. But this time there are a whole host of other musicians involved.

Expresso 2222, Gilberto Gil's first album back in Brazil after spending two years in exile, is a spirited return to form, filled with driving, funky bass, hammering piano, and percussive guitar work. Gil's compositions are on par with the best of his 1968 and 1969 self-titled albums, but is a more even overall affair forsaking the outright diversity Gil showed on those previous albums for a more cohesive set of songs, and while the performances aren't as outrageously groundbreaking, with Expresso 2222 Gil had already proved how far he was capable of pushing the envelope, and so the insane arrangements were no longer necessary. This makes Expresso 2222 one of Gil's most immediately palatable releases of his entire career, and compared to the standards of global rock & roll it is of the most compelling and complex yet accessible albums released in the 20th century. Gil's compositions are melodic and beautiful, and his arrangements are imaginative as always; from using a chorus of backing vocals to great effect on "O Canto de Ema" and "Sai do Sereno" to the rhythmic interplay between Gil's guitar, vocals, and layered percussion on the title track, Gil is in top form throughout the album.

Predating Metallica's self-titled blockbuster by 11 years, Judas Priest's British Steel was a similarly pitched landmark boasting many of the same accomplishments. It streamlined and simplified the progressive intricacies of a band fresh off of revolutionizing the entire heavy metal genre; it brought an aggressive, underground metal subgenre crashing into the mainstream (in Priest's case, the NWOBHM; in Metallica's, thrash); and it greatly expanded the possibilities for heavy metal's commercial viability as a whole. Of course, British Steel was nowhere near the sales juggernaut that Metallica was, but in catapulting Judas Priest to the status of stadium headliners, it was the first salvo fired in heavy metal's ultimate takeover of the hard rock landscape during the 1980s.