Herd ‎– The Complete Herd (2005) 2 CD

Before '70s superstardom, even before Humble Pie, Peter Frampton got his first taste of celebrity as a singer and guitarist in the Herd, who chalked up several hits in Britain in 1967 and 1968. Frampton was only 17 when the single "From the Underworld" went into the British Top Ten in late 1967; "Paradise Lost" and "I Don't Want Our Loving to Die" were hits for the group in the first half of 1968. The Herd's brand of mod was extremely commercial and good-timey- and pop-oriented, a bit like a muted and mainstream Small Faces. Much of their material (including all of the hits) was written by their management team of Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, who had supplied songs for the Honeycombs (of "Have I the Right" fame).

I have always had rather a soft spot for Michele Campanella playing Liszt. This dates back to when he was the pianist on the first LP of Liszt I ever bought – a Pye disc of him playing the two concertos. With the bi-centenary of Liszt’s birth looming in the Autumn this is the first of the year’s celebratory sets that I have encountered. It should be noted however, as with the bulk of Brilliant Classics releases, these are licensed re-releases although in this case the provenance is not totally clear.

Richard Wagner is best known for creating several complex operas, including Tristan and Isolde and Ring Cycle, as well as for his anti-semitic writings. 43 CD set on Membran International Documents: Der Fliegende Hollander (Krauss–1944); Tannhauser (Heger–1951); Lohengrin (Keilberth–1953); Das Rheingold (Neuhold–1993); Die Walküre (Neuhold–1994); Siegfried (Neuhold–1994); Götterdämmerung (Neuhold –1995); Rienzi (Zillig–1950); Parsifal (Knappertsbusch–1951); Die Feen (Ötvös–1998); Meistersinger (Karajan–1951); Das Liebesverbot (Heger–1963); Tristan & Isolde (Furtwängler–1952). Included is a 24 page booklet with cast lists, plot summaries, and background notes.

Released to raise money for victims of the Kobe, Japan, earthquake, this Amon Düül II disc from 1996, like the very similar Eternal Flashback, is actually material from 1969 to 1971 reworked through the wonders of plunderphonics by members of the group into one seamless, 65-minute-long space rock epic. It's not quite as radical as the John Oswald remix of the Grateful Dead's "Darkstar" on Grayfolded or the Can remix album Sacrilege, though it's still a quite fascinating bit of trickery, as bits of tracks from the first two albums, Phallus Dei and Yeti, are blended with previously unreleased material. The rhythms are often looped to retain the essence of the original album, but drawn out into long, hypnotic passages with oozes of guitar floating around them, while most of the vocal sections have been completely excised out, leaving this a complete instrumental workout…