Jane Together

Playing a melodious synthesis of symphonic hard rock that has occasionally been compared to Pink Floyd, Hanover Krautrockers Jane can trace their origins back to the late sixties psychedelic band Justice Of Peace. Releasing a single Save Me/War, the band featured future Jane members Peter Panka on vocals, Klaus Hess on bass and Werner Nadolny on saxophone. By late 1970 Justice Of Peace had dissolved and regrouped as Jane with Panka on vocals and drums, Hess switching to guitar and Nadolny assuming keyboards. Charly Maucher joined on bass and power vocalist Berndt Pulst completed the band in April 1971 and their first LP "Together" was released in the spring of 1972. Singing in broken English, which helped create passionate effects, a heavy expressive bluesy sound emerged with blistering Les Paul solos and slabs of Hammond organ backdrops…

Created by bringing together Étienne Daho, Jean-Louis Piérot and Jane Birkin, Oh Pardon tu dormais is her most intimate album so far. “ Étienne helped me release a past pain, which saved me from melancholy and inertia. We gave each other everything, we took everything from each other and I’m still stunned by how the 3 of us worked together. We are this album’s parents… and this moves me” said Jane Birkin, who speaks for the first time about the death of her daughter Kate, the absence, love anxiety, ghosts from the past…

Playing a melodious synthesis of symphonic hard rock that has occasionally been compared to Pink Floyd, Hanover Krautrockers Jane can trace their origins back to the late sixties psychedelic band Justice Of Peace. Releasing a single Save Me/War, the band featured future Jane members Peter Panka on vocals, Klaus Hess on bass and Werner Nadolny on saxophone. By late 1970 Justice Of Peace had dissolved and regrouped as Jane with Panka on vocals and drums, Hess switching to guitar and Nadolny assuming keyboards. Charly Maucher joined on bass and power vocalist Berndt Pulst completed the band in April 1971 and their first LP "Together" was released in the spring of 1972…

Jane's Addiction were one of the most hotly pursued rock bands when they gained notice in Los Angeles in the mid-'80s, with record companies at their feet. Flamboyant frontman Perry Farrell, formerly of the band Psi Com, had an undeniable charisma and an interest in provocative art (he designed the band's album covers), and Jane's Addiction played a hybrid of rock music: metal with strains of punk, folk, and jazz. The quartet, comprised of Farrell, bassist Eric Avery, drummer Stephen Perkins, and guitarist Dave Navarro, had already released its debut album as well, in the form of a live recording from the Roxy in Hollywood. Finally, Warner Bros. won the bidding war and released Nothing's Shocking in 1988. The band's abrasive sound and aggressive attitude (typified by the nude sculpture on the cover) led to some resistance, but Jane's Addiction began to break through to an audience – the album spent 35 weeks on the charts.

New York’s punk/blues girl band, follow up their 2016 covers debut No B! with a collection of mostly original material, but the noise levels remain intact. Opening with the lip-curling vocals of Dana “Danger” Athens on the rocking “How Ya Doin’?”, name-checking just about every American city, through to the Lawler – Thornton cover “Black Rat”, the pace never lets up. Having said that, “How Bright The Moon” is a classy ballad, Athens accompanying herself on piano, interspersed with reverent guitar work from Tracy Hightop/Tina “T-Bone” Gorin. The pace hots up again with the rhythm section of drummer Melissa “Cool Whip” and bassist Hail Mary Zadroga doing a sterling job on the Don Robey classic “Turn On Your Love Light”. If classic slow blues is your thing, closer “The Breeze” is for you, cracker! With the plethora of female artists on the blues/rock scene at the moment, gaining momentum must be difficult. But there is enough class on this album for this relatively new band to pull it off. Oh, lastly, keep those names!

Breakup albums have their own top shelf in the popular music canon, from Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks to Kanye West's 808s and Heartbreak. Staying-together albums, on the other hand, are more rare and more difficult to execute. Maybe that's because overcoming hardship and working through differences require diligence and daily renewals of faith, more subtle and internally directed practices than the emotional release separation allows. On her fourth album (and third with her stalwart band, The Party Line), Nora Jane Struthers walks listeners through the first year of her marriage to her bandmate, multi-instrumentalist Joe Overton. She points to every rock and buried tree root, and shows how mutual care and openness got the couple to the first summit on their path.