Left XG

Left Lane Cruiser - Beck In Black (2016) {Alive Naturalsound Records Alive 0179-2}
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© 2016 Alive Naturalsound Records | Alive 0179-2
Rock / Blues / Blues Rock

When half of a band's original lineup packs up and leaves, it's a pretty big deal, at least to the group and their fans. Left Lane Cruiser were populated by just two guys for their first ten years – Frederick "Joe" Evans IV on guitar and vocals, and Brenn Beck on drums – and after Beck quit the group in 2014, Alive Naturalsound decided to mark the end of an era with Beck in Black, a collection of material from the duo's years with Beck behind the drums. Left Lane Cruiser are very good at what they do, but they have only so many moves in their repertoire, and Beck in Black covers them all – heavy-hitting blues-rock with lots of gnarly slide guitar, Brontosaurus stomp rhythms, and lyrics about women, whiskey, weed, and dangerous good times of all stripes.

Music From Memory are excited to announce a special compilation that they’ve been working on for some time now; MFM053 – VA – Heisei No Oto – Japanese Left-field Pop From The CD Age (1989-1996). Compiled by long-time friends of the label, Eiji Taniguchi and Norio Sato, Heisei No Oto delves into a world of music released almost exclusively on CD and brings together a fascinating selection of discoveries from a little known and overlooked part of Japan’s musical history.

It’s good to have Richard Strauss’ fascinating, somewhat atypical concerted works for piano left hand available on a single disc, especially in well played and strongly projected readings like these. At times the slow-motion harmonic scansion and rhapsodic piano writing throughout the Paregon to the Symphonia Domestica evoke Scriabin’s misty muse. By contrast the Panathenäenzug, subtitled Symphonic Etudes in the form of a passacaglia, uses a time-honored baroque form to generate opulently scored, post-Wagnerian froth.

Exit… Stage Left is a live album by Canadian band Rush, released in 1981. The album was voted 9th best live album of all time in a poll by Classic Rock Magazine in 2004. The original CD issue removed "A Passage to Bangkok", as CDs could only hold 75 minutes at the time. It was included on the 1997 remaster, as CD capacity had increased to 80 minutes by that time.

Archie Shepp & Mal Waldron - Left Alone Revisited (2002) {Enja Records ENJA CD 9141-2}
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© 2002 Enja Records | ENJA CD 9141-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Modal Music / Saxophone / Piano

The duo of Archie Shepp and Mal Waldron come together beautifully here – in a mode that echoes some of the duets that pianist Waldron recorded with other reedmen in the 70s and 80s, but which has an especially wonderful contribution from Shepp! Archie blows both tenor and soprano sax – and the warmth of his horn in later years is really perfect here – especially as the album's sometime of an update of Waldron's earlier Left Alone classic, recorded after the death of Billie Holiday at the end of the 50s. As with that one, the tunes here include some numbers very strongly tied to Billie's legacy, but the vibe is very different, and very personal along the lines of the spirit of Shepp and Waldron.

Hans Abrahamsen is one of the most important contemporary composers. Numerous productions have already been published by Winter & Winter and have attracted great attention from the public and the press. "Let me tell you" is one of the greatest worldwide successes in contemporary music. With the WDR production "Left, alone" Winter & Winter continues its canon with Hans Abrahamsen. Ten Sinfonias, Left, alone and Two Pieces in Slow Time can be heard on this album. Ten Sinfonias, recorded under the direction of Peter Rundel, Left, alone under Mariano Chiacchiarini with Tamara Stefanovich on piano and Two Pieces in Slow Time with soloists from the WDR Symphony Orchestra, form an exciting and multi-layered album with important key works by Hans Abrahamsen. A production with the WDR Symphony Orchestra.