Lady Ninja Kasumi Sanada Kunoichi Ninpô Den: Kasumi (2005)

Angel Air continues to sweep up the furthest flung crumbs of the Ray Russell canon for reissue, and now they've finally swatted the Mouse onto CD. This quartet, comprising Russell, drummer Alan Rushton, keyboardist Jeff Watts, and singer Alan Greed released their sole album on EMI in 1973. Russell jokes in the booklet that "attempts to make a single were forgotten about an hour into the first session," but even so the compulsive "Electric Lady," a throbbing rocker or alternately, the bouncy pop-flecked "We Can Make It" both fit that bill. And even if "Going Out Tonight" was a little too quirky for singledom, it was still the perfect set opener on-stage or on record.

Lady Lake is a Dutch band formed at the beginning of the Seventies, and whose name was inspired by the title of an album by Gnidrolog. Generally speaking, the whole Canterbury school seems to be the source of inspiration for the band, Camel and Caravan coming first. Its sole album "No Pictures" had already been re-issued in 1997 on the Musiphyle label. On this occasion, Lady Lake had reformed in order to record the bonus tracks included on the CD. And some eight years later, the Musea label eventually releases the second album of the trio: "SuperCleanDreamMachine" (2005). With an excellent clear and deep sound, these eight new compositions invite us to a delightful moment of vintage Progressive rock…

While he left an extensive and significant output of stage-works, the contribution of Kurt Weill to orchestral and instrumental genres was largely restricted to his formative years. The angular Symphony No. 1, completed in 1921, reflects something of the turmoil of post-World War I. In 1933, with Hitler in power, Weill escaped to Paris where he wrote Symphony No. 2, “one of the 20th century’s forgotten masterpieces”. The Symphonic Nocturne, adapted from the Broadway musical, Lady in the Dark, a 1940 collaboration between Weill, Moss Hart and Ira Gershwin, exhibits all the hallmarks of bitter-sweet lyricism of Weill’s theatrical works from his American years.