Lisa Martiz

34 songs from the famous Songs of the Hebrides collection by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser published in the early years of this century. There are some extraordinarily beautiful songs here (Ernest Newman wrote of them that Schubert and Hugo Wolf would have knelt and kissed the hands of their unknown composers). The most famous song in the collection is the Eriskay Love Lilt but several of the others will be familiar to anybody who has bought our Bantock recordings: Sea Longing was the inspiration for the slow movement of the Celtic Symphony, and Kishmul's Galley is the tune blazed out by the Royal Philharmonic horns at the end of the Hebridean Symphony.

Having lent their esoteric funk-folk stylings to Prince & The Revolution during the late legend’s purple reign of the early-80s, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman left the band to pursue their own maverick musical path in 1986. Fan-favourite Eroica, their third and final album for Virgin Records, saw the duo hit a new creative peak – drawing on influences ranging from Sly Stone to Joni Mitchell to create a vibrant psychedelic-funk- folk sound that was uniquely their own.

Complete Collection is a six-disc, U.K.-only set celebrating the breadth and depth of Lisa Stansfield's extensive and impressive career. It includes her five studio albums – Affection; Real Love; So Natural; Lisa Stansfield; and Face Up – as well as an exclusive sixth disc, with recordings from a 1992 Wembley date, club mixes (including a great Massive Attack version of "Live Together"), B-sides, and three songs from Stansfield's Blue Zone days. Not enough? Each studio album is augmented with at least two bonus tracks. Complete Collection is definitely the most comprehensive Lisa Stansfield retrospective; it borders on overkill. But since it's only available in the U.K. – and is also quite pricey – the single-disc Biography is perfectly acceptable for the casual Stansfield fan.