Mecca

What’s Up Matador is a 2-CD (or 2-LP) compilation that was released by Matador Records that chronicles some of the best artists within their roster during the 90s. The first disc serves as a bit of a “best of” collection, featuring indie standouts by Yo La Tango, Pizzicato Five, Cat Power, Helium, and of course, Liz Phair. The second disc is what is particularly noteworthy, as it features previously unreleased material from many of the same artists. This marks the official debut of Liz’s “Stuck On An Island,” a b-side that fans would later discover was in the initial running for whitechocolatespaceegg.

Carmen Rizzo (born April 8, 1964) is a producer, mixer, programmer, DJ, remixer and recording artist based in Los Angeles. The two-time Grammy nominee has worked with Seal, Coldplay, Paul Oakenfold, Alanis Morissette, Dido, Jem, Niyaz, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Khaled, Tiësto, BT, Esthero, A.R. Rahman and Pete Townshend.
Carmen Rizzo's first album under his own name features a long list of collaborators, mostly breathy-voiced women who provide the album's whispery lead vocals over Rizzo's subtle downtempo beats. (Jem, Royskopp's Kate Havenevik, and Digable Planets' Ladybug Mecca are the biggest female names, while alterna-folkie Grant Lee Phillips also steps up to the mike on the yearning "Snowflakes")…

Dave Sereny's new album Take This Ride is a gem for all smooth jazz lovers.

Despite critical acclaim as a performer, the rootsy singer/songwriter T Bone Burnett earned his greatest renown as a producer, helming recording sessions for acts ranging from Roy Orbison and Elvis Costello to Counting Crows and Sam Phillips.

Tempest has a band name that might suggest a group of sneering, leather-wearing, head-banging metal heads, but the group's music is less threatening and more expansive than its name suggests. Tempest plays traditional Celtic music with a rock & roll intensity that's accented by a wide range of influences from the blues to American country music, Cajun 2-steps, and Arabic music, with some old-time San Francisco psychedelic flair…

I have a collection of 135 titles (142 CDs) issued by Goldmine/Soul Supply record company. This is not a box set but rather it is a collection of albums that are similar in that they all are rare soul compilations by the same company. There are some tracks that are on more than one album but considering the scope and magnitude of this collection, the number of duplicated tracks is small. Some CDs have good artwork, some have none, most have some artwork of varying quality. All are 320 CBR MP3 and are fully tagged. Original post now has added CDs.

LEIPZIG is now touted as the “New Berlin”, a mecca for vogueish twenty-somethings who are drawn by the cheap rents in the city and an artistic vibe. In 1989 the former East German industrial hub was said to have the most polluted air in the country, but the city’s illustrious past lives on. Despite extensive bombing of the city in World War II, the famous Thomaskirche and its associated Thomasschule, one of the oldest schools in the world and where the choristers are educated, survive and flourish. The Gewandhaus orchestra, with origins dating to the time of Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1740s, is known as one of the world’s finest symphony orchestras. This recording gives us a picture of musical life in Leipzig some 300 years ago, spanning the consecutive careers of three composers who led the musical activities in the city. The programme demonstrates the connection between JS Bach and his two predecessors. Bach based the general shape of his Magnificat on that of Kuhnau’s, and it was first performed in 1723, the year Bach took over as cantor in Leipzig after Kuhnau’s death. The short Schelle piece provides a rousing advent introduction.