Mac Format From May 2016

Fleetwood Mac retreated from the insular strangeness of Tusk and returned to straightforward pop songcraft for Mirage…

This album from Sendelica consists of 5 tracks with a varying lineup around the core of Pete Bingham (guitar) and Glenda Pescado (bass), including some fun guests and different sounds for the band. The set opens on a heavy Space/Blues/Hard Rock note with Black Widow Man, with crunchy guitar and rhythm section, potent Hammond from Roger Morgan and electronics and Theremin embellishment from Lord Sealand. I listened to the album a couple times before checking the credits and was pleasantly surprised to see that the singer is none other than Twink! Twink sings on the closing song too, the dreamily drifting Dance, Stars Dance, which includes luscious accompaniment from Lee Relfe’s seductively melodic sax and Pete’s trippy soundscape strumming…

Famously conducted the world premieres of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and other prominent works including Petrushka, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, and Debussy's Jeux. Monteux was the principal conductor of the French repertoire at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

More than any other Fleetwood Mac album, Tusk is born of a particular time and place – it could only have been created in the aftermath of Rumours, which shattered sales records, and in turn gave the group a blank check for their next album. But if they were falling apart during the making of Rumours, they were officially broken and shattered during the making of Tusk, and that disconnect between bandmembers resulted in a sprawling, incoherent, and utterly brilliant 20-track double album…

Deutsche Grammophon presents a 22CD set spanning the greatest recordings of Pinchas Zukerman, featuring the original cover art of the albums, new liner notes by Norbert Hornig and many photos. Between 1974 and 1996 Pinchas Zukerman recorded 22 albums for DG and Philips (three for Decca), mainly as solo violinist but also as solo violist and as conductor, working closely with both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

The fourth of Motorpsycho’s expanded archival sets revisits 1997’s Angels and Daemons at Play – a chronological and developmental follow-on from the earlier Blissard set…

Rumours is the kind of album that transcends its origins and reputation, entering the realm of legend – it's an album that simply exists outside of criticism and outside of its time, even if it thoroughly captures its era. Prior to this LP, Fleetwood Mac were moderately successful, but here they turned into a full-fledged phenomenon, with Rumours becoming the biggest-selling pop album to date…

More than any other Fleetwood Mac album, Tusk is born of a particular time and place – it could only have been created in the aftermath of Rumours, which shattered sales records, which in turn gave the group a blank check for its next album…

Rumours is the kind of album that transcends its origins and reputation, entering the realm of legend – it's an album that simply exists outside of criticism and outside of its time, even if it thoroughly captures its era…