Match of The Day From 13 September 2016

Moments (2016). Danish label Music For Dreams releases another winner with the debut album from Danish artist Emil Breum aka The Swan And The Lake. "Moments" showcases Breum's talent for creating exquisite and sensitive soundscapes whose timeless atmosphere echoes contemporary classical composers as well as some of the more New Age-minded artists of the Berlin School. Although mostly known as a spiritual movement, New Age also spawned a musical ideology that lives on past the clutches of cults and communes: a purity in sound, and a longing for music to reflect the sounds of nature. "Moments" captures this essence perfectly, its compositions seeming to suspend time and prolong a sense of clarity, like staring out over a beautiful landscape at sunset - both a sobering and healing experience…

This is an excellent CD if you're into orchestrations of pop or rock music. Andrew Powell And The Philharmonic Orchestra do justice to some of The Alan Parsons Project's most recognizable songs, and did this before this became 'de rigeur' in the late 80's through now…

The Windmill are a Norwegian progressive rock band formed in 2001 in the outskirts of Oslo. The music is symphonic neo prog influenced by several bands from the golden years of the seventies, such as Genesis, Pink Floyd, Camel and others. The debut album "To be Сontinued …" was released May 2010.
The album is filled with excellent compositions, built around melodic guitars, powerful organs, lovely vocal arrangements and some superb synthesizers. The album even contains a fantastic 21-min. epic, entitled ''A Day in a Hero's Life'', with strong Genesis, Yes and Camel inspirations, led by strong breaks, dramatic changes, instant melodies and a very rich and sensitive approach, incorporating influences also from Folk Music and Heavy Rock. But the remaining pieces are actually on the same level, full of delicate flutes, smooth organ and intricate guitar ideas to go along with quite decent vocals…

Touted as a personally curated compilation by Paul McCartney, Pure McCartney is the first McCartney compilation since 2001's Wingspan: Hits and History. A full 15 years separated this and Wingspan, longer than the span between that double-disc set and 1987's All the Best, but the 2001 set also stopped cold in 1984, leaving over 30 years of solo McCartney recordings uncompiled on hits collections. In both its standard two-CD and deluxe four-disc incarnations, Pure McCartney attempts to rectify this, going so far as to include "Hope for the Future," his song for the 2014 video game Destiny.

UK five CD set comprising the band's first five albums, originally issued on EMI's Parlophone and Harvest labels between 1969 and 1972 (The Climax Chicago Blues Band, Plays On, A Lot of Bottle, Tightly Knit and Rich Man). Formed in Stafford in 1968 by Colin Cooper, the band (originally known as the Climax Chicago Blues Band) recorded their debut album in September and November 1968 with a line-up of Colin Cooper (vocals, harmonica), Pete Haycock (guitar, slide guitar, vocals), Arthur Wood (keyboards), Derek Holt (rhythm guitar, bass, organ), Richard Jones (bass) and George Newsome (drums)…

Submarine Silence is an Italian group that was born from the idea of Mellow Records owner Mauro Moroni. The group can be regarded as a side-project of the neo-progressive group Moongarden. Based on the idea of Mr. Moroni, the Moongarden keyboardist Cristiano Roversi founded the group. The group consists of Cristiano Roversi (keyboards), David Cremoni (guitars) and Emilio Pizzoccoli (drums & percussions). David Cremoni is also a member of Moongarden. Bass sounds are made by Taurus pedals. The band first appeared in a Genesis tribute "The River of Constant Change - A Tribute to Genesis". In 2001 they released the self-titled debut album. It is very Genesis inspired instrumental progressive. Even the album artwork resembles "Foxtrot" and it is by the same artist Paul Whitehead.

Picking up where 1962-1966 left off, the double-album compilation 1967-1970, commonly called The Blue Album, covers the Beatles' later records, from Sgt. Pepper's through Let It Be. Like The Red Album, The Blue Album was released in the wake of a pair of widely advertised quadruple-LP bootlegs, Alpha Omega, Vols. 1-2: The Story of the Beatles, which had appeared early in 1973. And like its companion volume, this set contains a mixture of hits, including singles like "Lady Madonna," "Hey Jude," and "Revolution" – which had originally appeared only as 45s – plus important album tracks like "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," "A Day in the Life," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and "Come Together," as well as orphaned tracks such as the single versions of "Let It Be" and "Get Back," which had never been on any LP before.

The Shadows (originally known as The Drifters) were an English instrumental rock group, and were Cliff Richard's backing band from 1958 to 1968, having also collaborated again on numerous reunion tours. The Shadows have placed 69 UK charted singles from the 1950s to the 2000s, 35 credited to the Shadows and 34 to Cliff Richard and the Shadows. The group, who were in the forefront of the UK beat-group boom, were the first backing band to emerge as stars…

With Revolver, the Beatles made the Great Leap Forward, reaching a previously unheard-of level of sophistication and fearless experimentation. Sgt. Pepper, in many ways, refines that breakthrough, as the Beatles consciously synthesized such disparate influences as psychedelia, art song, classical music, rock & roll, and music hall, often in the course of one song. Not once does the diversity seem forced – the genius of the record is how the vaudevillian "When I'm 64" seems like a logical extension of "Within You Without You" and how it provides a gateway to the chiming guitars of "Lovely Rita." There's no discounting the individual contributions of each member or their producer, George Martin, but the preponderance of whimsy and self-conscious art gives the impression that Paul McCartney is the leader of the Lonely Hearts Club Band.