Meet The Residents

Ahead of the curve as ever, in 1972 The Residents turned their back on the mainstream music industry and established their own Ralph Records imprint, taking control of every aspect of the recording, design and manufacturing process of their records. Over the next decade, Ralph would release numerous seminal singles and albums by a diverse range of artists from both the US and Europe, capturing the zeitgeist perfectly in the era of punk and new wave, when the DIY aesthetic went overground. Featuring key singles, vital album tracks and a number of recordings appearing on CD for the first time, as well as previously unheard material from Schwump, Snakefinger, MX-80 Sound and Gary Panter, ‘Buy Or Die!’ is not only an insight into The Residents’ world but also into the workings of their DIY mindset, with most of the tracks here being recorded in the group’s own studio, and released in artwork produced by their own graphics department. From established names such as Yello and The Residents themselves, to lesser-known gems by Fred Frith, Tuxedomoon et al, this is a distinctive snapshot of that experimental and open-minded time and place, as seen through the lense of one of America’s most adventurous artists.

Beauty & Crime is the seventh studio album by singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega. It is her first album of new material since 2001's Songs in Red and Gray and her first for Blue Note Records. It was released on July 17, 2007. Beauty & Crime won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, on February 11, 2008. On Beauty & Crime, Suzanne Vega's Blue Note Records debut, the Manhattan native uses New York City as the backdrop for a collection of eleven new songs that juxtapose acoustic guitar-driven melodies with coolly synthesized beats; intensely personal lyrics with compelling, short story-like narratives; images of today's scarred cityscape with memories of Vega's old Upper West Side 'hood and Lower East Side haunts. The past commingles with the present, the public with the private, familiar sounds with the utterly new, just like the city itself. Making her first new studio album in six years, Vega says, "I feel like I really stretched my limits. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone–to sing in keys I wouldn't have sung in before, to work with different textures, to be unafraid of doing what ever sounded good to me. I wanted to make a modern classic."

“Collaborating with a composer who is iconic was something else,” marvels Paul Leonard-Morgan of working with Phillip Glass on Amazon’s “Tales From the Loop.” The two composers tinkered around with musical ideas while Leonard-Morgan visited Glass in New York and “it was just an organic place from there.” The music for the series set in Mercer, Ohio, where residents live above “the loop” (which when unlocked, explores the secrets of the universe), soundtracks the town’s increasingly strange events, its sonic palette deftly avoiding sci-fi tropes.

Saskatchewan is how it sounds: A province in the prairies of Canada. Double the size of Germany, but with less than one million residents. Lots of nature, and lots of silence. Perhaps lots of time to fill the silence with natural sounds, too. This is where the quartet The Dead South comes from, and fits perfectly within this description. The debut album "Good Company" revealed the four hatted, hairy and bearded fellas, with singer Nate Hilts as a focal point. The album is a perfect fit to the genres Folk, Neo-Folk and Bluegrass-Folk or even alternative Country with refreshing tunes to it.

For this uniquely personal retrospective spread over twelve vinyl discs, Sven Väth takes us back to the early days of his DJ career. On What I Used To Play we meet great pioneers of electronic music, gifted percussionists, obscure wave bands, and innovative producers of a bygone ‘new electronic’ era. Rough beats and irresistible grooves from the identification stage of house, techno, and acid remind us not just how far electronic music has evolved over the past four decades, but how great it was to dance to EBM, techno, and house for the very first time.

Platinum rockers from the Bay Area who straddled the line between alternative rock and adult contemporary. Collection includes: "Train" (1998); "Drops of Jupiter" (2001); "My Private Nation" (2003); "Alive at Last" (2004); "For Me, It's You" (2006); "Save Me, San Francisco" (2009); "Hey, Soul Sister" (2010) Single; "California 37" (2012); "Bulletproof Picasso" (2014).

Britain's Got Talent champion, Colin Thackery – whose triumph last month was watched by more than 10 million TV viewers - has been bringing joy with his vocal skills to friends and residents of the Royal Hospital Chelsea where he lives, for years.

ODD MRS DODD was well aware of her husband’s extra marital activities. A soft spoken, stoic person, she silently accepted her situation until the morning SHADY MR DODD returned home with intent to gather his things and leave her for another woman. This was the event that sent ODD MRS DODD over the edge. What she’d kept bottled inside for years exploded, invigorating her to brutally stab him to death.

Disney Pixar's "Finding Dory" welcomes back to the big screen everyone's favorite forgetful blue tang Dory (voice of Ellen DeGeneres), who's living happily in the reef with Marlin (voice of Albert Brooks) and Nemo (voice of Hayden Rolence). When Dory suddenly remembers that she has a family out there who may be looking for her, the trio takes off on a life-changing adventure across the ocean to California's prestigious Marine Life Institute, a rehabilitation center and aquarium.