The Kronos Quartet continues to broaden the repertoire for string quartet beyond the Western European tradition with Floodplain, an album of music all written or arranged for the ensemble. This album moves the ensemble even further afield from the conventional quartet; the players frequently double on folk instruments, and in one of the pieces they don't use their own instruments at all, but newly invented ones, created especially for this album. The selection of music is broadly eclectic and includes arrangements of a popular Arab song from 1940 and an ancient Christian hymn from Lebanon, a collaboration with a Palestinian electronic ensemble, and an original piece by a Serbian-American composer. The album has a number of guest artists, including the Azerbaijani Alim Qasimov Ensemble, Terry Riley playing tambura and Wu Man playing electric sitar.
Jimmy Hughes is known mostly for his classic 1964 Top 20 soul ballad "Steal Away," but did a good amount of recording for the FAME label in the 1960s. This is the first of two volumes of his FAME output on Kent, essentially presenting his 1964 debut LP Steal Away with ten bonus tracks (six taken from 1962-1965 singles, the other four previously unreleased). "Steal Away" (the song) is great, but like many albums of its time, the LP of the same name – half of which was comprised of tracks also appearing on singles – is on the shallow side.
The core of Laghonia featured a combination of Peruvian and US citizens, Saul Cornejo (vocals, guitar), Manuel Cornejo (drums) and David Levene (lead guitar and vocals). All eight tunes on this album were released on 45s under the group's earlier name New Juggler Sound. When the band changed its name into Laghonia in 1970, the 'Glue' album came out, with lyrics in English, great fuzz-wah-wah guitars, Hammond B-2 organ and appealing percussion. The music is catchy psychedelic rock'n'roll, influenced by the British Invasion, especially the Beatles and Yardbirds, but also explodes with heavy guitar riffage/solos in the vein of Santana, Cream or Hendrix. The album is remastered from the master tape. Both Laghonia LP's, 'Glue' and 'EtCetera', belong to the most legendary and most collectible South-American '70s albums.
This wonderful four-disc, 105-track box of postwar Afro-American gospel releases from the 1940s and 1950s was compiled by record collector and gospel historian Opal Louis Nations, and it perfectly captures what was surely a golden age for black gospel. Gospel as we now know it emerged in the South in the early '30s, an outgrowth of the right to assemble and the advent of gospel songwriters like Thomas A. Dorsey (who had sung previously in the secular arena as Georgia Tom), who brought the blues to church, tossed in some ragtime piano rhythms, and almost single-handedly created the genre to the point that his compositions were simply known as "Dorseys.
The Style that inspired Two Tone in the late '70s and artists such as Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse today originated in Jamaica some 20 years earlier and this collection provides the perfect introduction to its irresistible rhythms. Included are some of the biggest hits of the era including 'I'm In The Mood For Love', 'The Tide Is High' and 'Train To Skaville' alongside other classic tracks by some of the genre's greatest exponents such as Tommy McCook, Derrick Morgan, Jimmy Cliff and many more.