Nowhere 1997

This is an attractive eight-CD set (+ Bonus CD), whose discs are also available as eight separate releases, that could have been a great reissue but settled for being merely quite good. To celebrate the 80th anniversary of the first jazz recording, RCA released a disc apiece covering each of the past eight decades. In listening to the music straight through, one becomes aware of RCA's strengths and weaknesses as a jazz label. Victor was one of the most important jazz labels during the 1920s, '30s and '40s, catching on to bebop a little late (1946) but still documenting many classic recordings. By the 1950s, the label's attention was wandering elsewhere; it missed free jazz almost completely in the '60s, and in the last three decades has only had a few significant artists, mostly Young Lions whose output sounds conservative compared to the earlier masters…

Freezone 1: The Phenomenology Of Ambient (1994). The debut in the Freezone series looks at the world of mostly beatless ambient, courtesy of tracks by Porcupine Tree, Pete Namlook's Air, David Byrne, Deep Space Network, Moby, Deep Forest, Young American Primitive and Terre Thaemlitz…

Lurrie’s 1995 Delmark release Mercurial Son was one of the most talked about and widely acclaimed CDs of the year. 700 Blues showcases new facets of Lurrie’s talent, including his skills at smooth-swinging T-Bone-esque guitar.
Lurrie Bell was born on December 13, 1958, in Chicago. His famous father, harpist Carey Bell, had him working out on guitar as a wee lad. By 1977, he was recording with his dad and playing behind a variety of established stars, tabbed by many observers at the time as a sure star on the rise. But personal problems took their toll on his great potential; Bell's recorded output and live performances were inconsistent in the '80s and early '90s. Among the highlights of Bell's discography are three tracks in tandem with harpist Billy Branch under the Sons of Blues banner…

Murder Ballads brought Nick Cave's morbidity to near-parodic levels, which makes the disarmingly frank and introspective songs of The Boatman's Call all the more startling. A song cycle equally inspired by Cave's failed romantic affairs and religious doubts, The Boatman's Call captures him at his most honest and despairing – while he retains a fascination for gothic, Biblical imagery, it has little of the grand theatricality and self-conscious poetics that made his albums emotionally distant in the past…