Papercut From Radiate Issue 2014

Wes Montgomery - In The Beginning: Early Recordings from 1949-1958 (2014) {2CD Set Resonance Records HCD-2014}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 759 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 325 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 224 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1949-58, 2014 Resonance Records | HCD-2014
Jazz / Bop / Hard Bop / Guitar

Rare Wes Montgomery material is hard to come by. Not counting Willow Weep for Me, the posthumous LP Verve issued in 1968 not long after the guitarist's passing, there was Resonance's 2012 set Echoes of Indiana Avenue, which contained largely live performances from 1957 and 1958. In the Beginning, released three years after Echoes, draws from a similar well of unreleased recordings, offering a heavy dose of live material along with five sides produced by Quincy Jones at Columbia Studios in 1955, plus three tracks a session at Spire Records in Fresno, California in 1949.

It feels redundant to say The Flaming Lips make complete weirdness out of The Beatles’ iconic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. This complete reworking—er, deconstruction—of songs known the world over for their bright, shimmering sounds and Technicolor melodies will annoy purists, naturally, but it's actually a fun, wild ride for everyone else. Miley Cyrus sweetly croons “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” while the endless list of “Fwends” (well, 27 strong, including Grace Potter, Tegan & Sara, and Foxygen) ensures tracks are flush with madness. Unexpected highlight: The Electric Wurms, led by the Lips’ Steven Drozd, re-channel “Fixing a Hole” into an astral ballad.

This live double album features Coco Montoya and his band on the Road, as part of a RUF records series of on The Road albums delivered from their catalogue of blues artists. The opening track I Got A Mind To Travel, is an apt starting point and introduces us to the full band of musicians Coco Montoya uses to augment his vocal and guitar skills the use of Hammond Organ delivered with panache by Brant Leeper who also adds to the vocals. Throughout the album there are glimpses of Coco Montoya’s exceptional musical career especially the influence he certainly gives the feel of movement and the guitar sound is an homage to his old boss Albert Collins while playing the guitar left-handed and upside down like the other Albert King! Coco’s playing is instinctive full of fluidity. The whole album is easy on your ear and an enjoyable listening experience BUT at times you want Coco to let loose and really show us what he is capable of. On Love Jail his guitar takes on the shape and form of Albert Collins and all the better for it, even his vocals strengthen as the beat picks up, this is a stylish ten minute track. This album has fourteen tracks where Coco and his band just want to please as they play for the length of time need ( Never less than 5 minutes and up to a mighty 15 minutes) to explore all the alleyways and nooks and crannies they feel the music is taking them on their journey of discovery with you, there is freedom of expression that only live music free from the constrains of a studio walls and mixing desk.

"Tracks from the Alps" is the band's fifth studio album, full of six original tracks, and a great cover of the Genesis Archive 1967-75 rarity, "Going Out to Get You".
With the lineup slightly tweaked with the inclusion of Mattia Rossetti as the new bassist, the band have also tightened up their sound, giving it a somewhat more modern atmosphere whilst retaining the techniques and motifs of classic Genesis and getting back to what they do best - presenting what the pastoral Genesis sound might have ended up like had Genesis themselves never abandoned it.