Plant Roots: The Hidden Half

“ABBEY ROAD’S world-renowned engineers have been cutting grooves into discs since the studios first opened their doors in 1931. This record was pressed from a master cut using a precision technique known as half-speed mastering. The procedure requires the source master and the cutting lathe to run at half speed on a specially adapted Neumann VMS-80 lathe.

Robert Plant's eleventh studio album, Carry Fire, produced by Plant in the west of England and Wales, melds unusual rhythms with naturalism. As with his 2014 album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar, it features his band The Sensational Space Shifters. They are also joined here by special guests, including Chrissie Hynde. The album is "transfixing," exclaims NPR. "Plant and his collaborators create music that overflows with irrepressible life force … Carry Fire is rivetingly intimate."

SUPERB TRIPLE DISC SET OF CLASSIC LIVE RECORDINGS FROM RY COODER As potent a musician as almost any to have emerged across the past half-century, Ry Coode remains the most influential and inspiring roots performer in the world today. Having started off as a member of Captain Beefheart s Magic Band, the collection of albums Ry released through the 1970s and 1980s bore little if no comparison to anything released concurrently, by anyone. This triple CD box set celebrates this hugely creative period in Ry Cooder s career by featuring a range of live recordings made at Cooder shows in the 70s and 80s, all of which were broadcast live on FM radio. Kicking off on DISC ONE with a gig recorded at The Record Plant, in Sausalito, CA, on 7th July 1974, shortly after the release of Paradise And Lunch, Cooder s fourth studio album, DISC TWO features his show recorded in Hamburg in January 1977, plus tracks he recorded for a BBC in-concert special a few days later. The set concludes on DISC THREE with a marvelous event, this time recorded at The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA, on 25th March 1987.