Shangri La Yacht

Shangri-La, Mark Knopfler's fourth solo release and his first since breaking his collarbone, shoulder, and seven ribs in a motorcycle crash in March 2003, finds the eternally laid-back Dire Straits frontman in familiar territory. Instead of constructing a song cycle about his brush with mortality – the wry "Don't Crash the Ambulance" aside – he uses his warm baritone and effortless guitar work to ruminate on everything from the plight of the modern fisherman – the beautiful and rustic "Trawlerman's Song" – to the entrepreneurial skills of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc ("Boom, Like That")…

Shangri-la is one of the most beautiful albums I've ever heard.This album rates up there with American Seranade which I hope Collectibles will reissiue.Shangri la features songs from Asia and the Orient.All songs are just with the orchestra although on a few of them the womens wordless chrous is evident especially on Shangri-la.All songs on this album are very lush.I don't care about Music of Brazil although it has some good songs on it,because I have the imported cd Viva/Music of Brazil from the Uk.If you don't have viva. I also recomend this title.It has music of mexico.Liner notes for both Shangri la and The Music of Brazil are included here.Once again just as with the other Percy Faith reissues collectibles released, most of these songs by Faith are on cd for the first time.No arranger could conduct music like Percy Faith with the exception of Mantovani who I also have on a lot of cds.If you like beautiful music this cd should be in your collection. Amazon .

Three of the four musicians who had created the soundtrack for the Rutles 1978 TV movie and album (Neil Innes, John Halsey and Ricky Fataar) reunited in 1996 and recorded a second album, "Archaeology," a send-up of "The Beatles Anthology" albums. The fourth 'real' Rutle, Ollie Halsall, died in Spain of a heroin overdose in 1992. Eric Idle was invited to participate, but declined. Like the "Anthology" project that it lampooned, it featured tracks ostensibly from all periods of the Rutles career, sequenced to reflect the fictional band's chronology. Includes the UK CD single "Shangri-La" with two bonus tracks.

Stevie Nicks calls in a few friends on this one. Trouble in Shangri-La enlists some of music's most popular females, including Macy Gray, Sarah McLachlan, and Dixie Chick Natalie Maines. If Nicks hadn't been doing it for years, this might feel like a calculated attempt to follow the trend set by Santana's Supernatural. Her liner notes have always been star-studded. Over the years she's gotten help from the likes of Don Henley, Don Felder, Bruce Hornsby, Mike Campbell, and Tom Petty. Most prominent on this album is Sheryl Crow, who co-produced five of the album's 13 tracks. Her signature guitar sound shines through on many of the songs. Maines performs the album's only true duet on "Too Far From Texas."

Shangri-La, Mark Knopfler's fourth solo release and his first since breaking his collarbone, shoulder, and seven ribs in a motorcycle crash in March 2003, finds the eternally laid-back Dire Straits frontman in familiar territory. Instead of constructing a song cycle about his brush with mortality – the wry "Don't Crash the Ambulance" aside – he uses his warm baritone and effortless guitar work to ruminate on everything from the plight of the modern fisherman – the beautiful and rustic "Trawlerman's Song" – to the entrepreneurial skills of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc ("Boom, Like That"). Knopfler has more or less abandoned the British folk and Celtic-influenced pop that began to surface on his previous two recordings, opting instead for a full-blown yet quiet and considerate collection of country-folk ballads and bluesy, midtempo dirges that revel in their uncharacteristic sparseness – one of the better examples of the latter is the gutsy, backwoods boxing tale "Song for Sonny Liston."

The reduced to a trio band still plays a melodic, American, modern prog, but rocking heaviness is more in the foreground, even if the music is already pretty playful proggig. Right on the opening track "Cigarette Burns", the Americans make one on "Punk Floyd." The closeness to the rock dinosaurs is not only evident in this piece, but also in the electric guitar solo, while the alternative rock scene lulls it The Prog of Zip Tang sometimes comes closer to the late King Crimson, while the harmony vocals can evoke associations with CSN ("Knowing"). Here and there are some beautiful crimsoid bumpy riffs and some psychedelic palpable ("Maniacal Calliope" Sometimes it rocks more straightforward ("Phantasmagoric Haze"), sometimes alternative-proggiger ("Plastique Hey-Zeus"), but these are just influences that enrich the bands already quite unique sound-cosmos…