Songs from the Bardo begins with a bell ringing out once, twice, three times, as a ritualistic chant emerges from the dense silence. The collaborative composition by avant-garde icon Laurie Anderson, Tibetan multi-instrumentalist Tenzin Choegyal, and composer and activist Jesse Paris Smith is a guided journey through the visionary text of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, unfolding in an 80-minute ebb and flow of sound and words. Songs from the Bardo is a transporting experience, meant to draw the listener into the present moment and provide a framework for inner exploration. Anderson, Choegyal, and Smith fuse modern compositional techniques with the mystique of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy to make these visionary traditions more accessible to a new generation of listeners and to reveal the ancient wisdoms contained within.
On what may seem like a readymade gag, the psych-folk favorite covers the lost Dave Matthews Band album in full. He convincingly connects his adolescent love to his adult explorations.
Eurovision songs from the first contest in 1959 upto the date of the CDs release in 1997.
Panamá 77 – a vibrant and verdant suite of multi-textural, jazz-laced psychedelic instrumental folk-funk – is the debut album by Panamá-born, Chicago-based drummer and DJ Daniel Villarreal.
On September 28, on the eve of the label’s 21st anniversary celebration in Las Vegas, the Matador at 21 box set lands in stores. The limited-edition box contains five CDs documenting the history of the label with remastered songs released from 1989 through 2010, and one CD of unreleased live recordings from the Matador 10th Anniversary concerts in New York City in 1999. These were recorded to multitrack via the Rolling Stones Mobile Truck and not mixed down until now.
What’s Up Matador is a 2-CD (or 2-LP) compilation that was released by Matador Records that chronicles some of the best artists within their roster during the 90s. The first disc serves as a bit of a “best of” collection, featuring indie standouts by Yo La Tango, Pizzicato Five, Cat Power, Helium, and of course, Liz Phair. The second disc is what is particularly noteworthy, as it features previously unreleased material from many of the same artists. This marks the official debut of Liz’s “Stuck On An Island,” a b-side that fans would later discover was in the initial running for whitechocolatespaceegg.