The Normal

Following their debut release 2021’s ‘Fragments’, the trio of bassist extraordinaire Nick Beggs (Kajagoogoo / Steven Wilson), gifted jazz keyboardist Adam Holzman (Grover Washington / Steven Wilson) & rhythmic powerhouse Craig Blundell, return to deliver their signature brand of instrumental Prog come Funk or Prunk / Frog if you were to be so bold. Aside from being immensely talented performers, the three have all at one point performed together as part of Steven Wilson’s band & all three appear on Wilson’s new album ‘The Harmony Codex’.

What you will find on this disc is A) contrapunctus I-IX played on two different organs in 1962; B) contrapunctus I II & IV from a1981 TV broadcast; C) contrapunctus IX XI & XIII in mono from a radio broadcast in 1967; D) the unfinished contrapunctus XIV from what may or may not be the same TV broadcast as B); and as a final filler E) a prelude and fugue on the name BACH from a studio recording in 1980. Items B)-E) are given on the piano.

The Boomtown Rats - A Tonic for the Troops (1978)(US-Edition)
EAC Secure Rip | APE, IMG+CUE, LOG | 245,5 MB | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps | 83,7 MB | Complete Scans (300 dpi) | 16,5 MB
New Wave, Pop-Punk | Label: CBS/Columbia | Catalog Number: CK 35750 | Time: 39:46 | RAR | RS.com

Bob Geldof had revealed a taste for the seamy side of things in his lyrics for the Boomtown Rats' first album. On their second record, he fantasized about being Hitler in the person of the "Leader of the Pack" ("I Never Loved Eva Braun"), romanticized tropical suicide ("Living in an Island"), and identified with a certain wealthy recluse ("Me and Howard Hughes"). The band retained a punk energy on the album's U.K. hit singles, "Like Clockwork," "She's So Modern," and "Rat Trap" (another of Geldof's Springsteen homages), but musical identity was still a song-by-song affair. [In the U.S., Columbia replaced "Can't Stop" and "[Watch Out For] The Normal People" with "Mary of the 4th Form" and "Joey's on the Street Again" from the first album.] AMG

Death Disco is centered around some of the post-punk singles that are most translatable to the dancefloor. PiL's "Death Disco," drenched in dread-filled dub as much as loping disco, is an obvious and smart choice. The majority of what follows isn't nearly as claustrophobic and dense, so in that sense the disc's title isn't wholly indicative of its contents.

Mune Le Gardien De La Lune is a 2014 French animation film directed by Alexandre Heboyan & Benoit Philippon and starring Omar Sy, Izia Higelin and Michael Gregorio. When a faun named Mune becomes the Guardian of the Moon, little did he had unprepared experience with the Moon and an accident that could put both the Moon and the Sun in danger, including a corrupt titan named Necross who wants the Sun for himself and placing the balance of night and day in great peril. Now with the help of a wax-child named Glim and the warrior, Sohone who also became the Sun Guardian, they go out on an exciting journey to get the Sun back and restore the Moon to their rightful place in the sky. The score is composed by Bruno Coulais…

Girls Aloud is the leggy quintet that beat out rival boy band One True Voice for the grand prize during the November 2002 finale of Popstars: The Rivals. A scion of existing U.K. reality shows like Popstars and Pop Idol (which itself spawned American Idol), Rivals followed a similar formula, with one essential twist. After spending weeks building its bands with the normal round of tryouts, kick outs, voting, and drama, drama, drama, the program pitted its final products against one another in an ultimate pop-reality showdown…

"…[Turkish-American composer] Kamran Ince (b. 1960) mixes such diverse elements as medieval compositional techniques, Middle Eastern folk music, Bach chorales, wild percussion, tone clusters, and the styles of late Romanticism as well as modern Russia. He also drops nontraditional instruments, such as electric guitar, electric bass, and synthesizer, into the normal symphony orchestra. Yet this very pictoral and striking music could not be called avant-garde; it communicates instantly and clearly in a language quite its own. Ince not only attempts to depict the sound of pounding waves in one section of his lovely piano concerto 'Remembering Lycia', but also wittily portrays 'speeches' by the emperor of Constantinople and the Turkish conqueror in his five-movement symphony about the 15th-century 'Fall of Constantinople'."