The Torch #3 (of 8)

This 1981 recording was the first period-instrument version of Purcell's most famous "semi-opera." This Restoration-era hybrid was a play with a complete (spoken) script plus numerous musical numbers for soloists, chorus, and pit orchestra. The Fairy Queen is based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, although you'd never know it from the music, which has (typically for the genre) no real connection to the plot. (Most of the songs and dances are masques performed for the entertainment of Titania, Oberon, or Hippolytus.) The advantage to this is that Purcell's score can be performed fairly well on its own. The Fairy Queen includes some of Purcell's best-loved comic scenes ("The Drunken Poet" and "Coridon and Mopsa") and songs ("Hark the echoing Air," "Ye gentle spirits," and "Hark how all things in one sound rejoice"–the last sung here by Jennifer Smith, sounding more beautiful than on any recording she's made since).

The Delgado Brothers have been considered LA's "Best Kept Secret", but they are over that. When major artists such as John Mayall have covered your songs, and your latin flavored music has been placed in movie soundtracks, secret no more. Delgado Brothers: A Brother's Dream (Bell Asher 10724) This is, to my knowledge, the third Delgado Brothers album and given the outstanding brilliance of their last release, Let's Get Back (on Mocombo Records) they certainly have established a reputation for world class musical genius. But, even more, The Delgado are one of the very few roots-rock-influenced bands who have profound concepts to go with the musical abilities they possess. Too many virtuosos have command of their instruments but very little to say that's meaningful and in today's scary, violence-promoting environment we desperately needs acts such as The Delgado's to bring some sanity to the airwaves.

In the spring of 1966, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears represented a genuinely new sound, as fresh to listeners as the songs on Meet the Beatles had seemed two years earlier. Released just as "California Dreaming" was ascending the charts by leaps and bounds, it was the product of months of rehearsal in the Virgin Islands and John Phillips' discovery of what one could do to build a polished recorded sound in the studio – it embraced folk-rock, pop/rock, pop, and soul, and also reflected the kind of care that acts like the Beatles were putting into their records at the time. "Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin'" are familiar enough to anyone who's ever listened to the radio, and "Go Where You Wanna Go" isn't far behind, in this version or the very similar rendition by the Fifth Dimension.

Sons of Kemet returns in 2021 with their new album Black To The Future, the follow up to 2018’s Mercury Prize nominated breakout release Your Queen Is A Reptile. This release finds the UK-based quartet at their most dynamic – showcasing harmonically elegant arrangements and compositions, coupled with fierce, driving material that will be familiar to initiated fans.