From deep in the sweltering revival tent… Comes this righteous tome of weathered Nashville icons and blistering backwoods prophets - 'Hillbillies In Hell: Revelations.' An astounding collection of searing Gospel exhaltations, fiery End-Times laments, Death-Bed confessionals, Grim-Reapered recitations and Graveside grimoires. Often originally waxed on microscopic labels and distributed in dispiriting amounts, these troubled and mostly forgotten troubadours sing of Judgement Day, The Rapture and Death's Cold Black Fingers. Years in the making - 'Hillbillies In Hell: Revelations' presents 30 testaments and timeless tribulations - sermons of sinful sloth, howling Hell-Bound locomotives and scorching Apocalyptic redemption. A cold, stone final casket of fringe 45s - many of these sides are impossibly rare and are reissued here for the very first time. All for your purifying listening pleasure.
Down, down. . . deeper into the infernal depths. More unknown and unheralded Hillbillies and Delinquent Hayseed Balladeers. They croon. They yodel. And the flames leap ever higher. Cut on microscopic or private-press labels and distributed in minuscule amounts, these Tormented Troubadours sing of Satan, His diabolical offspring, the Grim Reaper, sinful trysts, suicide, murder, Devil trains, inebriates, cuckolds and lustful cadavers - all in one handy CD package. Years in the making - 'Hillbillies In Hell' (The Final Chapter) presents a further 30 timeless testaments of sin, tribulation, cold graves and warm temptations. Mostly issued on forgotten 45s, some of these sides are indescribably rare and are reissued here for the very first time. All for your licentious listening pleasure. *Exclusive scholarly liner notes by Alvin Lucia! *Full dynamic range 2017 remasters direct from the first generation analogue master tapes!
John Corigliano is a difficult composer to pin down stylistically. The generally tonal orientation of his music and the cinematic quality that made his score for The Red Violin such a success have brought him a beloved status rare among contemporary composers. Yet, it would be wrong to call him neo-Romantic; his music has deep rigor and sometimes, as in the Symphony No. 2 on offer here, a quite grim quality. This 2022 release from the Boston Modern Orchestra does not include his most famous works – The Red Violin in either its film score or violin concertos forms, The Ghosts of Versailles, or the Symphony No. 1 – but it offers an excellent window into the richness of Corigliano's music, in which a great variety of elements collide in unexpected ways. One of those elements is quotation, on display in the opening work, To Music; it is based on Schubert's song An die Musik, which is assembled with great subtlety over five and a half minutes.