Tracks 2005

Exosphere (2005). A mixture of masterful, spooky alien soundscapes and fluid textures by one of ambient music premier electro-tribal sound designers. "Exophere" offers ten tracks making up 68 minutes of music continuing the fine tradition of space & tribal ambient which Baghiri is known for. The album starts off quiet but after a few minutes a slow and later on accelerating and prominent sequence shows up which is very reminiscent of the extended track "In the Heat of Venus" on Steve Roach’s album "Western Spaces".
This continues for a while before things slow down, and starting off again with various organic elements and some fierce tribal percussion entering stage in the third track…

This is an excellent reggae sampler. It should be obvious that everyone's first introduction to reggae should be Bob Marley's great LEGEND which is the reggae desert island disc of all time. That is the place to start for any introduction to reggae. This sampler is a good next step and includes classics from Jimmy Cliff, Burning Spear, Black Uhuru, Toots and the Maytals, and many others. The rhythm section for many of these tracks is the famous Sly and Robbie duo…

Three CDs containing over three hours forty-five minutes of music can't be bad! We have tracks donated by well known favourites such as Binar, Radio Massacre International, Ron Boots, Skin Mechanix and AirSculpture plus some of the more successful new kids on the block: The Omega Syndicate, Create and The Glimmer Room. That is not all though as this collection also provides an opportunity for some of those artists who are currently just 'bubbling under the surface' to be heard.

This is the group's rawest and most R&B-oriented album, firmly rooted in the same influences as the Rolling Stones and the Pretty Things and including punk covers of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, et al., along with a few originals in the same vein. For those who don't get enough rough-and-ready British-style R&B and rock & roll from the debut albums by the Stones or Pretty Things, or find the playing by either band a little too tame and mannered, The Sect should be their next stop. Nobody on the British isles, other than maybe Brian Jones in his private moments on the guitar and harp, was more charmingly primitive than the Downliners Sect were on this album, which trades so freely in Bo Diddley riffs and the latter's signature beat that latecomers could be forgiven for thinking that this band had a hand in inventing them.