What The Ancients Knew (2005)

When New Order returned in 2001 with their first new record in eight years, the album they created (Get Ready) was given a great deal of leeway by fans (if not critics). Was it original? Not very. Although the band never recycled a riff, many of the songs recalled not just the band's salad days, but often specific performances from '80s touchstones Brotherhood or Low-life. What saved Get Ready from irrelevance was a brace of great songs, a new look at the band as capable rockers, and what's more, that uncanny ability to produce timeless, ever-fresh recordings. Almost as surprising as that comeback record was its follow-up, Waiting for the Sirens' Call, which arrived in 2005. If New Order's ambition was only to reinforce themselves in their fans' imaginations as members of a working band (à la their contemporaries Echo & the Bunnymen or even Duran Duran, for that matter), then the album is a success…

When New Order returned in 2001 with their first new record in eight years, the album they created (Get Ready) was given a great deal of leeway by fans (if not critics). Was it original? Not very. Although the band never recycled a riff, many of the songs recalled not just the band's salad days, but often specific performances from '80s touchstones Brotherhood or Low-life. What saved Get Ready from irrelevance was a brace of great songs, a new look at the band as capable rockers, and what's more, that uncanny ability to produce timeless, ever-fresh recordings. Almost as surprising as that comeback record was its follow-up, Waiting for the Sirens' Call, which arrived in 2005. If New Order's ambition was only to reinforce themselves in their fans' imaginations as members of a working band (à la their contemporaries Echo & the Bunnymen or even Duran Duran, for that matter), then the album is a success…

Georg Deuter is a German New Age instrumentalist and recording artist known for his meditative style that blends Eastern and Western musical styles. This CD has been composed with the idea to reflect the moods of the night, its silence, its soft songs, when the human mind has gone to sleep to dream. East of the Full Moon evokes images of the night sky, the moon appearing behind clouds, the world losing its stark colors, and trees becoming just shadows against the moon. The stars expand our awareness to a vast infinity and an immense silence, which is the only music there is. All music is an effort to bring this silence into existence, where the music becomes a reflection of something bigger.

After making a comeback in 1981, the revamped 1980s version of Grand Funk Railroad took one last stab at the '80s rock market with What's Funk? This time, the band enlisted Gary Lyons (producer for Foreigner and the Outlaws) to create an updated version of the kind of slickly produced album that made the group into a pop hitmaker during the mid-'70s…