Woman's Weekly From 3 June 2014

Stiff Little Fingers - Original Album Series (2014) {5CD Parlophone 2564636166 rec 1979-1982}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.34 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 470 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 125 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1979-82, 2014 Parlophone Records / Warner | 2564636166
Rock / Punk Rock / British Punk

UK five CD box set containing a quintet of original albums packaged in mini LP sleeves and housed in a slipcase. This set from the seminal Irish Punk band includes the albums Inflammable Material, Nobody's Heroes, Hanx!, Go for It and Now Then. How can you go wrong with each of the SLF classic album packaged in a nice slipcase box? A must for any true punk rock fan! Clear mastering and these have never sounded better - esp. Flammable Material.

Michael Chapman is often cited as one of the unsung heroes of the British folk music community, but that tends to shortchange the eclecticism of his approach. While the melodic sense of British folk plays a large part in Chapman's music, one can also hear much of the "American Primitive" sound pioneered by John Fahey, and like Fahey in his later years, Chapman has a strong taste for experimental sounds, and all of these elements make themselves heard on The Polar Bear, the third in a series of free-form releases Chapman has recorded for Blast First Petite.

When it was originally released in June 1969, Beck-Ola, the Jeff Beck Group's second album, featured a famous sleeve note on its back cover: "Today, with all the hard competition in the music business, it's almost impossible to come up with anything totally original. So we haven't. However, this disc was made with the accent on heavy music. So sit back and listen and try and decide if you can find a small place in your heads for it."…

This is a glorious disc. Simply glorious. Anderszewski and Bach have long been congenial bedfellows and the Pole’s playing here is compelling on many different levels. To start with, there’s the sense of sharing the sheer physical thrill of Bach’s keyboard-writing. This is particularly evident in faster movements such as the fierce and brilliant fugal Gigue that concludes the Third Suite, or, in the E minor Fifth Suite, the extended fugal Prelude and the outer sections of its Passepied I. Common to all is a sense of being fleet but never breathless, with time enough for textures to tell.

Kevin Ayers - Rainbow Takeaway (1978) {2014 Remaster Japan Mini LP SHM-CD Edition WPCR-15530}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 429 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 165 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 374 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1978, 2014 Parlophone / Warner Music Japan | WPCR-15530
Rock / Art Rock / Canterbury Scene

Cardboard sleeve reissue from Kevin Ayers features remastering in 2014 and the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD players). The cover faithfully replicates the original UK LP artwork. Includes an obi featuring design of original Japanese limited edition's LP (subject to change). Comes with a description and lyrics. Part of eight-album Kevin Ayers cardboard sleeve reissue series features the albums, "Joy Of A Toy +5," "Shooting At The Moon +6," "Whatevershebrings Wesing +10," "Bananamour +7," "Odd Ditties +3," "Yes We Have No Mananas. So Get Your Mananas Today +9," "Rainbow Takeaway +7," and "That's What You Get Babe +4." Bonus tracks.

Sílvia Pérez Cruz & Raül Fernandez Miró - Granada (2014) {Universal Music Spain 0602537822270}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 250 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 126 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 28 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2014 Universal Music Spain | 0602537822270
Jazz / Flamenco / Contemporary Flamenco / World Music / Acoustic Guitar / Vocals

Make a cover album is always a risky exercise. I would say more extreme: play with material already walking the recesses of the brain of the listener can pave the way or condemn a brainy game outright rejection revision. Over eighteen years ago, one of the greatest singers of all time was a machete forget to Cohen and raised the maximum voltage level one piece, coated vocals and layers, would rock the annals of the twentieth century: "Little Viennese waltz" became "Omega", thanks to the duo Enrique Morente and Largatija Nick, untouchable, sacred. Until now.

If The Hurting was mental anguish, Songs from the Big Chair marks the progression towards emotional healing, a particularly bold sort of catharsis culled from Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith's shared attraction to primal scream therapy. The album also heralded a dramatic maturation in the band's music, away from the synth-pop brand with which it was (unjustly) seared following the debut, and towards a complex, enveloping pop sophistication…

"Alpha" is the second album by the "supergroup", and once again comprises entirely of shorter, more commercially orientated songs than those of the members' previous groups. The album is very much a follow on from the band's debut album, but benefits from the famous four knowing each other that bit better, and thus working more cohesively together…

Contralto & conductor Nathalie Stutzmann is an exciting new signing, having left Deutsche Grammophon/Universal to join the Erato roster. Considered to be one of the most outstanding musical personalities of our time, she has parallel careers as both a contralto and an orchestra conductor. She sings regularly with the world’s greatest conductors and orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle, Vienna Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, the LSO and Rotterdam Philharmonic under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She currently is in residence with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP).