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.
House of Yes: Live from House of Blues is a double live CD by progressive rock band Yes. The album was recorded on Halloween night in 1999 at the House of Blues in Las Vegas, Nevada, during touring obligations for the band's studio album, The Ladder…
This live double album features Coco Montoya and his band on the Road, as part of a RUF records series of on The Road albums delivered from their catalogue of blues artists. The opening track I Got A Mind To Travel, is an apt starting point and introduces us to the full band of musicians Coco Montoya uses to augment his vocal and guitar skills the use of Hammond Organ delivered with panache by Brant Leeper who also adds to the vocals. Throughout the album there are glimpses of Coco Montoya’s exceptional musical career especially the influence he certainly gives the feel of movement and the guitar sound is an homage to his old boss Albert Collins while playing the guitar left-handed and upside down like the other Albert King! Coco’s playing is instinctive full of fluidity. The whole album is easy on your ear and an enjoyable listening experience BUT at times you want Coco to let loose and really show us what he is capable of. On Love Jail his guitar takes on the shape and form of Albert Collins and all the better for it, even his vocals strengthen as the beat picks up, this is a stylish ten minute track. This album has fourteen tracks where Coco and his band just want to please as they play for the length of time need ( Never less than 5 minutes and up to a mighty 15 minutes) to explore all the alleyways and nooks and crannies they feel the music is taking them on their journey of discovery with you, there is freedom of expression that only live music free from the constrains of a studio walls and mixing desk.
Quasi Parlando is an important addition to ECM's documentation of the work of Tigran Mansurian, an often breathtaking account of highly original contemporary chamber orchestra music. Issued in the wake of his 75th birthday, the album presents four works for soloists and strings, and marks the ECM debut of the Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, winner of the 2013 Gramophone Awards 'Record of the Year'. It opens with the Armenian composer's fiercely-concentrated Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and String Orchestra, and proceeds to new music performed by its dedicatees: the lyrical Romance, dedicated to Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and the intensely expressive Quasi Parlando, dedicated to German cellist Anja Lechner. Both are world premiere recordings, as is the Violin Concerto No 2, subtitled Four Serious Songs, which concludes the programme. Throughout, the soloists deliver committed performances, as does the Amsterdam Sinfonietta under the direction of Candida Thompson.
It feels redundant to say The Flaming Lips make complete weirdness out of The Beatles’ iconic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. This complete reworking—er, deconstruction—of songs known the world over for their bright, shimmering sounds and Technicolor melodies will annoy purists, naturally, but it's actually a fun, wild ride for everyone else. Miley Cyrus sweetly croons “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” while the endless list of “Fwends” (well, 27 strong, including Grace Potter, Tegan & Sara, and Foxygen) ensures tracks are flush with madness. Unexpected highlight: The Electric Wurms, led by the Lips’ Steven Drozd, re-channel “Fixing a Hole” into an astral ballad.
There are concessions that must be made on Keith Emerson and Greg Lake’s Live from Manticore Hall, starting with the absence of Carl Palmer - and then the occasional use of loops.
Too, the conversational aspect of the evening certainly works on its first listen, bringing us in with a confidential closeness. (Emerson, in an impish moment, recalls people asking questions about his pre-Emerson Lake and Palmer band: "The Nice what?") But once that context is understood, these lengthy segments quickly become extraneous detours away from what is often a adventurously re-imagined journey through some peak moments for both…