ZZ Top Rancho Texicano: The Very Best Of ZZ Top (2004) Repost

Since Rhino released an exhaustive four-disc ZZ Top box in October 2003, some may question the appearance of a double-disc retrospective in June 2004, a mere eight months after the box set. The two may be released awfully close to each other, but they do play to different audiences – in other words, there are a bunch of fans who want all the hits, but not a full box set, and that's what the 38-track Rancho Texicano: The Very Best of ZZ Top delivers…

Founded in 1996, ERA (an acronym for Enminential Rythmn of the Ancestors) is the project of French musician Eric Lévi, whose ethereal, evocative soundscapes began in the tradition of artists like Enigma and Deep Forest. ERA's self-titled debut LP was released in 1998 to widespread success. A mix of dramatic pseudo-orchestral fare and lyrics in a self-designed language similar to Latin and Greek, Era also incorporated elements of world music, electronic, and new age. Following up in 2000 with Era 2, Lévi returned in 2003 with The Mass - whose title track referenced Carl Orff's masterpiece O Fortuna - and sales subsequently hit platinum status in France and Switzerland. The Very Best of Era was released in 2004 and featured all the popular tracks from their previous three records as well as several remixes…

Fusion/new age keyboard player Keiko Matsui grew up in Tokyo and took her first piano lesson at the age of five. Influenced by Stevie Wonder and Rachmaninov as well as early fusion masters Maurice Jarre and Chick Corea, Matsui began composing while in junior high but studied children's culture at the Japan Women's University (Nihon Joshidaigaku). She moved to the Yamaha Music Foundation in Tokyo after graduation and formed Cosmos, recording four albums with the new age group. Her first album as a leader, 1987's A Drop of Water, was released in the U.S. two years after the fact on Passport.