Alison Balsam

This extra-special two-hour demented punk extravaganza is an audio oddity unlike anything else! An eclectic mix of artists from the world of classic and contemporary punk/indie/alt-rock have assembled, along with special guest stars from film, TV and more, to pay homage to radio icon Dr. Demento (a world-renowned institution who has championed novelty music and its creators since the 1970s), for this mind-blowing compilation.

After this preamble or subtle captatio benevolentiae, I will tell you that in 1992, at the age of ten, I gave my first public recital in the beautiful monastery of Santa Maria del Puig, founded no less than in 1240 near Valencia and where my parents had married in 1980. I could not have imagined that only seven years later I would go to live and study in New York and that Haydn would accompany me on that difficult journey as a fragile but permanent connection to my childhood… And in that 1992 recital, the main score of the evening was a Haydn Sonata, one of the ones I include on this CD: the Sonata in D Major Hob. XVI/14, which is so full of tenderness and of a serene bucolic-pastoral luminosity. It is an inner idyll of simple but sublime grandeur. And so began the red thread that represents Haydn in my life, a kind of locus amoenus (a pleasant place) where I have so often found, and continue to find, solace, consolation and shelter. In my childhood, everyone loved Mozart and Beethoven. Haydn was the ugly duckling. I always felt I was an ugly duckling and maybe that is also why I loved him so much from the beginning…

Brooklyn Funk Essentials have been fusing soul, hip hop, spoken word, jazz and, of course, funk for 25 years and over 6 albums, the most recent ’Stay Good’ is released on September 20th. During this time they have made a name for themselves as electric performers, exhilarating their loyal and broad fanbase with performances on every continent. Established in the early ‘90s by Arthur Baker and Lati Kronlund, Brooklyn Funk Essentials were regulars of New York’s vibrant club scene when their debut album, ‘Cool & Steady & Easy’, hit the shelves. Released by pioneering funk and electronic taste-makers Dorado Records and combining classic funk’s raw, mind-bending basslines, peak-era disco’s euphoric vocals and early hip-hop’s observational lyricism, the album and its follow up, ‘Make Em Like It’ topped charts around the world. Fast forward to 2019 and following 2015’s reunion with Dorado and the success of ‘Funk Ain’t Ova’, the band are set to release ‘Stay Good’, a fun, funky and fresh collection of tracks featuring throughout are the powerful and soulful vocals of Alison Limerick, now a full time member of the band. Lati wrote and produced her debut hit ‘Where Love Lives’.

Collection includes all studio albums in original and expanded remastered editions, also includes compilation 'Catch The Breeze'.