Alison Balsam

This exclusive Soundstage® performance features songs from Jones’ recent critically-acclaimed albums as well as a selection of his iconic hits that take the audience on a musical journey across the eras and musical spectrum…

Nearly God is Tricky's unofficial second album – he calls it a collection of brilliant, incomplete demos. When Tricky signed his contract with Island, it allowed him to release an album a year under a different name and Nearly God is the first of these efforts. Tricky recorded the record with a diverse cast of collaborators – in addition to his partner Martina, there's Terry Hall, Björk, Neneh Cherry, Cath Coffey, Dedi Madden, and Alison Moyet (Damon Albarn pulled his track just before the album's release). Building on the ghostly, dark soundscapes of Tricky's debut, Maxinquaye, Nearly God narrows the focus of his first record by making the music slower, hazier, and more distubing. It's not as coherent as Maxinquaye, but that's part of its appeal. Nearly God is a haunting, fractured, surreal nightmare that doesn't always make sense, but never fails to make an impact.

During his short life Don Banks (1923–80) enjoyed a reputation as the leading modernist among Australian composers. Studies with Mátyás Seiber, Milton Babbitt and, especially, Luigi Dallapiccola helped refine his serial technique, but his music never retreated into academic abstraction, as this recital of chamber and vocal works demonstrates: it retained a keen sense of drama, an ear for atmosphere, a rather angular lyricism and, occasionally, a touch of humour.