Are we Not Men

Gomez - Five Men In A Hut (A's, B's, & Rarities: 1998-2004) (2006) {2CD Hut-Virgin CDHUTD 87}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 0.99 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 343 Mb
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© 1998-2004, 2006 Hut Recordings / Virgin Records | CDHUTD 87
Rock / Alternative / Indie Rock / Adult Alternative Rock

Five Men in a Hut is basically the final roundup for Gomez's Hut/Virgin years, but it's a positive boon for fans, especially in the U.S. In the U.K., each Gomez album had at least a few associated singles, but they never got the same treatment stateside. Since each album had a certain specific "sound" to it, one can see how some of these songs wouldn't have fit with the album they were recorded with, but the B-sides were hardly throwaways. In fact, the B-sides were often excellent and allowed the band to try different things and stretch out a bit. Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline gathered a few of these tracks, but more than half of Five Men in a Hut is comprised of B-sides (and two previously unreleased tunes) so ultimately all the A's and B's of many of these singles are now readily available.

The Gossip close Music for Men with a song called "Spare Me from the Mold," but Beth Ditto, Nathan Paine, and Hannah Billie could never be accused of conforming. They were still a relatively underground group when Standing in the Way of Control's passionate mix of punk, soul, and disco became their breakthrough – and they sounded so confident on it, it felt like the mainstream was coming to them rather than vice versa. They've got their own piece of the pop (and pop culture) mainstream now, and Music for Men feels aboveground in the best possible way. Befitting its major-label debut, this is the band's most polished music yet, a balance of Control's ferocity and the sleek remixes of the album's singles, but it's still not slick. Most of Music for Men finds The Gossip sticking to their roots and using their success to get their messages out to as many people as possible. These songs are just as empowering as their earlier work, though they're more subtly defiant.

Purcell’s fourth and last full-scale semi-opera, The Indian Queen, is often passed over in favour of its longer and more rounded predecessors, especially King Arthur and The Fairy Queen. The reasons are plentiful: Thomas Betterton, with whom Purcell collaborated, never finished his reworking of an early Restoration tragedy and even if he had torn himself away from his business interests in 1695, Purcell would not have been alive to set the remaining music for Act 5. As it happened, Henry’s brother Daniel set the masque from the final act after Betterton had hired an anonymous writer to finish his adaptation. No one can deny that neither verse nor music achieved the heights imagined in the original collaboration; given the quality of the masques in Purcell’s large ‘dramatick’ operas (including Dioclesian, of course), there is an undoubted sense of anticlimax.

‘hell in Eden’ is like a dream. Captivating… stunning… unreal! And yet the mighty maestros of DIARY OF DREAMS have made it come true. ‘hell in Eden’ feels like coming home. Due to the distinct and doubtlessly one-of-a-kind DIARY sound, that's been accompanying us since their debut ‘Cholymelan’ in 1994, there's always this certain feeling of familiarity right from the first listening of a new DIARY piece.

This groundbreaking performance seems as if it is happening in real time. At its best, and seemingly counter-intuitively, opera is at its most effective when we don’t notice that the characters are singing: such is the case here. If you know this opera, then the third of the men’s trios in scene 1 (“Una bella serenata”) will seem very fast; hearing it with fresh ears, Jacobs’ breakneck tempo seems utterly natural—these guys have been worked up into a fun/competitive frenzy and can’t wait to get started on what they think will be a grand adventure. Similarly, the little quintet before the men depart (“Di scrivermi…”) is so slow that you feel the melodrama; if they are going to play, they are going to play thoroughly, making each word and situation count.

Originally released on 12th March 1993, the album hit the No.1 spot in both the UK and Ireland and sold over 6 million copies worldwide. The four disc box set contains the album on the first CD and bonus material spread over three further discs. Of course all of those previous bonus tracks are included, but so too are unreleased early demos, a live performance from 31 July 1994 at the Féile Festival in Ireland and a series of radio sessions from 1992-1993. The box includes a poster and four postcards.

With music instantly accessed at the touch of a button, it seems that the urge to pigeonhole bands as quickly and neatly as possible has been driven to ever more extremes in recent years. Good Tiger, however, forge their own path. Blending their influences in a manner that defies lazy classification sets them apart from their contemporaries, imbuing everything they do with a distinctive sound and feel, and with We Will All Be Gone, Good Tiger have dramatically built upon their stunning debut, 2015's A Head Full Of Moonlight. "I think that what a musician wants to do musically is always pretty fluid and can change from day to day," states guitarist Derya "Dez" Nagle.

Stick Men and King Crimson fans are in for a treat. For the recent shows in Japan, Mel Collins joined the power prog trio Stick Men (Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto and Markus Reuter) for six concerts. It's not the first time the Stick Men have collaborated with a Crimson alumni. In April 2015 David Cross went out to work with the trio, which resulted in the double album "Midori". Fans' hopes that the much anticipated concerts with Mel Collins would also be documented are now becoming a reality. We are digitally releasing two complete shows recorded live in Tokyo on February 21, 2017.