Axis 01

Jeff Mills really loves the Moon, and once again here he returns to the subject in order to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Moon landing. Moon - The Area Of Influence is quality Mills material in that style we know and love, worthy of delivering on the grand cosmic dreams of the Moon concept. Shifting between spaced-out synth endeavors and cosmic techno workouts, this is one of the legendary Techno missionary's finest and most focused LP's.

1971's Freedom Flight is perhaps, in its own way, every bit as adventurous and regal as Shuggie Otis' masterpiece, Inspiration Information. Produced by Shuggie's father, R&B legend Johnny Otis, the album features seven stellar, genre bending cuts, most of which were written or co-written by Shuggie…

Shuffling Ivories may not win any prizes for innovation, but it provides a tuneful hour of accomplished piano and bass playing and insights into the less visible byways of jazz piano.
The title is a play on Shuffle Along, Eubie Blake’s 1921 Broaday musical, written in partnership with Noble Sissle, and with Blake as a starting point this piano and bass album offers a wide-ranging tribute to various styles of ivory-tickling, shuffling them to some extent as it goes.
The first and title track is a traditional swinging blues with Monkish moments, written by Magris. I’ve Found a New Baby is a lively conversational treatment of the standard in which bass and piano create spontaneous counterpoint before coalescing in unadulterated swing for the end…

In addition to providing a wonderful photograph of Django Reinhardt having his palm read by Edith Piaf, this segment of the guitarist's chronology documents the recordings he participated in during the months leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War. On May 17, 1939, the famous Quintet of the Hot Club of France scrubbed, jogged, and trotted their way around two Tin Pan Alley standards and the Reinhardt/Grappelli original "Hungaria." They also tiptoed delicately through "Japanese Sandman" and took their time relishing the verse section of "Tea for Two." One week later, alto saxophonist Andre Ekyan assembled a jam band involving three seasoned U.S. musicians: Louisiana's Frank "Big Boy" Goudie (usually a reed player, heard here on trumpet)…

In 1990, when most of the original members of Yes were working under the name Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe for legal reasons, Jon Anderson recorded a batch of demos for what would have been the second ABWH album. When the band reunited with Chris Squire under their original moniker, the ABWH project was abandoned, and the songs fell between the cracks. This collection preserves those demos as a part of Yes history. The arrangements are fairly bare-bones, mostly electronic, but one can imagine the elaborate sonic garments of the Yes men being draped over the skeletons of these songs without too much effort.

Virgin's fourth Ambient volume is the first of all-new material from contemporary artists, and it provides the most highlights of any in the series. Tracks from a score of crucial new-ambient producers, including Aphex Twin, Seefeel, O'Rang, EAR, Main, Final, Lull, Labradford, Techno Animal, Scorn and Paul Schütze. Seeing as each track is available only on this collection, it became the hardest-to-find of the entire series soon after its release.