NO BIRCH, by the Christian Wallumrod Trio (Import, 2008),is a beautifully realized album of atmospheric, moody, spare, gorgeous Jazz. This is the kind of music to listen to driving along a lonely stretch of road on a rainy, moody afternoon as the sun is about to set. There is a cinematic quality to the music this trio creates empoying just piano, trumpet and percussion.
13 heartfelt songs exploring the concepts of love and loss, life and death, time and space. Influenced by the sounds of 80's bands like Tears for Fears and A-Ha, 70's prog from The Doors and Pink Floyd as well as such staples as the Beach Boys and the Beatles, 'A Waste of Time & Space' also takes cues from the 60's race for space, Geoffrey Household's 1939 thriller 'Rogue Male' and the Large Hadron Collider. Although a couple of the songs were written over 20 years ago, the majority of 'A Waste of Time & Space' was recorded and mixed at Radiogram in Bath, UK between April 2016 and June 2018 by duo Jon Birch and Si Bright. Listen out for sounds of the sitar, a volcano erupting, Sputnik's beep and the un-licenced use of a Marvel character.
People sometimes chuckle at the fact that Emilis Melngailis and Arnold Schoenberg were both born in the same year, 1874 – just think, the apologist for ancient folk-song diatonics and the founder of twelvetone technique as peers! But one must understand that Melngailis belonged to those relatively few for whom art expresses not so much humanity's strained relationship with reality but rather serves as a reflection of the ultimate harmony, beauty and magnificence of nature and the world around us.
Feodor Chaliapin (1873-1938) (bass) was in the opinion of many the greatest singing actor of the 20th century. Like Enrico Caruso, the name Chaliapin continued to be a household word long after his death. A case in point is that the Sobranie tobacco company continued to market their “Chaliapin” cigarettes into the 1970s. Producing a Chaliapin set has long been a desire of Marston, yet due to the size of the compilation, the production costs, and the time involved, this project has been pushed to the back burner time and time again. With the financial assistance of some of our generous supporters, we have finally released a thirteen-CD set containing every known recording of Feodor Chaliapin numbering well into the two hundreds.
In the days before punk rock, Kursaal Flyers straddled the line separating pub rock and power pop. The line was so thin it would seem to disappear in the rearview mirror, but when Kursaal Flyers were active in the mid-'70s, they were subtly pulled in two different directions. They'd tour on the same circuit as their friends Dr. Feelgood, but they also signed to Jonathan King's company in 1975, then worked with pop impresario Mike Batt after singing to CBS for The Golden Mile in 1976. Batt gave "Little Does She Know" a grandiose arrangement designed to conjure memories of Phil Spector, and it was enough for the single to crack the U.K. Top 20; however, instead of being their breakthrough, it was their only hit.