Cocoon Parallel Lines

Chris Abrahams’ ‘Play Scar’ inhabits a sound world that’s entirely uncharted. It’s a zone of in-betweens - juxtapositions and parallel lines - a realm in which nothing is certain and at any moment dynamic shifts might occur. In this unusual electro-acoustic landscape, Abrahams has crafted by far his most complex and epically beautiful record to date. It’s a series of pieces that in many ways demonstrates the full scope of Abrahams’ work as a musician and composer.
‘Play Scar’, like Thrown before it is both exotic and unfamiliar. Pieces like ’Twig Blown’ hint at Abrahams’ interest in musique concréte, ‘Lieiden’ pulses with a distinctly electronic flare, whilst ‘There He Reclined’ shimmers in a hazy procession of organ, guitar and electronics…

Randy Hostetler - Happily Ever After (1999) {Frog Peak Music FP008}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 203 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 109 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 51 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1999 Frog Peak Music | FP008
Experimental / Non-Music / Sound Art / Spoken Word / Contemporary / Sound Collage

Within his short life span, Randy Hostetler (he died in 1996 at age 32) released very little music and even the material issued by friends after his death doesn't count for much (in terms of quantity). The most striking piece he composed would have to be "Happily Ever After," a 45-minute speech-based work. Between May and December 1986, Hostetler interviewed 66 persons (family members, friends, friends of friends) asking them to tell a story. Some went for fictional stories, others revealed personal experiences, but most used the traditional canvas beginning with "Once upon a time…" and ending with "…happily ever after."

RSD 2019. The first time all of Todd’s Bearsville & WB singles have been compiled for release. Featuring many unique edits and mixes previously out of print. Remastered.

Started as the so called "Krautrock Guerrilla" in 2012, six years later the Berlin combo Camera are releasing their fourth full-length album. Customarily associated with the likes of NEU! and La Düsseldorf it is time to allow Camera to break free of the krautrock tradition and accept that they are very much doing their own thing now. Motto: "It's not repetition, it's discipline."

When Fran Healy sings "Why did we wait so long" on "Mother," the opening song on Travis' seventh album, he could be addressing his band, which spent nearly five years between 2008's Ode to J. Smith and its 2013 follow-up, Where You Stand. The extra time off has done the band some good. Toward the end of the 2000s, Travis started to sag under their own weight, as the group slowly grew more ponderous, and while it certainly can't be said that Where You Stand is effervescent, it is more nimble than either Ode or The Boy with No Name, and it boasts a greater variety of tempos and textures, as well.

Picking our list of the Top 100 '70s Rock Albums was no easy task, if only because that period boasted such sheer diversity. The decade saw rock branch into a series of intriguing new subgenres, beginning, at the dawn of the '70s, with heavy metal. Singer-songwriters came into their own; country-rock flourished. The era ended with the revitalizing energy of punk and New Wave. No list would be complete without climbing onto every one of those limbs. Here are the Top 100 '70s Rock Albums, presented chronologically from the start of the decade.

The "free" in the title to Joss Stone's fourth album apparently refers to the neo-soul singer breaking free from the shackles of her major label, EMI, who apparently have not let Joss be Joss. That this constricting argument happens to be the exact same story line Stone used for 2007's Introducing Joss Stone, the splashy diva power trip meant to unveil the "real" singer, is conveniently forgotten, as is the modern R&B of that makeover, with Joss returning to all the retro-soul of her first two records. The one lingering element of Introducing is a propensity for melisma-laden oversinging, a tic that stands out greatly in the warmer, funkier settings of Colour Me Free!, helping Joss seem somewhat disconnected from the emotional thrust of her music. Still, her raw vocal skills remain impressive, as does her taste in soul, and even if this feels off-kilter, not quite achieving a balance between retro and modernity, it does beat with a messy human heart, one that was subdued on Introducing, so perhaps she did need to break free.