Don't Tap The Glass

The End Continues is the newest album from Spinal Tap, in conjunction with the sequel, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. The 13-track album includes new original songs and classics with features from Elton John, Paul McCartney, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.

An album the majority of whose contents consists of harp arrangements of music by Philip Glass might seem a bit arcane for a major label, but it seems that Sony knows what it is doing here. The Glass Effect double album is one of those releases that succeed on two different levels, an explicit one and one that, although not mentioned, is perhaps even more important. The former level here is the one denoted by the title, as Meijer picks up the rather neglected theme of Philip Glass' influence by offering, on disc two, a group of works by younger composers who follow Glass in varying degrees but who, it's safe to say, wouldn't have the styles they do without Glass having gone before. Much of the album consists of arrangements by Meijer herself, and these include, at the end, a remix of music from Koyaanisqatsi that's delightful and would be spoiled by description. But there's also solo harp music: sample the Suite for Harp by progressive rock musician Bryce Dessner, who certainly seems to have absorbed Glass' style far enough to make it his own.

A debut album from this underrated American psychedelic band was released in 1969 on RCA Victor and combined the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe with grandiose progressive rock arrangements. This brilliantly recorded album was very diverse, but consisted mostly of dark, atmospheric and usually short tracks based on strong Hammond organ-guitar interplay and rich vocal harmonies. Glass Prism music may be described as early hard-progressive rock crossed with ambitious psychedelic pop like early Procol Harum, Vanilla Fudge, Ford Theatre and Bloomsbury People. In 1970 the band released their second and musically less successful LP On Joy And Sorrow. This CD edition has been carefully remastered from the original, analogue source and sounds great!

2009 release from the British 12-string guitar virtuoso. James started his music career by playing in UK Punk bands, but soon branched off into more introspective guitar recordings. James is joined on this record by Joolie Wood (Current 93 on violin, clarinet and flute plus John Contreras (Baby Dee and C93) on cello. Lavinia Blackwall (Directing Hand) is a classically trained singer and contributed vocals Beautiful six-panel fold-out digipak with original art by Nicole Boitos.