Ed Banger is more than just a record label. It's a lifestyle. It's a taste-maker and a game-changer, and its celebrating its 100th release with a 17-track compilation that features new music from the Ed Banger crew's favorite friends. “It was too hard to choose which artist will do the 100th release of the label, so we’ve asked everybody to make a track for this record,” label boss Pedro Winter, aka Busy P, is quoted in a press release, and he's not kidding. Ed Rec 100 features new sounds from Sebastian, Justice, Mr. Oizo, Boys Noize, Breakbot, Cassius, Riton, Krazy Baldhead, Feadz, Para One, Boston Bun and more.
The music from Vangelis, Kraftwerk, Jean-Michel Jarre, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Jan Hammer and others.
Ed Starink is a Dutch composer, arranger, session musician and record producer. Starink's debut album was Cristallin, but his best known releases are his cover versions of other hits, film and television themes, which have been released on his own record label, Star Inc. Towards the end of the 1980s, Starink co-operated with Arcade Records, and released a series of 'Synthesizer' albums, which succeeded mainly in the European market. His album, Synthesizer Gold, made it into the Top 40 of the UK Albums Chart in 1993. His previous album, Synthesizer Greatest, peaked at #22 in the UK.
Slide guitarist Lil' Ed Williams & the Blues Imperials bring the energy of live performance to their seventh Alligator release, Full Tilt. The highlights on this disc tend to reflect that of the album's title, especially the spirited cover versions of the Contours' "First I Look at the Purse" and Hound Dog Taylor's "Take Five," along with the originals "Hold That Train," "Candy Sweet," and "My Baby Moves Me." Lil' Ed's raucous guitar chops are at center stage on those tracks and the additional backing from horn players Eddie McKinley and David Basinger and pianist/organist Johnny Iguana add some extra kick. There are a few lukewarm tracks that are a bit too rote and, unfortunately, bring down the overall good-time party appeal of this disc. Still, fans of Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials, or electric modern blues in general, will want to add this to their collections.
Mister Ed (Eduardo Gomes de Bifteca) studied the recorder and specialised in classical music. In 1987 he graduated from the famous Berklee College of Music. Once moved to New York, Ed met two guys who were looking for a singer with a high voice! Together they formed the rock group Forked Tung and toured through the US and Europe. They had lots of fun but lacked success. Eventually mister Ed found work as a DJ touring US airbases. He always kept his nickname Mr. Ed. This time he earned good money and was able to buy enough gear to atart his own Mr. Ed studio. This he did in Cork, Ireland and that is where he created his first two albums: "Orange Dream" and "Ultra-Beige Dream".
This self-produced and hard-to-find Austrian release features trombone phenom Ed Neumeister in a rare, intimate setting as leader of a first-class quartet. The American trombonist's classical music background is reflected in his carefully articulated lines and pristine sound, but as with Wynton Marsalis, Neumeister is equally at home playing jazz standards, as he does here with considerable aplomb. Boasting a comfortable three-octave range, the under-recorded Neumeister easily negotiates the changes to his complex "Spring Street," in which he leaps wide intervals with incredible speed, and on the signature Strayhorn tune "Take the 'A' Train," on which the trombonist soloed regularly during his time with the Duke Ellington Orchestra…
Mister Ed (Eduardo Gomes de Bifteca) studied the recorder and specialised in classical music. In 1987 he graduated from the famous Berklee College of Music. Once moved to New York, Ed met two guys who were looking for a singer with a high voice! Together they formed the rock group Forked Tung and toured through the US and Europe. They had lots of fun but lacked success. Eventually mister Ed found work as a DJ touring US airbases. He always kept his nickname Mr. Ed. This time he earned good money and was able to buy enough gear to atart his own Mr. Ed studio. This he did in Cork, Ireland and that is where he created his first two albums: "Orange Dream" and "Ultra-Beige Dream".
Sometimes the bloodlines show up and at other times they explode with a fanfare that shows itself to the world. Lil' Ed Williams traces his heritage back to his uncle, one of the Chicago blues legends, slide guitar master J.B. Hutto. He was tutored by his uncle, and the West Side Chicago blues scene that nurtured him, and readily gives J.B. much of the credit for his prowess. He captures some of that same raw street energy that was his uncle's trademark on many of the tracks on this, his fifth Alligator release. Listen to "The Creeper" to get an idea of the savage fury that he can channel through his slide guitar work. This disc manifests that feel for the blues that can't be taught, but must be both lived and seen from the inside…
Wild & greasy blues at its best, a two-song session for an anthology turned into an all-night, live-in-the-studio jam. Sounds like it was great fun.
Signing to Alligator in the mid-'80s, they released their debut album, Roughhousin', in 1986 and found themselves receiving national attention. They began playing urban clubs and festivals all over the country and eventually toured Canada, Europe, and Japan.
The band's wildly energetic and seriously soulful CD Jump Start is jam-packed with Lil' Ed's incendiary slide playing and rough, passionate singing, as the ragged-but-right Blues Imperials cook like mad alongside him. It is a tour-de-force of untamed slide guitar, rock solid rhythms, heartrending ballads and authentic deep blues vocals. Williams wrote or co-wrote 13 of the album's 14 songs, ranging from the non-stop boogie blast of "If You Were Mine" to the heart-on-his-sleeve honesty of "Life Is A Journey" to the bouncing and jazzy "Jump Right In" to the swaggering, autobiographical "Musical Mechanical Electrical Man." The album overflows with the band s full throttle drive and is fueled by Lil' Ed's love of both serious blues and good time fun.
This year (2014) marks Yo La Tengo’s 30th anniversary, and they’re celebrating it by reissuing their sixth album, Painful, released nearly a decade into their career. The cardigan-cozy sound of the record effectively established Yo La Tengo as indie rock’s great romantics, and featured a couple of significant firsts for the trio.