Live…In the Raw is the first live album by W.A.S.P. (fourth album overall), released in 1987. This album can be seen as something of a breakwater between the 'old' W.A.S.P. of the first three albums and the more mature sound of the releases that would follow. It is also the album to feature "Harder Faster", which is about the PMRC declaring them "sexual perverts". "The Manimal" and "Harder Faster" were written specifically for this album and the studio song "Scream Until You Like It" was recorded for the movie Ghoulies II. The acoustic version of "Sleeping (In the Fire)" is also a studio recording. This would be the final release to feature drummer Steve Riley, who would leave the band shortly after the conclusion of the tour to join L.A. Guns.
The Crimson Idol was released on May 24th, 1992. A remastered edition was reissued in 1998, containing a bonus disc of B-sides and live material from 1992. This being the band’s fifth studio album, reached the top 40 in over five countries. This was also one of the bands first attempts of a concept album which tells of the rise and fall of fictional rock star Jonathan Steel.
New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records release The Blue Hour, a song cycle written collaboratively by the female composers Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland Snider; this unique joint vision among a female collective is available October 14, 2022. The cycle was commissioned by, and is performed with, the Boston–based chamber orchestra A Far Cry. (Nova also is featured as vocal soloist.) Set to excerpts from Carolyn Forché’s epic poem On Earth, the music follows one woman’s journey through the space between life and death via thousands of hallucinatory and non-linear images. Exploring memories of childhood, of war, of love, and of loss, The Blue Hour amplifies the beauty, pain, and fragility of human life from a collective female perspective.
By now, the members of O.A.R. — which stands for Of A Revolution, if you haven’t been paying attention for the band’s two-decades-plus career — know what they’re doing in the studio. The Maryland-based ensemble has amassed a global audience with its rootsy, indie/pop/reggae sound since forming in 1996, and the band recently released The Mighty, its 10th studio album and the follow-up to 2016’s XX.
Still Not Black Enough is the sixth studio album by American heavy metal band W.A.S.P., first released on June 10, 1995 in Japan only. It was not released in the U.S. until August 1996 through Castle Records. Still Not Black Enough was originally slated for release as a Blackie Lawless solo album, but due to the heavy content, Lawless changed his mind and decided to release it as a W.A.S.P. album. This had also been the case for the previous album, The Crimson Idol. Still Not Black Enough is considered somewhat a successor to The Crimson Idol, bearing a strong resemblance with its lyrical themes. However, instead of telling the story of the fictional character Jonathan, this album is mostly a collection of personal songs from Blackie Lawless, including issues involving the death of his mother and personal crises just after world tour for The Crimson Idol.
Pietro Paolo Bencini (1675? -1755) was one of the most important figures in the musical life of Rome in the eighteenth century. His sacred music is on the same level as that of Alessandro Scarlatti. This is evident from the fact that much of his music can be found in copies even outside Europe. The most important part of his oeuvre is in the collection of the 'Cappella Guilia', now the library of the Vatican. Bencini worked as 'maestro di cappella' in the basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso and from 1743 in St. Peter's of Rome; an important job. His style is festive, full of contrasts and smooth melodic lines.
How Can I Sleep With Your Voice in My Head documents a-ha's 2002 world tour in support of Lifelines. The album's 14 tracks were compiled from various performances recorded over the tour's final six weeks. Rather than focusing on newer material, the album gives almost equal due to the seven years between Hunting High and Low and Lifelines.
Out of the fertile musical soil of southern Sweden comes A Secret River, a band intent on exploring and creating innovative sounds, while still keeping the song in focus. From its humble inception as a duo some ten years ago to the four-piece it is today, A Secret River is steadily building a following around the world, with songs that are undoubtedly progressive and intricate, yet remain easily accessible to listeners from all walks of life. Lush vocal harmonies, unusual song structures and multilayered sounds are just a few of the things that make A Secret River stand out from the crowd. Prog magazine compared the band’s sound to that of artists like Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel, and a number of radio shows have been giving the bands debut EP steady airplay. On june 25th, 2014 release date of their first full-length album, entitled "Colours of Solitude".
Emily A Sprague’s Hill, Flower, Fog is an illumination of consciousness across six modular meditations. A place, a poem, and a homespun ode to existing in “this cone of time in our universe,” Hill, Flower, Fog channels the here and now and fosters a far-reaching connectedness, or lifeline, from the everyday to the cosmos.