Focus 2009 7

The members of Naples, Italy-based jazz-rock ensemble Slivovitz (named after a Central and Eastern European plum brandy) can cite the exact date of the group’s formation: September 27, 2001, when, according to a Web interview with saxophonist Pietro Santangelo, Slivovitz came together after a spontaneous street jam. The group mixes jazz and rock with a variety of other styles, notably Balkan and Gypsy influences, which Slivovitz began exploring after a 2003 trip to Hungary. The band’s eponymous debut album was recorded in 2004 and released by an Italian imprint; Slivovitz subsequently signed with the New York-based MoonJune label, which released Hubris (mainly new compositions but also including three remastered tracks from the debut) in 2009…

Kuckuck was responsible for releasing many great albums in Germany in the early 1970s, including those by the wonderful Out Of Focus. Featuring Moran Neumuller (vocals, sax, flute), Remigus Dreschler (guitar), Hennes Hering (keyboards), Stephan Wisheu (bass) and Klaus Spori (drums), this legendary Munich based band were contemporaries of acts such as Amon Duul II and recorded three classic and highly collectable albums for the label. Their music is somewhat similar to early British prog but will gradually evolve to a certain jazz-rock while staying very politically and socially conscious (in the typical German style of those years).

Kuckuck was responsible for releasing many great albums in Germany in the early 1970s, including those by the wonderful Out Of Focus. Featuring Moran Neumuller (vocals, sax, flute), Remigus Dreschler (guitar), Hennes Hering (keyboards), Stephan Wisheu (bass) and Klaus Spori (drums), this legendary Munich based band were contemporaries of acts such as Amon Duul II and recorded three classic and highly collectable albums for the label. Their music is somewhat similar to early British prog but will gradually evolve to a certain jazz-rock while staying very politically and socially conscious (in the typical German style of those years).

Left to his own devices, Prince will indulge in his peculiar vice of releasing triple-albums. He celebrated his freedom from Warner with Emancipation, following that with another triple-disc in Crystal Ball, which just happened to be the provisional title of the scrapped three-LP iteration of 1987's Sign o' the Times, he had a triple-live set in 2002, and now he's navigating the rough waters of online distribution and exclusive contracts with big box retailers in 2009 with another triple-disc set called LotusFlow3r…

Riding on the success of their hit single "Hocus Pocus" from the revolutionary Moving Waves album, Focus got to work on this, their third LP in four years. While the debut album featured a style not too dissimilar to the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Focus' second LP, Moving Waves, was purely instrumental and wholly serious-minded. Focus III kept this same sound, but approached it with a jollier, more accessible tone. As with its predecessor, Focus III featured only one tune that would have a chance of being a hit single. The enjoyable rhythm of "Sylvia," partnered with Jan Akkerman's victorious guitar solo, some of Van Leer's finest organ work, Bert Ruiter's tight basslines, and Pierre Van Der Linden's mellow drumming, assured the track classic status…

With this recording, Contrasto Armonico continues its recording project of Handel’s Italian vocal works. The first release in the series, of the serenata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, was enthusiastically welcomed. ‘Everything is shaped intelligently and tellingly’, wrote the American Record Guide; Fonoforum called it a ‘lustvoll’ recording and noted the ‘very elegant, fluid and resonant style’ of Contrasto Armonico’s playing.

Black Sabbath's debut album is the birth of heavy metal as we now know it. Compatriots like Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple were already setting new standards for volume and heaviness in the realms of psychedelia, blues-rock, and prog rock. Yet of these metal pioneers, Sabbath are the only one whose sound today remains instantly recognizable as heavy metal, even after decades of evolution in the genre…