Holden Cruze

Following a very brief stint with prototype heavy metal heroes, Blue Cheer (only half of an album) Randy Holden released this solo album featuring only himself on guitar and a drummer. It's a masterpiece of thundering behemoth rhythms and a soaring wailing guitar. Holden's guitar sound is drenched in lysergic acid. His mastery of feedback rivals anything by the master Jimi Hendriz. One could even say his innovative and experimental style is in a class by itself. Unfortunately, Randy Holden never received much acclaim during his music career for reasons of bad management and associations with less talented musicians, but this single rare album, long unavailable even on vinyl is proof that many musical geniuses are so far ahead of their time that few listeners are able to appreciate their greatness. His retooling of "Fruit & Iceburgs" from his collaboration with Blue Cheer on their third LP (NEW AND IMPROVED)is a brutal musical journey into the paranoiac synesthesia of hallucinogenics far surpassing the original version. "Blue my Mind" also represents Holden's gripping ability to hypnotize the listener and absorb one into the musical landscape he creates. All in all a great album!

This is an album of great clarinet works of the 20th Century, both works for clarinet and piano and works for clarinet solo. Clarinetist Jonathan Holden and pianist Eun-Hee Park perform these works with great aplomb. Jonathan Holden is Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Florida State University, Principal Clarinetist of the West Michigan Symphony and a member of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. A frequent guest of numerous orchestras, he has performed with ensembles such as the Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Baton Rouge and Lansing symphony orchestras, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Mobile Symphony and the Sarasota Orchestra. He is a founding member of the Vireo Ensemble and the Argot Trio. Praised by The New York Concert Review for “a solid foundation of fluent pianism” after her debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Korean pianist Eun-Hee Park enjoys a diverse career as soloist, chamber musician, and educator. She has given numerous concerts throughout the United States, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Brazil, and Costa Rica.

How does one follow up one of the most legendary, yet rarest albums said to signal the birth of doom metal? If you're Randy Holden, you give everyone about fifty years to catch up, then casually drop a tastefully modernized reinterpretation of that sound. Population III picks up where Holden's 1969 solo debut left off, updated with several decades worth of technological advances and personal hindsight…