John Campbell

This obscure folk-rock artist from the late '60s left a track record of a few albums and a handful of obscure single releases, including the languid "Lyanna" and the demanding "Don't Leave Me Now." Campbell first came to prominence as a singer/songwriter on the folk club scene. He signed a contract with the interesting Fontana label, which released much cutting edge folk-rock and psychedelic music. He recorded one album and three singles for them before switching dizzily to the Vertigo label. The resulting album took a proud place in this label's catalog, right between the largely forgotten Dr. Strangely Strange and the grandly remembered Paranoid by Black Sabbath. It was definitely Campbell's most famous album, entitled Half Baked with just a note of derision. The album's title track is in turn the most well-known cut by this artist.

On first glance, Through the Listening Glass is a duet recording between bassist David Friesen and guitarist John Stowell, at the time two burgeoning jazz fusion musicians whose kinship to the world sound of the group Oregon is easy to recognize. As one absorbs this music, you realize this album could easily be titled "The Art of the Overdub." Using multiple basses and guitars, percussion instruments, and the soprano sax of Gary Campbell, Friesen and Stowell create landscapes and skyscapes of sound on sound, at times a bit busy, mostly reaching for inner truths and a connection to some other dimension. There's no modicum of earthiness, but they strive to reach for the heavens, and use the technology of the times to create conversations within basic texts, layering them to a degree approaching epiphany…

2023 release. Entertainment icon Olivia Newton-John's legendary career immortalized in 11 classic duets with her dear friends. Vol. 2 includes new, never-before-released duets "I'm Counting On You" with Johnny O'Keefe, and "I Will Be Right Here" with David Campbell. Other duets include Burt Bacharach penned "Wishin' And Hopin'" with Dionne Warwick, "Falling" with Marty Raybon, Dave Aude produced bonus Track "You Have To Believe (We Are Magic)" with Olivia's daughter, Chloe Lattanzi, and more.

Gardiner’s interpretation of Schubert’s great, often visionary A flat Mass, the work that absorbed him longer than any other, stands somewhere between the generously moulded, romantically inclined Sawallisch and the fresh, guileless reading from Bruno Weil using an all-male choir and boy soloists. Where Gardiner immediately scores is in the sheer poise and refinement of his performance: neither of the other choirs sings with such effortless blend, such perfect dynamic control or such precise intonation – a crucial advantage in, say, the tortuous chromaticism of the ‘Crucifixus’. Equally predictably, the orchestral playing is superb, with a ravishing contribution from the woodwind, who throughout the Mass are favoured with some of Schubert’s most poetic writing.