Messingner of The Gods

With "Nectar Of The Gods" The Spacelords take their unmistakable sound to new, astral heights.

Rufus Harley - Re-Creation of the Gods (1972) {Transparency ‎0235 rel 2006}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 294 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 104 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 1972, 2006 Ankh Record / Transparency ‎| 0235
Jazz / Jazz Funk / Deep Jazz / Soul Jazz / Bagpipes

This is bagpiper Rufus Harley's finest moment. All the songs on this disc were written by the man himself. All are loosely related in an Eastern spiritual vein, and the man plays them like he means it, like his own offering to God. Contemporaries like Pharoah Sanders or Archie Shepp had introduced a lot of Middle Eastern instruments to jazz listeners. Heard in that context, the hissing overtones of the bagpipes really aren't all that jarring. This record would have fit nicely among the offerings from such labels as Strata East or BYG.

Released to coincide with what would have been Freddie Mercury's 70th birthday, the excellent 2016 double-disc anthology Messenger of the Gods: The Singles brings together all of the legendary Queen vocalist's solo A-side and B-side singles. Originating from a variety of projects, including Mercury's one and only proper solo album, 1985's Mr. Bad, these are all the songs released under Mercury's name and not as Queen singles. Nonetheless, there was some cross-pollination and several of these songs were later reworked as Queen tracks. While Queen were primarily known for their muscular, guitar-oriented rock, they were also innovators who experimented with funk and dance grooves. Mercury himself was always an eclectic artist whose tastes ranged from early rock & roll to disco to classical music.

The music of Jón Leifs is often inspired by Iceland’s powerful nature and literary heritage. From early on he was profoundly influenced by the medieval tradition of Icelandic literature, preserved in a handful of manuscripts, including the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. Leifs’ magnum opus is the Edda oratorio, a massive (although incomplete) work in three large parts which occupied him on and off for most of his composing career – from around 1930 to his death in 1968. A partial performance of Edda I – The Creation of the World – met with incomprehension, and Leifs only resumed work on his great project a decade later, completing the second part – The Lives of the Gods – in 1966.

It's with great joy that we welcome one of Japan's most revered Ambient act. Manabu Hiramoto has been creating deeply distinct atmospherics since 2003. On this new album he's combined ritualistic elements with lush, foreboding passages, creating an ode to his country's unique nature worship.

This album was composed by German cult favorite Peter Thomas and contains the score for Erinnerungen an Die Zukunft, a documentary based upon a best-seller by Erich Von Daniken that proposed the theory that mankind's ancestors were aliens who landed on this planet centuries ago. The resulting soundtrack album is not easy for the listener to assimilate, primarily because it consists of two side-long medleys patched together from several unrelated musical cues. The medleys aren't arranged in a smooth, flowing fashion, and the album probably would have made an easier listen if it had been broken down into a better programmed set of individual tracks. Programming quibbles aside, Chariots of the Gods (Erinnernungen an Die Zukunft) is still pretty impressive…