Passage

“The Passage” is DGM’s eighth studio album and is the culmination of almost 20 years of hard work that started back in 1997 with the release of their self-produced mini-album, ‘Random Access Zone’. The band went through several incarnations and lineup changes during the years, but since singer Mark Basile joined the group in 2007, DGM evolved and developed their sound into what they have now become.

Indigo Girls - Rites Of Passage
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 361 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Epic-Sony # ESCA 5605 | Country/Year: Japan 1992
Genre: Rock, Folk, Acoustic | Style: Folk Rock, Singer/Songwriter

…The Girls continue to be two of the most literate, engaging, and important songwriters in the folk-rock scene as they tackle issues ranging from Native American awareness to governmental misdoing. No misfires here, just a steady shot echoing forth.

Passage comprised of Louis Johnson, his wife Valerie Johnson and Richard Heath. The tracks 'I See The Light', 'Have You Heard The Word?' and 'You Can't Be Livin' are fine examples of early Eighties soul music. Apart from the Brothers Johnson, there are fine pieces of artistic input from the likes of David 'Hawk' Wolinski, Nolen & Crossley, Rene Moore and Ricky Lawson.

It was only a matter of time before some sort of introduction to American audiences came about, especially following the band's successful tour of the States, so Rykodisc did the honors with this excellent compilation - if there's one thing anyone needs to get from the duo, it's unquestionably this. While there's no chronological order to the collection, and the sequencing and arrangement from the original albums are unfortunately if inevitably lost, the choice of songs to feature is completely spot on. The biggest gap is the lack of anything from the self-titled debut and the Garden of the Arcane Delights EP, including the track the collection takes its title from. As such songs would jarringly stand out sonically from the rest, though, it's an understandable omission…

Altoist Sadao Watanabe is considered one of Japan's top jazzmen. Some of his recordings are quite commercial but this particular one finds him paying tribute to Charlie Parker with what was called "the great jazz trio:" pianist Hank Jones, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams. The seven selections (four Bird compositions and three standards often played by Parker) are all given strong treatment by the quartet. Watanabe's true love is bebop and his solos here are very much in that tradition yet displaying a personality of his own.

All things being relative, this is Weather Report's straightahead album, where the elaborate production layers of the late-'70s gave way to sparer textures and more unadorned solo improvisation in the jazz tradition, electric instruments and all. The flaw of this album is the shortage of really memorable compositions; it is more of a vehicle for the virtuosic feats of what is considered by some to be the classic WR lineup – Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Robert Thomas, Jr. and Peter Erskine. For Erskine, this is is first full studio album and he amply demonstrates his terrific sense of forward drive unique among the other superb drummers in WR annals.

For Anastassiya Dranchuk's debut album 'Rites de Passage', the choice of pieces by Tchaikovsky, Say, Schubert and Liszt was no coincidence. The plays had and still have a special emotional meaning in Anastassiya's life. For her, the individual compositions represent rites of passage (rites de passage, a concept from ethnology): they tell of the transition from childhood to adulthood, peace/war, birth/death… In general, it is an emotionally and tonally very colourful, technically demanding programme, which has the most diverse dualities on the topic.