Plainsong

Plainsong - In Search Of Amelia Earhart
FLAC | Artwork | 24Bit 96kHz: 785 MB | 16Bit 44.1kHz: 236 MB
Cat#: Elektra ELK 22 013 | Country/Year: Netherlands 1976, 1972 (ReIssue)
Genre: Folk | Hoster: Fileserve/Hotfile/Filesonic

In Search of Amelia Earhart is the 1972 album by Plainsong, a band formed by country rock/folk rock musician Ian Matthews and Andy Roberts. […] Not all of the songs on the album are directly about Amelia Earhart. But the album carries that somber, mellow tone that so much great folk music of the early ’70s was in touch with. Many of the songs are about seeing and reaching for light, whether they be the light of day or the light of death. So in a way the album is more about the way people felt about, cared about and thought about Amelia Earhart and her death. That she is still considered a heroine of aviation and a distinctly American hero keeps the mystery of what happened to her in the greater cultural imagination. wikipedia

Ian Matthews' post-Fairport Convention quartet Plainsong only produced two records (not counting their competent but mediocre 1995 reunion album) before breaking up in the mid-'70s, but both 1972's In Search of Amelia Earhart and Now We Are 3 – the latter is issued here for the very first time – contain some of the most flawless and emotional country-tinged folk-rock of the era. This eponymous two-disc set from the Water label includes both albums in their entirety, as well as numerous bonus cuts and live tracks.

Three Wings is a sublime collection of 14th Century plainsong reimagined for the 21st Century with added electro-acoustic instrumentation by composer/producer David Lol Perry, and featuring the heavenly voices of the Winchester College Quiristers.

This release presents music associated with the Renaissance master Josquin Des Prez, a composer who towers above all others in the first part of the sixteenth century. Numerous works were attributed to him that have now been proven to be by his contemporaries and successors, including the central work on this recording, Jean Richafort’s expansive and beautiful Requiem. It is performed with affecting clarity by the all-male vocal group Cinquecento, whose many previous discs of Renaissance repertoire for Hyperion have garnered the highest critical praise.

Gramophone Record of the Year-winning group The Cardinall’s Musick continues its exploration of Tallis’s sacred music. These recordings not only showcase the greatest repertoire of the English Renaissance in dazzling performances, but also illustrate the complex historical and political background of the works and their genesis.