Emboldened by the popularity of Inner Mounting Flame among rock audiences, the first Mahavishnu Orchestra set out to further define and refine its blistering jazz-rock direction in its second – and, no thanks to internal feuding, last – studio album. Although it has much of the screaming rock energy and sometimes exaggerated competitive frenzy of its predecessor, Birds of Fire is audibly more varied in texture, even more tightly organized, and thankfully more musical in content…
Widely regarded as one of the great RCAs. Alexander Gibson conducts the Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden, performing ballet music from Charles Gounod's Faust and Georges Bizet's Carmen Suite. Featuring orchestral highlights from Faust and Carmen, the later selections on Side 2 are nothing short of spectacular. Outstanding clarity and stereo stage. Transparency and imaging is superb.
Essential: A masterpiece of Progressive-Folk music
The Young Tradition was formed on 18 April 1965 by Peter Bellamy (8 September 1944 – 19 September 1991), Royston Wood (born 1935 died 8 April 1990) and Heather Wood (born Arielle Heather Wood, 31 March 1945, Attercliffe, Sheffield, Yorkshire) (who was unrelated to Royston Wood).
On their first two albums, Led Zeppelin unleashed a relentless barrage of heavy blues and rockabilly riffs, but Led Zeppelin III provided the band with the necessary room to grow musically. While there are still a handful of metallic rockers, III is built on a folky, acoustic foundation that gives the music extra depth…
An important and early part of La Monte Young’s succinct, near-sacred catalogue of solo, longform recordings to legitimately reach vinyl (you could count ‘em on one hand!), this pressing of Dream House 78’ 17” is an understandably precious and ineffably wonderful thing of beauty.