School Spirits

Grammy Award-winning California-based percussionist Poncho Sanchez is a Latin-jazz superstar from the old school. His thunderous hand-drumming style is derived from Mongo Santamaria, and he performed with vibes master Cal Tjader for years before he made a name for himself as a leader. On this recording, Sanchez gives you danceable grooves for the head and the heart. Backed by a large ensemble, Sanchez travels the New World in search of Latin sounds, stylistically docking in the musical ports of Havana, New York, and New Orleans. He spices up several Afro-Cuban standards, including the festive Machito anthem "Sambia" and Tito Rodriguez's "Batiri Cha Cha." Special guest Chick Corea wrote the title track and he dazzles the ear with his Afro-Iberian pianisms on a furious folkloric rendering of Wayne Shorter's Blue Note classic, "Ju Ju."

Wedding the experimental free-folk of "New Weird America" to the more conventionally song-focused SF freak-folk movement, Six Organs of Admittance mastermind Ben Chasny comes into his own on this, his first-ever studio-recorded LP. Richly textured and three-dimensional, School of the Flower straddles the line between moody ambient madness and vintage sunlit psych-folk.

Peter Sculthorpe was the most internationally prominent Australian composer to emerge in the second half of the 20th century. This Australian composer produced earthy, gripping soundscapes with original timbres that incorporate elements of Australian, Japanese, and Southeast Asian musics and express poetic imagery from primal nature and profound human interaction.
Peter Sculthorpe, educated at Launceston Church Grammar School, received his bachelor's degree from the University of Melbourne. His early works (most now withdrawn) were influenced by …..