Shay Santa fe (bad Gyal)

Each album on The Swan Song Years 1974-1982 has been remastered using the original multi-track tapes, including newly remastered versions of Desolation Angels and Rough Diamonds that are making their debut as part of this set…

Presumably the Bad Plus wanted to make a very specific statement when they titled this album Prog. Although there is no confusing its music for what has typically passed for progressive jazz or progressive rock in decades past, Prog embodies the true meaning of the word: it takes music forward - not just theirs, but music itself. How they do that is relatively simple, despite the music's complexity: they go where they want to go, where others have yet even to consider going. That means throwing out conventional notions of what a jazz piano trio can and should do. That the Bad Plus is comprised of three exemplary musicians - pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson and drummer David King - is never in doubt. Their chops are on display at every turn - and there are many turns, unexpected and exhilarating ones that produce seismic shifts without losing focus…

With guitarist/keyboardist Roland Wolf and Cramps/Gun Club veteran Kid Congo Powers on guitar added to the ranks, along with guest appearances from old member Hugo Race, the Seeds reached 1988 with their strongest album yet, the insanely powerful, gripping Tender Prey. Rather than simply redoing what they'd already done, Nick Cave and company took their striking musical fusions to deeper and higher levels all around, with fantastic consequences. The album boldly starts out with an undisputed Cave masterpiece – "The Mercy Seat," a chilling self-portrait of a prisoner about to be executed that compares the electric chair with the throne of God. Queasy strings from a Gini Ball-led trio and Mick Harvey's spectral piano snake through a rising roar of electric sound – a common musical approach from many earlier Seeds songs, but never so gut-wrenching as here. Cave's own performance is the perfect icing on the cake, commanding and powerful, excellently capturing the blend of crazed fear and righteousness in the lyrics.

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds are back after a five-year break with their new album Wild God! Across ten tracks, the band dances between convention and experimentation, taking left turns and detours that enhance the rich imagery and emotion in Cave's heartfelt narratives. There are moments that fondly recall the Bad Seeds' past, but they are fleeting and only serve to add another facet to the band's relentless and restless forward momentum. Nick Cave says of the album: "It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it. It's a complicated record, but it's also deeply and joyously infectious."

Mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound.
From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, a group fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. The latter is something of a ringer, suggesting an undercurrent of adventure in the band, but as the group's eponymous 1974 debut decidedly proves, the band is proudly not progressive. If anything, Bad Company excise the excesses of Free - there are no winding jams and very little added color by way of pianos or even air in the production; those two tricks are evident on their title track/rallying call "Bad Company," and the details make a difference, as do the pastoral acoustics of the closing "Seagull" - reducing their rock & roll to a strong, heavy crunch…

Nick Cave is a singular figure in contemporary rock music; he first emerged as punk rock was making its presence known in Australia, but though he's never surrendered his status as a provocateur and a musical outlaw, he quickly abandoned the simplicity of punk for something grander and more literate, though no less punishing in its outlook…