Sorrow of Others

The Future Sound of London’s long and varied history stretches back almost 25 years and as such a vast amount of unrealised material exists in the FSOL Archives. Archived 8 brings together another 12 such tracks; in some cases these are completed but unreleased songs from that time, in others the songs have been reconstructed or enhanced and then further mixed to form the journey. This album is not just a collection of random off-cuts. It is a fully realised album, worthy of sitting alongside the rest of the band’s critically acclaimed work.

In 1597 John Dowland (1563-1626) published his first collection of music, The First Book of Songs or Airs of Four Parts with Tableture for the Lute. A groundbreaking work in several respects, not least in that it was the first published collection of English lute songs, it success was immediate, and was reprinted several times. His Second Book of Songs or Airs (1600) shows the increasingly solo nature of the lute-song, as Dowland left the first eight songs as lute solos.

Exciting accounts of eight anthems spanning nearly two hundred years, with a welcome emphasis firmly on recent works.

After a fine Handel recital CD, not to mention taking part in a dozen other major recordings, countertenor David Daniels has hit the jackpot. This fascinating, handsomely recorded CD offers us arias from Mitridate and Ascanio in Alba, and a concert aria by Mozart (the only one he composed for male alto), as well as some Handel and Gluck arias. With them, Daniels takes us through every quality a classically trained singer should have and comes through with flying colors. The arias are about vengeance, sorrow, love–the usual–but within baroque strictures that means that some require lush, limpid singing, others ferocious coloratura and exclamatory heft, and some all of these.