Swimming

For its third outing, Latin Quarter served up more surprises for its fans. Trimmed down to a quartet (half the band it used to be?), the band was more musically focused on this album than ever before. Choosing to keep the world rhythms to a minimum, the album's backbeat was clearly lush acoustic pop with a few touches added for flourish and flavor. Without completely altering their approach, the bandmembers were able to simplify their sound without giving up their identity. In doing so, they finally created what could be considered the "Latin Quarter" sound. Steve Skaith (vocals and guitar) served up some his best melodies to date, while lyricist Mike Jones proved to be as thought-provoking as ever, challenging the listener with each song.

Roger Eno's Swimming is a rather drastic departure from his more classically oriented and purposely ambient work. Rather, it is a series of 14 songs, eight of which are vocal, and three of which are his versions of traditional tunes. The overtone of the entire proceeding is quiet, graced with a simple elegance illustrated with acoustic and electric guitars, basses, pianos, keyboards, vibes, other delicate percussion and subdued synthesizers emulating a skeletal string section…