The Apartments

Ry Cooder's name has helped bring attention to this session, but it's the veteran Cuban son musicians who make this album really special. Reminiscent of Ellington in its scope and sense of hushed romanticism, Buena Vista Social Club is that rare meld of quietude and intensity; while the players sound laid-back, they're putting forth very alive music, a reminder that aging doesn't mean taking to bed. Barbarito Torres's laoud solo on "El Cuarto de Tula" is both more blinding and more tasteful than any guitar showcase on any recent rock album; a quote from "Stormy Weather" and some very distinct parallels to Hawaiian styles remind us of why it's called "world music." –Rickey Wright

Foreign Insult: English Baroque Music by Expatriate Composers - La Ricordanza
(G. F. Handel, F. Barsanti, G. Finger, J. C. Bach, N. Mattteis, C. F. Abel)
Classical, Baroque | 1 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG | Scans | 339 MB | RS
Recorded: 5-7 Oct. 2004, Schloß Gifthorn, Germany | Released: 2006
Label: Dabringhaus und Grimm MDG 505 1381-2 | TT: 65:58
La Ricordanza

Accurately titled or not, this is a superb recording of English Baroque music. It captures the crackling commercial energy that united the music of the Germans and Italians at work in the English capital. Most interesting of all are the four short selections from A Collection of Old Scots Tunes by Barsanti. Preceding Moore's Irish songs and Beethoven's and Haydn's arrangements of Scots and Irish songs by nearly 100 years, these are very early examples of musical exoticism. (James Manheim, All Music Guide)