The Song of The Siren

What would singing be without words? When you combine wonderful poetry with exquisite music, the result is magical. In a rare break from the sacred collections they are famed for, this album from The Sixteen features a whole programme of secular music devoted to English partsongs. From Stanford’s cycle of Eight Partsongs based on the sparing yet infectious poetry of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge to Bridges’ lyrically descriptive writing in Finzi’s Seven Poems of Robert Bridges and Imogen Holst’s idyllic Six Part-Songs Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow using verses by John Keats, each setting captures the mood of the poem brilliantly.

Siren's Song is the second studio album by The Union, the English rock band formed by ex-Thunder guitarist Luke Morley and Peter Shoulder (formerly of Winterville). It was released on 3 October 2011. The Union was formed by guitarist Luke Morley and vocalist/guitarist Peter Shoulder after Luke’s twenty-year career with Thunder came to an end in 2009. Peter Shoulder was the vocalist, songwriter and musical rudder of Winterville. In 2006 he won The W.C Handy Blues Foundation award, presented to him in Memphis for co-writing the American Blues Song of the Year, ‘Think of Me’. The song was performed by blues legend Little Milton. At the time of winning there were only two other British artists to have received that particular award, the others being Eric Clapton and Peter Green.

The act with the first arena-sized sound in the electronica movement, the Chemical Brothers united such varying influences as Public Enemy, Cabaret Voltaire, and My Bloody Valentine to create a dance-rock-rap fusion which rivaled the best old-school DJs on their own terms – keeping a crowd of people on the floor by working through any number of groove-oriented styles featuring unmissable samples, from familiar guitar riffs to vocal tags to various sound effects. And when the duo (Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons) decided to supplement their DJ careers by turning their bedrooms into recording studios, they pioneered a style of music (later termed big beat) remarkable for its lack of energy loss from the dancefloor to the radio. Chemical Brothers albums were less collections of songs and more hour-long journeys, chock-full of deep bomb-studded beats, percussive breakdowns, and effects borrowed from a host of sources. All in all, the duo proved one of the few exceptions to the rule that intelligent dance music could never be bombastic or truly satisfying to the seasoned rock fan; it's hardly surprising that they were one of the few dance acts to enjoy simultaneous success in the British/American mainstream and in critical quarters.

One could easily make the case for designating the Masters Apprentices as the best Australian rock band of the '60s. Featuring singer Jim Keays and songwriter/rhythm guitarist Mick Bower, the band's earliest recordings combined the gritty R&B/rock of Brits like the Pretty Things with the minor-key melodies of the Yardbirds…