Those Who Rush Beyond The Sea

Bessie Jones, John Davis, and the Georgia Sea Island Singers gained wide renown during the 1960s and ‘70s for their powerful performances of traditional songs from the African American Gullah Geechee community on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Most in the group were born and raised on St. Simons, and could trace their ancestry to the enslaved West and Central Africans who worked on the island’s cotton plantations. Throughout the ‘60s, the Georgia Sea Island Singers were prominent voices in the civil rights movement, bringing hundreds of years of Black musical tradition to bear on a pivotal time in American history.

The music chosen for this recording is strangely and poignantly relevant, I believe, for each of us. We all now understand “The Fruit of Silence,” a motet that reminds us to visit those beliefs which are most sacred in the work by Cortlandt Matthews, or now, a deeply personal Requiem by Peter Relph that in reflection, remembers the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in this pandemic. And then there is the LaVoy work “O Great Beyond.”

Onyx Brass, described by BBC Music Magazine as "the classiest brass ensemble in Britain", celebrate their 30th anniversary in 2023 with their second release on NMC. Since its establishment the group have been pioneers in advocating the brass quintet as a medium for excellent new chamber music, and have commissioned over 200 new works. This new album, The sun is free to flow with the sea, perfectly epitomises Onyx and their values, as a compendium of new music written specially for the quintet by some of the most renowned composers working today.

Rockin' takes The Guess Who into a new direction in 1972 primarily featuring the songwriting of Burton Cummings, striding away from their bread and butter Top 40 hit parade. But this album never received the same level of notoriety as the first four Guess Who albums, including the first one without Randy Bachman, Share the Land. This strange exercise has its best parts showing up on The Best of the Guess Who, Vol. 2, which is now restored on Hybrid Quad SACD from the original masters by Michael J. Dutton.

The unknown sound collective creates sound art compositions of organic field recordings, experimental voice, and minimal instrumentation- a noise and freak folk ensemble that tends towards the otherworldly, often paired with other media. The project is founded by poet and interdisciplinary artist elena botts (mourning dove) who organizes projects & shows by the unknown sound collective virtually & irl (in real life).

The Nashville-based artist travels the land of Delta blues, afro punk, and country, and with "Beyond The Bloodhounds", Adia reveals a fresh reference point on the musical landscape. The album features the indelible lyrics, voice, and guitar solos of Adia Victoria along with a band of talented musicians including Tiffany Minton (Drums), Alex Caress (keys), Mason Hickman (guitar), and Jason Harris (bass). "Beyond The Bloodhounds" was produced by Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tengo, Sleater Kinney) and the artist herself and recorded at Nashville, Tennessee's Haptown Studios.

Quadrophenia is the Who's second Rock Opera. Based around the story of Jimmy - double-album masterpiece "Quadrophenia" tells the tale of a young mod and his struggle to come of age in the mid-1960s. The project was intended to reflect the four characters of The Who and features some of Townshend's most inspired, personal song-writing - way ahead of its time in scope and purpose and is one of the most widely recognized albums of The Who's career because of its classic depiction of mod culture, its renowned imagery and the magnificent music and powerful performances.

The psychedelic rockers didn’t initially plan to make a pair of linked album. As frontman Stu Mackenzie explained in a statement, the original goal involved “the notes between the notes,” returning to the microtonal explorations they had first begun on 2017’s Flying Microtonal Banana. Then the quarantine compositions took on a life of their own.

The unknown sound collective creates sound art compositions of organic field recordings, experimental voice, and minimal instrumentation- a noise and freak folk ensemble that tends towards the otherworldly, often paired with other media. The project is founded by poet and interdisciplinary artist elena botts (mourning dove) who organizes projects & shows by the unknown sound collective virtually & irl (in real life).