Victoria Monet Smoke

Blackberry Smoke - Like An Arrow (2016) {Earache Records MOSH574}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 350 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 115 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 110 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2016 Earache Records / 3 Legged Records | MOSH574
Rock / Southern Rock / Country Rock / Blues Rock

It's hard to call the Georgia quartet Blackberry Smoke Southern Rock revivalists. Rather, they work in a tradition carved out by Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band back in the '70s. Gregg Allman sings on "Free on the Wing," the closing track on Like an Arrow, the band's first album for Thirty Tigers, and Skynyrd is often used as a comparison point for the band, but Like an Arrow makes it plain that Blackberry Smoke is a close cousin of the Black Crowes – a band that sifts through the past to pick its favorite rock, not necessarily pledging allegiance to sounds made south of the Mason-Dixie line.

Regardless of who came up with the term "freakbeat" - either Bam Caruso czar Phil Smee created it in the mid-'80s or Richard Allen came up with it as the name for his psych fanzine - it's generally agreed that the Smoke were one of the best examples of the style (along with the Birds, the Creation, Les Fleur de Lys, and a few others) during the "swinging London" era of the mid-'60s. This 23-track comp of feedback-rich primeval psych-beat is highlighted by their finest moment right up front: "My Friend Jack" hit the U.K. Top 50 in 1967, despite the fact that it was banned by the BBC. (According to the excellent liner notes, the Beeb banned the song after the Bishop of Southwark - who misconstrued it as a celebration of drug abuse - contacted EMI head Sir Joseph Lockwood to complain about the song right in the midst of hysteria over a then-recent Rolling Stones drug bust, LSD, and "moral decline")…

A continuation of the sound established on his Alligator debut, I Smell Smoke is even more impressive than its much-heralded predecessor. While vocally Michael Burks still invites comparison to Albert King, especially on gospel-fried ballads like "Lie to Me" (the Flying V guitar he sports on this album's cover shot further reinforces the similarities between the two artists), his guitar work has become more electrified and confident. With a tone sounding at times like Eric Clapton's psychedelic work in Cream and a rugged four-piece band supporting him, this is a tough, uncompromising contemporary blues/blues-rock/R&B album that doesn't pull punches.

On this new recording, Coro Victoria offers a portrait of Alonso Lobo (1555-1617) through a cross-section of his sacred output (his works in Spanish are all lost). The group also illustrates the variety of interpretative practices of the period. The concluding O quam suavis est Domine is sung by a single soprano while the vihuela accompaniment supplies the remaining five parts. Church choirs sang this music in the liturgy, but minstrels also played it during processions, and there was free traffic between sacred and secular contexts.

'Smoke Inhaler' is the debut album of German stonerdoom/sludge band Nocturnal Weed released in 2019.

The works of Tomás Luis de Victoria are today an international paradigm of the Spanish Renaissance heritage. This master, born in Avila, rises like a standard-bearer from the huge spectrum of Spanish composers who carried the art of polyphony to its highest musical and liturgical significance.

Nicholas Payton Realizes a long-cherished dream to record with icons Ron Carter and George Coleman, abetted by his longtime-collaborator Karriem Riggins on his album, Smoke Sessions.