It isn’t just Joe and Jane Average curled up on the couch binge-watching Game of Thrones in comfy sweats; it’s also your favorite artists, cradling a bowl of snacks, streaming away on the tour bus. As this compilation of Thrones-inspired songs makes clear, their fascination with the fabled HBO drama runs deep. On “Too Many Gods,” A$AP Rocky and Joey Bada$$ mull over false prophets while dropping in a GoT reference (“Playing with fire but I’m no Targaryen”). Singer-songwriters like Jacob Banks, Lennon Stella, Chloe x Halle, and ROSALÍA imbue their tributes with stern keys and an existential dread that's so familiar to the show's fans. And it’s especially fun to hear a pop singer like Ellie Goulding tap into a sinister ruthlessness on “Hollow Crown”: “Making a noose out of your hollow crown/I hold a match up to your paper castle/And watch it all burn down, down, down.

2019 release from the British acid jazz band, released in celebration of their 40th anniversary. This album offers a rich sonic journey at every turn that features special guests Maysa, Phil Perry, Take 6, Mario Biondi and many others, collaborating with band members past and present, along with the talented new 'Cogs'. It's a record of brand-new, original tracks that would feel right at home featuring on any of their most enduring, classic releases from the past.

Most of Schubert’s operas were written without a specific commission, in the hope that, once completed, some theatre might find them interesting simply by virtue of their musical value. This unrealistic optimism proved almost always wrong and Schubert suffered bitter disappointments, very often working for nothing. Begun on 20th September 1821, Alfonso und Estrella was completed on 27th February 1822 but was first staged, on the initiative of Franz Liszt, only in 1854, after Schubert’s death. Alfonso und Estrella has the characteristic climate of a romantische Oper. If it is true that Schubert lacks the sense of theatre which is typical of the best operatic composers of his day (for example Weber), the power of his creativity and beauty of many arias cannot be denied.

The Barry Harris Trio - Magnificent! (1969) {Prestige Japan Mini LP VICJ-41566 rel 2006}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 219 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 94 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 40 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1969, 2006 Prestige / Victor Entertainment Japan | VICJ-41566 | 20-bit remaster
Jazz / Bop / Piano

From the opening tour de force reading of Coleman Hawkins' "Bean and the Boys" to the closing performance of Charlie Parker's "Dexterity," Magnificent brilliantly illustrates Barry Harris' unique rapport with the bop piano tradition. Absolutely unlike the enervating, curatorial approach of the neo-con movement, Harris deals with the tradition as a continuum, perpetually rejuvenating and extending it. Along with the opening and closing tracks, the classics on this 1969 date include a caressing exploration of "These Foolish Things" and a dazzling treatment of "Ah-Leu-Cha."

With 10 albums already under her own label BLONDELL PRODUCTIONS, Jocelyn felt the creative pause nearing. After a concert appearance as opener for Bobby McFerrin in 2004, Jocelyn woodshedded for 1 1/2 years. A creative quietness indeed was the engine that fueled her latest release in Nov 2006: EXPRESSIONZZ (live CD & DVD), an experience in the higher spritual quality of music, texted with poems from the "book of psalms" taken from the Bible. It is the much debated topic of tradion applied to the person and her/his life today.

Pucho & The Latin Soul Brothers - Super Freak (1972) {CuBop CBCD006 rel 1996}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 228 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 87 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 13 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1972, 1996 Zanzee / CuBop | CBCD 006
Jazz / Jazz Funk / Latin Jazz / Soul Jazz / Groove

The opening track on 1972's Super Freak is a brilliant, nearly side-long medley of three tracks from Curtis Mayfield's Superfly: the title track, "Pusherman," and, of course, "Freddie's Dead." Heavy, druggy, and psychedelic, with thick organ and wah-wah guitars, the medley sounds more like the psychedelic soul of War or even Funkadelic than the sparkling Latin jazz of Pucho's earlier albums.

Exit-13 is a grind band from Pennsylvania. Exit-13 is a mainly- studio concoction, the brainchild of guitarist Steve O'Donnell and vocalist Bill Yurkiewicz (ex-Relapse Records owner ); for this recording, they enlisted the assistance of members of Brutal Truth (Danny Lilker and Rich Hoak) and former Pain Teens singer Bliss Blood. Released in 1996, this odd collection of songs is a tribute to the virtues of smokin' spliffs, mostly featuring "smoking songs" of the 1920s and '30s along with a couple of parody moments and a crazed semi-white-noise freakout track, "Loading Dock."

From the beginning of its musical career (1992, Alicante, Spain), the band has been pointing its style to a quite elaborated kind of music whose main aim is melody and the instrumental arrangements. All these qualities are perfectly mixed up with a deep feeling on its lyrics. The final result consists of some kind of mosaic where spontaneity and innovation fit together through a musical style as the progressive rock, one of the most suitable fields for the musical experimentation.

Plenty of artists have built careers out of writing about death, but only a tiny handful have shown the capacity to honestly and eloquently write about grief. Nick Cave knows more than a bit about grief, and he's been willing to stare into that particular abyss, doing so with a particularly keen focus on 2013's Push the Sky Away and 2016's Skeleton Tree, the latter partially informed by the death of his teenage son in 2015. Grief is hardly the only emotion that Cave and his ensemble the Bad Seeds explores on 2019's Ghosteen, but a sense of loss and a heavy heart permeates these songs like a thick fog, as well as the bonds of family and how they can bring us together and keep us apart…