Les Amazones d’Afrique are an all-female collective of west African musicians, campaigning for gender equality. They have been described as a supergroup, and the characterisation seems apt. Angélique Kidjo, Kandia Kouyaté, Mamani Keita, Mariam Doumbia, Mariam Koné, Massan Coulibaly, Mouneissa Tandina, Nneka, Pamela Badjogo and Rokia Koné hold a strong pedigree, and it’s a rare opportunity to witness such a collaboration; the real sound of contemporary Africa.

A creative force that embraces international voices; sweet, strong harmonies that summon the rights of women and girls; a meltdown of heritage and new gen talent… Les Amazones d’Afrique are back with Amazones Power, the sequel to their widely acclaimed 2017 debut album, Republique Amazone.

Written in 1797, Cherubini's faithful version of Euripides' ancient tragedy is one of the most savage and powerful works of the opera repertoire, relating the cruel vengeance of a wounded woman for whom infanticide seems to be the only solution to her humiliation in love. As a continuation of Gluck's music, Cherubini's work is of boundless emotion, at once a refined, terrifying and desperate portent of a tragic outcome.

Thad Jones - And The Danish Radio Big Band & Eclipse (2013) {2CD Set, Storyville Records Digital Issue rec 1978-1980}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44.1kHz - Digital Download -> 924 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 361 Mb | Cover | 5% repair rar
© 1978-80, 2013 Storyville Records
Jazz / Modern Big Band / Modern Arrangement / Cornet

The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band visited Scandinavia a couple of times and was a sensation. Later when Mel Lewis and Thad Jones had some difficulties Thad got an offer from the Danish Radio Big Band where his first season was (1977-78). Thad Jones wanted to play his own music and played as many as ten radio broadcasts per year at the Montmartre Club. At the same time he also started up his own big band, Eclipse, with his own repertoire, based at Jazzhus Slukefter in the Tivoli Garden.

Eduard was the brother of Hermann (1802-1855) who, as a writer on music, had contact with Wagner, Goethe and Heine. The other brother, Albert, had a bookshop in Paris and kept company with Chopin, Charles Hallé and Stephen Heller. The E minor Violin Concerto was composed in Cologne to which Franck had moved at the request of Ferdinand Hiller. It was premiered by another Hiller invitee, Theodor Pixis. It is a work of streaming intensity deliciously prone to lyrical flights akin to the Mendelssohn concerto (in the same key) but without the ineffable surge of smiling quicksilver. The last movement recalls a village fiddler and rustic dance floors across the continent.

Starting off the year with a 100-song marathon in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve, Robert Pollard is setting a mighty high bar for Guided By Voices in 2020. Following three acclaimed and stylistically distinct full-length albums in 2019, Surrender Your Poppy Field, is a head-spinning tour de force: a bit of everything… plus more! And hands down the most adventurous GBV album ever. There are lo-fi four-track tape recordings, there are songs recorded with a single microphone in a basement, there are big studio fully-produced hook-laden pop songs, and there is a lot in between. Seemingly, the guiding concept of Surrender Your Poppy Field was to make the songs sound as different from one another as possible: sudden shifts in mood, tempo and rhythm, unexpected chord progressions, false endings and codas, string orchestrations, mysterious voices…

Various Artists - The Big Stiff Box Set (2007) {4CD Set, Salvo SALVOBX402 rec 1976-1986}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.08 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 743 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 153 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1976-86, 2007 Stiff Records / Salvo | SALVOBX402
Rock / New Wave / Punk / Alternative / Power Pop / Pub Rock / Rock & Roll

Stiff Records will go down in history as the most important UK independent label ever. The Stiff staff have released some of the most legendary punk and new wave records of all time, covering every cool musical revolution first and with style. This is a hundred track slice of punk and new wave history, complete with 68 page book. "If it ain’t Stiff it ain’t worth a f*ck!"

On this new release, Erica Nygård and Niels Burgmann display their core repertoire, which focuses mainly on music from the 20th century. Besides concentrating on works originally written for flute and organ they also perform arrangements of important compositions from the flute repertoire. Erica Nygård is the principal flautist in the Vaasa City Orchestra and Niels Burgmann is a church musicin in the congregation of St. Matthew, Helsinki. Both artists have built up successful careers as chamber musicians and soloists.

Randy Crawford made even more noise on the urban contemporary and R&B front in 1981 with this album, one of her most successful ever from a chart and hit standpoint. The title track and the album cut "Rio De Janeiro Blue" were well-received. She continued smartly blending jazzy pop, slick ballads, and earnest, anguished numbers like her cover of "Rainy Night In Georgia."

Violin virtuoso and composer Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst was well known to audiences and musicians in the middle of the 19th century. At first he was a slavish follower of Paganini, whom he followed from place to place; often, by listening to the Italian master, he was able to reproduce his new works before they had been published or disseminated. But there is a kind of elegant artistry in some of his music that displays his own personality, and Joseph Joachim, the violinist most closely associated with the Beethoven/Brahms line of musical thinking, called Ernst the greatest violinist he had ever heard.

This is the eighth (and last) volume in a series of double-disc anthologies from French label Fremeaux Records that chronicles the years that led up to the birth of rock & roll. While the magic year of 1954 is usually accepted as the dawn of the rock & roll age, the whole matter has always generated a good deal of debate, and this installment in the Fremeaux series only muddies the waters, since the year it covers, 1952, shows things rocking along pretty well. One could argue that some of the tracks here, like Wally Mercer's wonderful "Rock Around the Clock," are really just speeded-up R&B, and technically, that's probably so, but there's no denying that something resembling the rock & roll attitude is already in full swing in 1952…

Die-hard fans of David Murray's avant-garde work should be forewarned. While elements of the artist's wild, swirling approach to the tenor crop up throughout, The Tip is primarily a down home, deeply groovy funk record. Those who are familiar with Murray's remarkable recording history might be taken aback. This is the realm of mid-'60s Blue Note albums, not of outer limits exploration, and Murray recalls Maceo Parker here as often as he does Albert Ayler. But Murray's playing has always been soulful and rhythmically inclined, and the jams he turns out on the opening cover of Sly Stone's "Sex Machine" will challenge even the staunchest of critics…