New 4 CD boxset of Wilco's seminal Summerteeth, originally released in 1999. Contains the original album - beautifully remastered, a disc chock full of demos, outtakes and alternative versions, and, for me, best of all, 2 CDs containing a 2 hour show from 1999…

Nightlife is a loose concept album – more of a song cycle, really – about nightlife (naturally), a collection of moods and themes, from love to loneliness. In that sense, it's not that different from most Pet Shop Boys albums, and, musically, the album is very much of a piece with Very and Bilingual, which is to say that it relies more on craft than on innovation…

Let's call a spade a spade. Orion is an Elvis impersonator. No more, no less. That he's a good Elvis impersonator is important, since if he wasn't, Sun probably wouldn't have tried to promote his recordings as if they were genuine Elvis material, even going to the extremes of overdubbing Orion's voices on recordings by such Sun stalwarts as Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. This doesn't make him any better, but it sure makes him fascinating, particularly because he is gifted at mimicry and these are pretty good evocations of Elvis at his peak…

Remastered from the original DAT mix tapes, this 2020 re-issue of Magnus' second album Inhaling Green (1999) includes two bonus tracks: a completely new recording of 'Night of the Condor' from the first album 'Straight On Til morning', and a brand new instrumental piece 'Lord Percy's Folly', co-written with Dick Foster exclusively for this release.
Having served his musical apprenticeship in the 70’s with the Symphonic rockers The Enid, Nick Magnus became Steve Hackett’s keyboard player during the guitarist’s rise to fame as a solo artist, following his departure from Genesis. Since the mid 90’s Nick has released a string of superbly crafted solo albums, one of which is ‘Inhaling Green’. Originally issued in 1999, this was Nick’s second album and it has now been given a long overdue and thoroughly well deserved makeover…

In the summer of 1999, Steps Ahead founder/vibraphonist Mike Mainieri joined Eliane Elias, Bob Berg, Marc Johnson and Peter Erskine for a reunion tour of Europe. They recorded several of those shows but Mainieri didn’t listen to the tapes for two years. He eventually did, and the result is the two-CD set Holding Together (N.Y.C.). The musicians perform the tunes with great sensitivity to one another, both as an ensemble and in solo spotlights. “Uncle Bob” just swings along, while Mainieri’s gliding vibes impart an almost magical quality to a lovely version of Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood,” and “The Time Is Now” is a 22-minute-plus opus that gives everyone a chance to shine. There are too many high points on this solid set to mention, but it should be noted that Berg’s playing is vigorous and inventive throughout and provides a poignant reminder of the profound loss the jazz world suffered when he was killed in a car accident.

Mychael Danna and Tim Clément, both wonderful composers in their own right, are one of the greatest duos that the ambient/space music style has ever had the pleasure of hearing. This best-of recording is an organic, ambient masterpiece that showcases their most brilliant work in a cohesive, long-running sonic excursion. This is actually a collection of older pieces, remixed, remastered, and produced by Stephen Bacchus. The beautifully sonorous timbres and reflective atmospheres of Danna & Clément are mesmerizing. The story behind this recording is significant because it illustrates both how these works came about and the fact that the duo were pioneers of environmental sound recording long before nature sounds became a staple of the new age genre…

Rod Modell is a sound designer / electronic music producer from the Detroit area. He began producing music in the mid-80's using analog synthesizers and drum machines. Rod's work was focused on electro-acoustic experimentation in the early years, making musique concrète compositions with a 4-track cassette machine and field recordings, then branching into industrial soundscape work. More recent recordings utilize more structure and beats, but still retain the atmospherics that Modell is known for. Mood is of paramount importance in a Rod Modell recording (often created with field recordings). Sadly, this element seems to be lost in much of the "clicks & cuts" DSP music of today. One of Modell's favorite pastimes is making middle-of-the-night recordings with his portable DAT machine and dummy-head microphone…

Solal remains one of the most inventive, brilliant, and woefully underappreciated pianists in modern jazz. This CD should serve further notice as to his genius in completely reshaping and reinventing standards with the poetic fervor of a restless soul. Bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Paul Motian contribute mightily to Solal's raised temperature and metamorphosed rhythmic and harmonic notions, values he alone should be allowed to define. The proof is in the listening. Six of the nine pieces are standards, and if thought you'd never hear a fresh take of "Round 'Bout Midnight," here it is. Intentionally convoluted, more angular than Monk, Solal, completely off the cuff, molds this well-wrought melody in a 20th-century modernism that defies any standard nomenclature…

In a way, the Ramones are an ideal band to anthologize. No matter how cohesive their records were (or not), their albums always played like collections of singles and since singles are easy to anthologize, it stands to reason that the best of the Ramones' songs will sound good in nearly any context; hell, the haphazard Ramones Mania proved that. However, Rhino's double-disc Hey! Ho! Let's Go: Ramones Anthology has much greater goals than being just another collection – it strives to be the final word on the Ramones.

After 1988's …And Justice for All, Metallica pared down its progressive, heavy metal sound. During the '90s, the band's studio releases grew slicker and more produced, resulting in mostly radio-friendly, good ol' boy metal. By the end of the decade, Metallica was established as the pioneer of modern metal, but the band hadn't done anything innovative, arguably, in ten years. In April 1999, the group performed two concerts with the San Francisco Symphony, and the result was S&M, a two-disc collection of the concerts…