Snakes and Ladders / The Best of Faces was an October 1976 best-of album (the 7th album and 2nd compilation album) by British rock group Faces. While the first released Faces compilation was a repackaging of the group's first two LPs as a double album, this US-only release presented the first attempt to compile the popular songs from the group after they had disbanded in 1975. The selections are however heavily biased in favour of Rod Stewart's contribution to the group, with only one track featuring Wood on vocals, and none featuring Ronnie Lane, the group's secondary vocalist and songwriter. Although he had left the band in 1973, Lane was a prominent founder member of the band and sang on and solely composed several tracks on each of the group's four original studio albums, but his songwriting is also under-represented here with his contributions confined to co-credits with Stewart and/or Wood.

Perhaps realizing that Down on the Farm wasn't the proper swan song for Little Feat, the group persuaded Warner Brothers to release a compilation of rarities and overlooked tracks as a swan song and farewell to fans. Filled with live performances, obscurities, album tracks, and a new song apiece from Bill Payne and Paul Barrere, Hoy Hoy is a bit scattered, a bit incoherent, a little bewildering, and wholly delightful – a perfect summation of a group filled with quirks, character, and funk, traits which were as much a blessing as they were a curse. Hoy Hoy is one of those rare albums that may be designed for diehards – who else really needs radio performances, early recordings from before the band was signed, and outtakes, especially if they're surrounded by early album tracks? – but still is a great introduction for novices. That doesn't mean it's as good as such masterpieces as Sailin' Shoes, Dixie Chicken, or Waiting for Columbus, but it does capture the group's careening, freewheeling spirit, humor, and musical versatility, arguably better than any single album.

After gaining some recognition from the success of the band's previous album, Bachman-Turner Overdrive got around to recording Not Fragile. Not only had one of the three Bachman brothers (Tim, the rhythm guitarist) left the band to BTO's advantage, but Randy Bachman and C.F. Turner had clearly grown musically. To the album's benefit, most of the material on Not Fragile are the band's much-liked rock anthems, ranging from the hyper-distorted title track, through the famous but far more timid song "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet."

The sixth edition of the fantastic anthology series from the Blue Note Records label, featuring some of the greatest players that ever walked the face of the Earth, like Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Chet Baker, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Miles Davis, Grant Green, Billie Holiday, Cassandra Wilson, Horace Silver, Ike Quebec, Blue Mitchell and many more.

Polyphony was a short-lived US outfit active in the early 70's. The band, consisting of Martin Ruddy (bass, vocals), Christopher Spong (drums), Craig Massey (vocals, organ, moog), Glenn Howard (vocals, guitars) and Chatty Cooper (percussion), recorded the album Without "Introduction" which was released in 1971. Polyphony comes close fusing Hendrix's psychedelic guitar style with ELP's take on Hammond-based symphonic progressive rock.

Released in 1985, primarily and possibly only for the European market, Moti Special was a German-multi ethnic pop-band. A pretty boy band? Absolutely not - these guys were adults. Yet, the group's only successful band member/keyboardist would be and still is Michael Cretu of the current new age ambient group Enigma and husband to European pop-star Sandra. However, do not expect any Enigma-like tracks (though you may be able to pick up echoing future traces in his excellent keyboarding skills).
The Moti Special sound is instantly recognizeable by music fans of the 80's neu deutsch welle musical movement. New deutsch was basically a title for the genre of pop music coming out of Germany during the early to mid 80's…

Perhaps the most telling tune on Shoulda Been Home is the T-Bone Walker-influenced "Renew Blues," not because of the style, but because the slow blues fades out after just one tiny minute. By contrast, the mellow soul sway of "Out of Eden" stretches out to over nine minutes. Robert Cray has been heralded as a savior of modern blues, but the truth is Cray's music is much closer to the vintage soul of O.V. Wright and Otis Redding than the 12-bar form of B.B. King or Albert King. Granted, his punctuating Stratocaster guitar riffs borrow from the books of all the blues masters, but his songwriting and arranging don't. Often backed by arpeggiated guitar chords, Cray's vocals are front and center here, passionately leaning into these predominantly slow or mid-tempo tunes. By contrast, only a couple of cuts are upbeat enough to really get the knees a-shakin'. The infectious opening cut "Baby's Arms" – the best tune on the record – could have been a hit single for Stax Records, and Sir Mack Rice's upbeat "Love Sickness" was a hit for Stax Records. Meanwhile, "Help Me Forget," with its mellow, candlelight mood, could have been a hit for Barry White.

Dog Eat Dog is the 12th album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, released in 1985. It was her second album for Geffen Records. The album was a departure for Mitchell due to its synthetic sound (featuring production work by British synthesiser musician Thomas Dolby). Lyrically, the album dealt with prominent issues in mid 1980s society, such as Reaganism, televangelists, consumerism and famine in Ethiopia. One of Mitchell's more unusual songs, "Smokin' (Empty, Try Another)" was recorded by sampling the sound of the cigarette machine in the hall of the studio where Wild Things Run Fast was recorded.

Thin Lizzy found their trademark twin-guitar sound on 1975's Fighting, but it was on its 1976 successor, Jailbreak, where the band truly took flight. Unlike the leap between Night Life and Fighting, there is not a great distance between Jailbreak and its predecessor. If anything, the album was more of a culmination of everything that came before, as Phil Lynott hit a peak as a songwriter just as guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson pioneered an intertwined, dual-lead guitar interplay that was one of the most distinctive sounds of '70s rock, and one of the most influential. Lynott no longer let Gorham and Robertson contribute individual songs – they co-wrote, but had no individual credits – which helps tighten up the album, giving it a cohesive personality, namely Lynott's rough rebel with a heart of a poet.

Led by Scott Boyer and Tommy Talton, the Jacksonville band Cowboy was discovered by none other than Duane Allman, who, as legend has it, banged on their door at 7 am one day and asked to hear some songs. He then recommended them to Capricorn label owner Phil Walden, who sent Allman Brothers producer Johnny Sandlin to check them out; Sandlin ended up producing several Cowboy albums for Capricorn, of which this 1971 release was the second. The Allman Brothers connection on this album is even more explicit than it was on their debut album (Reach for the Sky, also reissued by Real Gone Music); Allman plays guitar on Lookin for You and dobro on Please Be with Me, while ABB keyboardist Chuck Leavell appears on half of the album tracks. But what makes 5 ll Getcha Ten special and indeed what makes it many Cowboy fans favorite record is the songwriting. Please Be with Me was covered by Eric Clapton on his classic 461 Ocean Boulevard release, and throughout the album a gentle undercurrent of spirituality courses through these beautifully played and sung songs, particularly on What I Want Is You, Innocence Song and the title tune.

In the first biography of the composer, published in 1760, John Mainwaring tells us that "Handel had an uncommon brilliancy and command of finger, but what distinguished him from all other players who possessed these same qualities was that amazing fullness, force and energy which he joined with them. And this observation may be applied with as much justness to his compositions, as to his playing."

For this first recording, Andrea Buccarella explores the history of the most emblematic form of Baroque music, from its appearance in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century right up to its apotheosis in Johann Sebastian Bach: the toccata. With its inventiveness, its formal freedom, its contrasting effects of virtuosity and emotion, the Italian toccata – whose name probably comes from the verb toccare (to touch/play) – opened the way for the stylus fantasticus that was to dominate Germany in the late seventeenth century.

These quartets were recorded in sumptuous sound from December 1967 to the middle of ’68. Remastering can lead to shrillness which undermines intonation – but not here. This sounds fabulous above the stave.

Tangerine Dream has never produced anything calculated to make the masses jump off their chairs and start screaming Top 40 tunes, but they have managed to have an immense impact in the world of Electronic and soundtrack music. Their 107 (and counting) studio, live and soundtrack releases have their own driving hypnotic pieces that might differ from release to release, but they are all uniquely Tangerine Dream.

Vienna/Libro Hall/April, 11th, 2000