Elephant Mountain (1969) is the Youngbloods' third long-player and marks their debut as a trio – featuring Jesse Colin Young (bass/guitar/vocals), Joe Bauer (drums), and Lowell "Banana" Levinger (keyboards) – after the departure of co-founder Jerry Corbitt (guitar/vocals). Although the band initially formed out of the early '60s Northeast folk scene, by the time this set was issued they had relocated to the pastoral Northern California county of Marin. Blending affective pop/rock melodies and lyrics with their good time jug band roots, the Youngbloods were instantly embraced by the already blossoming Bay Area music community. This effort contains some of the band's strongest material to date, building on the considerable momentum of their 1967 self-titled release and further enhanced by their remarkable instrumental capabilities. Young's contributions are particularly notable as he vacillates between the edgy and electric "Darkness, Darkness" to the light and earthy "Sunlight" and "Ride the Wind," or the bouncy tales "Smug" and "Beautiful." Banana honors his new surroundings with the gorgeous and catchy instrumental "On Sir Francis Drake" (named after a heavily traveled Bay Area motorway).

As the title suggests, the second installment of Otomo Yoshihide Solo Works is a collection of works that pay homage to Christian Marclay, the turntablist who was one of his biggest influences. Merkley was a pioneer of turntable improvisation in the early 80's in a way that was completely different from the context of hip-hop DJing, and at the same time, he is one of the leading contemporary artists. It is no exaggeration to say that the impact of encountering his performances and works is one of Otomo's origins. Since their first encounter in the 1980s, Merkley and Otomo have collaborated in various ways up to the present day. In this work, Otomo plays exclusively on Merkley's records, using his own unique method of turntable playing. In the catalog for Christian Merkley's exhibition "Translating" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2022, Otomo wrote about his encounter with Merkley.

If ever there were a manifesto for 1970s rock, one that prefigured both the decadence of the decade's burgeoning heavy metal and prog rock excesses and the rage of punk rock, "This Ain't the Summer of Love," the opening track from Agents of Fortune, Blue Öyster Cult's fourth album, was it. The irony was that while the cut itself came down firmly on the hard rock side of the fence, most of the rest of the album didn't. Agents of Fortune was co-produced by longtime Cult record boss Sandy Pearlman, Murray Krugman, and newcomer David Lucas, and in addition, the band's lyric writing was being done internally with help from poet-cum-rocker Patti Smith (who also sings on "The Revenge of Vera Gemini"). Pearlman, a major contributor to the band's songwriting output, received a solitary credit while critic Richard Meltzer, whose words were prevalent on the Cult's previous outings, was absent…

Perhaps Szymanowski’s music is too cool and sophisticated ever to become popular. Even the third of his Op. 4 Studies, which Paderewski made famous, is less full-bodied than Scriabin’s early C sharp minor Étude, and while Scriabin believed in the madness of his later music, Szymanowski’s apparent abandon in his voluptuous period around the First World War is crafted with detachment. Dennis Lee clarifies the cascades of notes – or rather sonorities – in the two major sets, Métopes and Masques, so that these complex pieces are understood more easily than usual. The recorded sound is a bit thin and small, but clean.

This essential 2-CD set includes three of Odetta’s finest studio albums from her most inspired years: the influential LP "My Eyes Have Seen" (Vanguard, 1959), plus the equally splendid and long unavailable albums, "The Tin Angel" (Fantasy 1958), and "At the Gate of Horn" (Tradition, 1957). These three long-plays are widely regarded as landmarks of the late-’50s folk & blues revival. They have been remastered and packaged together in this very special collector’s edition, which also includes 10 bonus tracks from the same period.

Guitarist Sal Salvador made few albums as a leader during his day - but all of them are a treat, especially this one! The set's a mid 50s outing that features Sal's guitar in a quartet with Eddie Costa on piano and vibes - and grooving in a lightly swinging style that has some traces of east coast chamber jazz of the time, but which also displays Salvador's unique fascination with tone, sound, shape, and color! Salvador has a way of approaching the electric guitar that's like few other players in jazz - sometimes coming on full swing, other times laying back and letting the strings and their sounds shape the progression of tunes on the set.

5-CD promo-only 50th anniversary box set issued in 2000 to staff and customers. It features tracks from 50 years of Elektra releases.

A truly undervalued gem, This Is… Gracious! sat on the shelves for two years after completion before being issued; it's a shame that it was to be last anyone heard from the band for the next two decades.
No sophomore jinx here: on their second album, Gracious truly hits its stride. The first half of the album is a four-part suite, "Super Nova." After its Floydian opening instrumental, the band launches into the bleak "Blood Red Sun"; with a dystopic narrative of environmental holocaust and its martial drumbeat, it's an ideal complement to King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man." Strange, then, that this should lead to "Say Goodbye to Love," an effectively weepy guitar ballad of lost romance and tear-jerking harmonies. It's on the second half of the album, though, that Gracious hits escape velocity…

The abundant legacy of Gustav Leonhardt’s recordings for Telefunken’s Das Alte Werk series invites us to follow his trajectory as a performer from the early 1960’s onwards, a time when the new codes of early music had yet to be invented, when their success depended above all on the strength of conviction of the performer. Leonhardt’s was strengthened by dialogue: with a range of partners whose variety defies all preconceived ideas, with ancient instruments or modern copies of all types, with repertoires as diverse as Byrd, Purcell, Rameau, Johann Sebastian but also Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Not forgetting the 1970 Monteverdi LP, which has never been reissued since. The image of a pope of early music isolated in his tower and frozen in a school style does not last long after listening to this historical sum, extended here by the later series of recordings under the Virgin Veritas flag.

2007 is a milestone year for German electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze. He celebrated his 60th birthday on August 4th and has also released an excellent solo album entitled "Kontinuum". "Kontinuum" is 76 minutes of continuous music consisting of three long tracks that form one long piece of music. Musically, the album is journey into Klaus Schulze's past, present and future as a musician. Fans of his classic 70's style will definitely feel at home listening to this disc. There are also elements that will appeal to fans today's techno and trance music as well.

At the time these tracks were cut, 1967 and 1968, R.L. Burnside was working on a plantation in Coldwater, MS, cutting silage. Folklorist George Mitchell was on a mission to record unknown blues singers down South. Mitchell heard about Burnside and paid him a visit, asking if he could record him. That night Mitchell returned to Burnside's place with a case of beer and some whiskey. Ten months later, Burnside had his first release. While these 14 tracks didn't jump start Burnside's career, they are stark, organic, and timeless, just Burnside and his acoustic guitar running down mainly traditional material that he arranged. This is an absolute treasure for Burnside aficionados and casual blues listeners alike.

This lovely jazz vocalist recorded something like 150 songs for the Atlantic label alone, about a quarter of which are collected here on this double-CD set. Fans may fear a set of poor song choices with such a large number of recordings to choose from, but the songstress herself was involved in the compiling, working with an enthusiastic producer who seems to get a bigger kick out of music than anyone on the planet, Joel Dorn. This collection comes with his usual send-offs, dripping with camaraderie, and a sense of deep appreciation for the works of art he is presenting. These recordings brings us a voice with all the colors of the rainbow dropped into one swinging and well thought out instrumental combination after another. Jazz fans can listen for blowing from top-flight players such as Frank Foster, Al Cohn, Maynard Ferguson (his tracks are also recommended for dogs as well as jazz fans), Jaki Byard, Oliver Nelson, and Clark Terry. Even the mighty Mongo Santamaria is on hand. Chris Connor and her arrangers must have had pretty consistent good taste with their choice of material, because there are less lemons in the batch than one might expect skipping around through more than a dozen albums spread out over an equal number of years.~Eugene Chadbourne

Die Schönschti Ländlerbox – Best Swiss Folk Music“ ist eine umfassende Sammlung, die der traditionellen Volksmusik der Schweiz, der sogenannten Ländlermusik, gewidmet ist.

Released in a cardboard sleeve.This CD is OUTSTANDING! The first half is more conventional jazz, and the second half is more eltro-jazz. some almost borders on drum n bass! A+

These performances bring out so much of the gorgeous sonority in Gabrieli's music. The marvelous singing of the soloists and choir demonstrate the lavish riches of Gabrieli's triadic harmonies. The sound of the trombones and cornets is neatly absorbed into the overall sound of the vocal ensemble.