Saturday, February 24, 2007

Presented by phantom

Gallagher & Lyle "Breakaway" 1976

The pop duo phenomenon that spawned such acts as Simon & Garfunkel, Brewer & Shipley and Seals & Crofts was pre-dated by the duo formed by songwriters, guitarists and vocalists Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle. Initially attracting attention as songwriters of Dean Ford & the Gaylords' single, "Mr. Heartbreak's Here Instead," Gallagher & Lyle went on to record as a duo and members of McGuinness Flint and Ronnie Lane's group, the Last Chance Band. Gallagher and Lyle continued to balance their performances and recordings as staff songwriters for the Beatles' Apple label, writing "Sparrow" and "International" for Mary Hopkin. The title track of their sixth duo album, Breakaway, was later covered by Art Garfunkel.

Gallagher & Lyle first played together in Largos, a small town in Argyle, Scotland., near Glasgow. Relocating to London in 1967, the duo became full-time writers at Apple. Three years later, they joined with Tom McGuinness and Hughie Flint to form McGuinness Flint. Although they recorded two successful singles, "When I'm Dead and Gone" and "Malt and Barley Blues," the group disbanded in 1971. Recording their self-titled debut duo album for Capitol, Gallagher & Lyle switched to the A&M label by their second effort. Their first release on A&M, however, was a reissue of their debut album. In the spring of 1974, Gallagher and Lyle joined Ronnie Lane's Last Chance Band, remaining with the group until May 1974. The duo balanced their work with the band with additional duo albums, How Come and The Last Cowboy. They continued to record on their own following the breakup of the group. Breakaway was released in 1975, Love on the Airwaves in 1977 and Show Down in 1978. Switching to the Phonogram label, they recorded their final album, Lonesome No More in 1979. Following a tour to support the album, the duo went their seperate ways. Lyle continued to write, in collaboration with Terry Britten, reaching his peak with "What's Love Got to Do With It," covered by Tina Turner, and "Just Good Friends," recorded by Michael Jackson. ~ Craig Harris, All Music Guide

Friday, February 23, 2007

Tanakh











Michele Poulos of Tanakh:
I'm writing because our band, Tanakh, is extremely interested in being covered on your site. Our fifth album was just released on February 13th on the incredible Camera Obscura Records in Australia (the others were released on Alien8). This album features the vocals of Michele Poulos and Isobel Campbell (formerly of Belle and Sebastian) and was produced by Jesse Poe - you can read all about our latest album here:

http://www.cameraobscura.com.au/obscura.htm

Here is a recent article posted on Deep Water Acres:

http://www.dwacres.com/node/629

Also, if you'd like to hear a sample, please visit
www.myspace.com/jessepoetanakh

Link

Yonin Bayashi - Issyoku Sokuhatsu: Dead End
Yonin Bayashi - Golden Picnics: Dead End

Saturday, February 17, 2007

2 songs from...
Wench "Nothing Can Be Wrong"

Aaron:
I've heard so much good music since I found your site.
I really appreciate it.
I was getting bored with the stuff I was listening to
and its frustrating because I know theres always
something new to hear its just a matter of finding it.
I can tell you really love music.
Thanks for sharing it with us.
To return the favor here are a couple songs by Wench
from the album "Nothing Can Be Wrong".
The quality is poor (very quiet) but the music makes up for it.
Hope you enjoy let me know what you think.
Thanks again

03. I See Shore
11. There's No Such Thing

Download (2 songs, "m4a" and "mp3" format)

Aaron, thank you very much for these lovely folk songs!

Presented by Keef

The Bunch "Rock On" 1972

Organized by Trevor Lucas and Sandy Denny following the breakup of Fotheringay, The Bunch features an all-star cast from the British folk-rock scene paying homage to their roots before they began their musical trek down the traditional path of Francis James Childs and Cecil Sharp. Recorded in January of 1972, The Bunch was just that, a one-off by a bunch of friends getting together to play the music of some of their early idols, including Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Hank Williams and Chuck Berry. Lucas, Denny, Richard Thompson, Linda (Thompson) Peters, Ashley Hutchings and various other members of the extended Fairport Convention family, treat the music with a certain reverence while at the same time injecting it with a playfulness and ragged British charm. Sandy Denny, who is touted in the liner notes as "Britain's first lady of song," delivers two of her finest performances on record, a lovely duet with Peters on the Everly Brothers' "When Will I Be Loved" (which predated Linda Ronstadt's cover by two years), as well as her tender reading of the Buddy Holly obscurity "Learning the Game." Other highlights include Richard Thompson's spirited working of Dion's "My Girl the Month of May," Ashley Hutchings' deadpan "Nadine" and Linda Peters' "Loco-motion." The original U.K. release included a flexi-single of ex-Fotheringay drummer Gerry Conway performing "Let There Be Drums."
From AMG

01. Crazy Arms
02. That'll Be the Day
03. Don't Be Cruel
04. Loco-Motion
05. My Girl in the Month of May
06. Love's Made a Fool of You
07. Willie and the Hand Jive
08. Jambalaya (On the Bayou)
09. When Will I Be Loved?
10. Nadine
11. Sweet Little Rock 'N' Roller
12. Learning the Game
13. Let There Be Drums [*]
14. Twenty Flight Rock [*]
15. High School Confidential [*]
16. Bamba [Rehearsal Tape]


Plainsong "In Search Of Amelia Earhart" 1972
(Expanded Version)














CD1
01. For The Second Time 3:50
02. Yo Yo Man 2:13
03. Louise 3:18
04. Call The Tune 5:22
05. Diesel On My Tail 2:03
06. Amelia Earhart's Last Flight 4:05
07. I'll Fly Away 2:03
08. True Story Of Amelia Earhart 4:32
09. Even The Guiding Light 4:12
10. Side Roads 3:29
11. Raider 4:38
12. Seeds And Stems (Radio Session) 3:58
13. Tigers Will Survive (Radio Session) 5:02
14. Spanish Guitar (Radio Session) 5:29
15. Time Between (Radio Session) 2:31
16. Truck Driving Man (Radio Session) 2:58
17. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Radio Session) 2:47
18. Wreck Of The Old 97 (Radio Session) 1:55
19. I'll Fly Away (Pre-First Album Demo - Acapella Version) 0:39

CD2
01. Old Man At The Mill (prev. unreleased) 2:33
02. Urban Cowboy (prev. unreleased) 3:43
03. The Fault (prev. unreleased) 2:50
04. Swinging Doors (prev. unreleased) 2:57
05. Keep On Sailing (prev. unreleased) 4:40
06. Miss The Mississippi (prev. unreleased) 2:51
07. Home (prev. unreleased) 3:33
08. First Girl I Loved (prev. unreleased) 4:03
09. Save Your Sorrows (prev. unreleased) 2:22
10. Nobody Eats At Linebaugh's Any More (prev. unreleased) 4:07
11. The Goodnight Lovin' Trail (prev. unreleased) 4:38
12. All Around My Grandmother's Floor (prev. unreleased) 3:12
13. That's All It Could Amount To (prev. unreleased) 1:25
14. Amelia Earhart's Last Flight (live) 5:17
15. Any Day Woman (live) 4:24
16. Poor Ditching Boy (live) 3:33
17. Even The Guiding Light (live) 3:19
18. True Story Of Amelia Earhart (live) 4:20
19. Raider (live) 5:01
20. Miss The Mississippi (live) 3:35
21. Along Comes Mary (7" Single) 2:47
22. Even The Guiding Light (Single Version) 3:27


Lesley Duncan "Sing Children Sing" 1971 (256kbps)














01. Chain Of Love 4:48
02. Lullaby 3:56
03. Help Me Jesus 4:00
04. MrRubin 7:07
05. Rainbow Games 2:42
06. Love Song 3:42
07. Sunshine (Send Them Away) 3:33
08. Crying In The Sun 3:15
09. Emma 2:42
10. If You Won't Be Mine 3:01
11. Sing Children Sing 3:39

Monday, February 12, 2007

The Parlour Band "Is a Friend?" 1972


Review by bristolstc:
How far I go back with loving this album should tell you something about it. Nearly 30 years old I am, and I became addicted to this record's sweeping beauty when I was only 17. I own an original copy that I lucked into a few weeks ago in my collectiion, but I've owned it in as an original, CD, and reissue before and only for one year was I ever without it, the worst time of my life. Forming in the Channel Islands was something very unusual, I mean, how many bands can you think of from there? The group were the combined talents of vocalist/ keyboard player/songwriter Peter Filleul (pronouned Fill You- a French name), and a local Jersey band who played hard rock. Combining Filleul's love of Beatle esque lush melodies and the band's love of American West coast hard edged rock, they were both a psychedelic pastoral pop band and a heavy progressive group, something very unusual, but something that was going on in the British Isles at the time. This album I have had mixed reactions from people about. I rave about it, and some love it as well or can't understand it. My own opinion is all that matters to me, but I really do think this is about the best melodic album there is along with the shamefully ignored Deep Feeling, Fickle Pickle, and Dog That Bit People (sadly, I only own a CD of this one). Every song is masterful, filled with great melodies, rich soaring flowing textures of great guitars and keyboards, and the vocals especially harmonies are really great. My favourite tracks here if asked to choose a few highlights are the short yet complex rocking opener "Forgotten Dreams," the proto Queen epic within a short time length darkness of "Evening' (sung by Pix), and the highly original and remarakable closing suite "Home." Every track though is outstanding. Very laid back, but actually rocking out at the same time as well. This is a subtle and complex album, it may take you a few listenings to fully appreciate it and it must be said in all honesty that people who don't like pop overtones to their symphonic prog will not like this, but if you have an open mind you really need to find this album and treasure it. Everyone in the band is an outstanding musician, particularly the twin guitars of Pix (full name Jonathan Pickford- I knew him once) and Craig Anders. Mark Ashley Anders is also a great bass player, and Filleul's solid down to earth approach to the keyboards is a refreshing diversion from all the pompous bashing that was going on then. One of the best things about Is A Friend? is that it not only is a brilliant album in itself, but will open up a world of great music to you if you like it. I would say that this album was also a once-in-a-lifetime thing for the band, with Filleul who wrote every track pushed in the background the group became The O Band- an extremely inferior and even at times downright irritating attempt to imitate the American bands of the the era such as Little Feat and The Dead or even perhaps Quicksilver. While there is a strong US influence to some of The Parlour Band, it is never painful and never contrived. Had the group gone back to their day jobs after this album we'd be left with a one album masterpiece legacy. This album is one of my all time favourites and a magical experience. It is among the best ever.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Robin Williamson "Skirting The River Road" 2003

On his second outing for ECM, Scottish bard and minstrel Robin Williamson moves to resurrect the spirit if not the letter of the ghost of his former Incredible String Band. On his last album for ECM, Williamson appeared completely solo in recreating in a musical setting the works of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. The result was stunning; The Seed-at-Zero was a theatrical and haunting work of great power and beauty. This time out Williamson is bringing the heart of poets William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Henry Vaughan. And as satisfying as the previous album was, Williamson in characteristic fashion has upped the ante by enlisting the help of jazz and folk musicians from all over the world. First there's the renowned Swedish string and flute player Ale Möller, who uses everything from a hammered dulcimer, a mandola, drone flutes, and vibraphones to accompany Williamson, and there's also American microtonal improviser and composer Mat Maneri on violin, saxophonist Paul Dunmall, and bassist Mick Hutton from Great Britain. What this team does in accompanying Williamson is to free him to reach wider and deeper into the very skeletons of the works he has selected to interpret. For starters, there is the ambient, shimmering joy in "The Morning Watch/A Song of Joys," in which Williamson combines poems by Whitman and Vaughan in a single work, moving from a Celtic droning melody to a recitation of delirious intensity accompanied by Dunmall's improvising horns and rich rhythmic atmospheres by the rest of the band. "Here to Burn" is an original song with quotes from Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell." In the ancient Celtic tradition, Williamson's melody brings forth from the ether of history the very nature of Blake's visionary ranting and singing on the page. "The Four Points Are Thus Beheld," however, is the centerpiece of the album, the hinge on which it turns. With Dunmall's bleating, moaning horn and Williamson's Shakespearan delivery as the band fills in the cracks and crevices with sound so elegantly ragged and true it could have come from a strange dream, the tale from Blake's poem "Jerusalem" becomes a first-person treatise on birth, rebirth, destruction, and transformation that is utterly believable. Kurt Elling could use some of Williamson's gorgeously primitive intonation and cadence displayed on "Dalliance of Eagles," with a stridently textured counterpoint played by Hutton after a band intro. Ultimately it's not about music and/or words, however. Skirting the River Road is about offering a glimpse into the beauty of language as it interacts with itself and other sounds, and of offering the works of the poets and Williamson's own songs as a living, breathing meditation on the continued relevance of the past on the present and in how it haunts your attempts and meaning and trying to destroy it literally and metaphorically. This is not some anachronistic old man's precious little album of quaint songs and recitations, but a dangerous, profound, humorous, and tragic offering of possibility. Williamson offers the possibility to become acquainted with the forgotten, the discarded, the out of time and space, by placing them in contexts that speak to the immediate present with all of its dissonances, contradictions, and unexpected harmonic moments. This is a brilliant album of folk music that has nothing to do with folk music that desires to preserve the past in dead languages. This is folk music that speaks to the "folk" through the languages that are spoken on their margins and whispered in their bedrooms and barrooms all over the English-speaking world. This is the most out jazz record because it is a shining example of what European jazz is capable of expressing when it looks out the window at various cultures and histories that hang lithely on lampposts, in dustbins, in meadows, and in rivers, all about it. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

Friday, February 09, 2007

Clive Palmer "All Roads Lead To Land" 2004

One thing about Clive Palmer -- he never fails to satisfy and surprise. A founding member of the Incredible String Band, and steeped in the ways of his native Scottish music, as well as that of his adopted home, France, he's always taken his music in strange directions. On this disc, for example, he ranges from playing Breton pipes on "Breigh," derived from a traditional song, to an instrumental version of the standard "Embraceable You." Along the way he covers almost every base in between, be it banjo on "Big City Blues," an iconoclastic love song with "Sands of Time," a chance to revisit his own "Paris" (in the company of saxophonist Peter Stacey and others), and even a trip through "Linden Lea," by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Palmer's banjo gets a fair workout in his unique style, and former bandmate Robin Williamson drops by to add a little fiddle. Handily falling outside any conventional genre, this is a garden of wonderful, sometimes strange delights. ~ Chris Nickson, All Music Guide

Link

Heron - Twice As Nice & Half The Price: Lost-In-Tyme
Jim Capaldi - Oh How We Danced: the world is only one
Magna Carta - Songs From Wasties Orchard: PEP SONIC BLUE MUSIC

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Business Trip

Link

Strawbs - Ghosts: The Sky Moves Sideways
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2007 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2008 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2009 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2010 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2011 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2015 - - - - - 5 6