Sundaze 1743

Hello, The F1 circus is in Austin Texas this weekend on a great designed race track, it is Hamilton who was fastest, once again a pole for him. Verstappen was faster then Vettel until the final corner when he lost full control and ended up 6th with a 15 place grid penalty his will be a race of overtaking if he gets beyond the first lap unscaved. Vettel 2nd then and the start will be interesting. Behind Bottas, Ricciardo and Raikonen will gard their teams interest.



Vidna Obmana is a pseudonym used by Belgian composer and ambient musician Dirk Serries. The name Vidna Obmana, a phrase in Serbian, literally translates to "optical illusion" and was chosen by Serries because he felt it accurately described the music. Obmana's music has often been characterized as anamorphic and organic. He uses the techniques of looping and shaping harmonies, minimizing the configurations to a few notes.....N'Joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Belgian producer Dirk Serries, aka Vidna Obmana, is a prolific composer of deep ambient and electro-acoustic music, utilizing slow, shifting electronic figures and sparse environmental recordings to construct long, minimalist, often extremely personal textural works. Taking his nom de plume from the Yugoslavian for "optical illusion" (a concept which carries much weight in his composing, as well), Serries has released material through a wide range of different labels, including Projekt, Amplexus, Extreme, Hic Sunt Leones, Syrenia, ND, and Multimood. Born and raised in Antwerp, Serries began recording experimental noise musics in the late '80s, working solo and in combination with artists such as PBK, exploring the more abrasive side of electronic composition. Beginning with the release in 1990 of Shadowing in Sorrow, however, (the first part of what would come to be known as Vidna's ambient Trilogy) Serries began moving toward an almost isolationist ambient aesthetic, exploring themes of calm, solitude, grief, and introspection in long, moving pieces which tended to chart similar ground as American space music artists such as Robert Rich, Michael Stearns, and Steve Roach (Serries has since collaborated with both Rich and Roach). The first two movements of the Trilogy -- Sorrow, as well as its follow-up Passage in Beauty -- were self-released by Serries in 1990 and 1991, with the third volume, Ending Mirag, appearing the following year on the American ND label. The album was praised as some of the finest post-classical experimental electronic music of its time, and the Stateside connection finally opened his music up to an American audience, leading also to his association with Sam Rosenthal's Projekt label (the entire Trilogy was finally reissued by Projekt sister label Relic as a boxed set in 1996, with several new Vidna releases also appearing in the interim).

Although his textural recordings form the core of his output to date, Serries' more recent solo and collaborative works (such as The Transcending Quest, Echoing Delight, and The Spiritual Bonding) have also found him pushing the minimalism of his earlier works into the Fourth World territories of artists such as Jorge Reyes, Michael Stearns, and Jon Hassell, setting lush, dreamy soundscapes in a larger, more engaging rhythmic framework (usually with contributions from percussionists Djen Ajakan Shean and Steve Roach). Still, as many compilations and retrospectives of his earlier or unreleased work have appeared in recent times so as to confuse somewhat the trajectory of his development, which at any rate seems to trade more or less equally between the freeform conceptual landscapes of his earlier Projekt, Relic, and ND works and the more structured interactivity of the Extreme and Amplexus releases. Collaborations have also increasingly occupied Serries' time, with full-length works with Steve Roach (Well of Souls, The Spiritual Bonding), Robert Rich (The Spiritual Bonding), Asmus Tietchens (a self-titled collaboration for Syrenia), Sam Rosenthal (Terrace Of Memories), and Djen Ajakan Shean (Parallel Flaming) appearing all within the space of only a few years. Both Landscape in Obscurity and The Shape of Solitude followed in 1999, and in the spring of 2000 Obmana returned with Echo Passage and Surreal Sanctuary. Subterranean Collective was issued the following year.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

A master of techno tribal rhythms and dense harmonic soundscapes, Vidna Obmana has crafted all kinds of works. With his 2001 release, Tremor, Vidna Obmana has crafted a series of 11 dense and rhythmically charged musical tapestries. Fans will be glad that this isn't much of a departure from his previous works, but, at the same time, this really speaks well of his work as an artist. The great thing about Vidna Obmana's work is that, no matter what kind is being done, it always sounds like his own. With Tremor, he explores more of the dark and moody side, but it doesn't deviate too far away from his normal sound, which is great because it remains representative of Vidna Obmana's work while at the same time being new and fresh. Tremor is an excellent recording that can be enjoyed by longtime fans and those that are unfamiliar alike. As well, this Release recording is a recommended starting point for anybody not familiar with Vidna Obmana.

Vidna Obmana - Tremor (flac 334mb)

01 Moedra 4:28
02 Flesh Reaper 7:30
03 MindTunnel 6:55
04 The Insane Brightness 5:33
05 Luminous Progression 7:31
06 Artificial Repose 7:15
07 The Seeker And The Spell 7:24
08 Simulate 8:10
09 Tremor 8:10
10 The Bleak Inferno 3:06
11 Descent 7:00

Vidna Obmana - Tremor  (ogg 186mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

There are some e-music collaborations that are just meant to be. The collaboration between Vidna Obmana and Brannan Lane is such a collaboration. Deep Unknown is a set of foggy tribal expansive atmospheres. Brannan’s space minimalism and Vidna’s electro-tribal soundworlds blend smoothly and neatly into a somber, almost destitute soundscape. Deep Unknown is a set of foggy tribal expansive atmospheres. Brannan's space minimalism and Dirk's electro-tribal soundworlds blend smoothly and neatly into a somber, almost destitute soundscape. This album is about isolation and the limited benefits of that emotional defense mechanism. The benefits are the perceptions of freedom, self-importance and egotistical introspection. The dangers of isolation are clear. The biggest danger is listening to one's own interpretation of the inner self. So the low-key soundscape plays to the angst of isolation too. These expert sound designers have built a massive soundworld for isolation.

Vidna Obmana & Brannan Lane - Deep Unknown (flac  380mb)

01 Unfamiliar Territory 8:38
02 Dark Decent 10:47
03 Points Of Light 1 8:04
04 Points Of Light 2 6:57
05 Deep Unknown 1 10:22
06 Deep Unknown 2 10:45
07 Deep Unknown 3 12:52

Vidna Obmana & Brannan Lane - Deep Unknown  (ogg  165mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Spore is the second disc in Vidna Obmana's (Dirk Serries) trilogy based on Dante's Inferno. This is also quite a departure for Serries. He uses quite an array of eclectic devices to create this experimental -- almost avant-garde -- album. The most interesting sounds are from the overtone flutes and fujaras. Serries has commented that this is not an ambient album. That is correct. This album is interesting enough to be the focus of deep listening. It is not innocuous enough to be ignored as background music. It demands attention. The rhythms and atmospheres complement each other smoothly. The experimental sounds are neither dominant nor dominated. This disc is certainly electronic, definitely experimental, and decidedly Vidna Obmana.

Vidna Obmana - Spore (flac  493mb)

01 Through The Collective Pain 3:37
02 The Humanity Underneath 7:25
03 Skin Strip 8:46
04 Duality Of Passion 5:38
05 Beyond The Shaman 5:57
06 The Nihilist 7:48
07 Creep - Isolation Trip 11:12
08 Spore 5:35
09 Resonant Gore 17:38
.
Vidna Obmana - Spore  (ogg  188mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

When an album clocks in at close to 75 minutes and is a mere eight songs, one gets the impression that the artist is in no hurry to make his mark. But this album is the final part of the musician's "Dante Trilogy" so it does seem logical to be so epic. Vidna Obmana begins this odyssey with "Canto," which is more in line with a dark country dirge that David Allan Coe might have performed in his heyday. The album shifts gears with an industrial-meets-ambient "Bloodshift," something Trent Reznor might pull off but few others. Dark and mysterious, Vidna Obmana lets the almost hypnotic groove settle in before adding layers of subtle yet important noise. The song comes down near the homestretch, bringing to mind brief moments of Pink Floyd's "Echoes." The ensuing "Torment and Resolution" evolves a bit quicker and creates instant tension as sounds roll over each other above a drumbeat that slowly creeps in. But unlike the previous song, there is initially something bubbling under the surface that never breaks through. Unfortunately, it results in more atmosphere than substance, resembling "Frankie's House" by Jeff Beck at times. "Sinner's Tongue" is more electro-centric in the early portions, recalling the start of perhaps a great Depeche Mode or Moby number. The centerpiece is the lengthy "The Virtual Insomnia," a 13-minute song which starts off promising as the electro-ambient tone gives way to a dominant percussion. Unfortunately it takes much too long to get off the ground and comes across as a spoiled or missed opportunity. It tends to take off around the nine-minute mark like a Radiohead instrumental, but it's too little too late. "Impious Rising" tends to stand out more for its grander, fuller sound with Vidna Obmana getting to the point far quicker than on other songs. It works thanks to its orchestral touch, not just relying on textures and haunting noises. The title track seems fitting and is the first noticeable bit of guitar, something that is sorely lacking overall. It's a decent album but only for die-hard dark ambient fans.

Vidna Obmana - Legacy  (flac 460mb)

01 Canto 2:45
02 Bloodshift 7:05
03 Torment And Resolution 11:56
04 Sinner's Tongue 7:33
05 The Virtual Insomnia 13:06
06 Cycle Of Agony 8:55
07 Impious Rising 11:43
08 Legacy 10:54

 Vidna Obmana - Legacy   (ogg  178mb )

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

RhoDeo 1742 Grooves

Hello, yesterdays slip ups have all been righted


Today's artists are an American funk band from Long Beach, California, known for the hit songs "Spill the Wine", "The World Is a Ghetto", "The Cisco Kid", "Why Can't We Be Friends?", "Low Rider", and "Summer". War is a musical crossover band which fuses elements of rock, funk, jazz, Latin, rhythm and blues, and reggae. Their album The World Is a Ghetto was the best-selling album of 1973. The band also transcended racial and cultural barriers with a multi-ethnic line-up. The band was also subject to many line-up changes over the course of its formation, leaving member Leroy "Lonnie" Jordan as the only original member in the current line-up.  ........ N'joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Eric Burdon was a founding member and vocalist of the Animals, a band originally formed in Newcastle in the early 1960s. The Animals were one of the leading bands of the "British Invasion", and the band had quite a following around the world. Along with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five, and Gerry and The Pacemakers, they introduced British music and fashion to an entire generation in an explosion of great tunes and outspoken attitude on, and off the stage. Burdon sang on such Animal classics as "The House of the Rising Sun", "Good Times", "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", "Bring It On Home to Me", and "We Gotta Get Out of this Place". The Animals combined the traditional blues with rock to create a unique sound. By 1966 the original members had left, except for Barry Jenkins, and the band was reformed as Eric Burdon and the Animals later going through several line-up changes, the New Animals .This lasted until 1969.

War formed out of the ashes of an earlier R&B covers group, The Creators. In 1968, the band was reconfigured and dubbed Nightshift; Peter Rosen was the new bassist, and percussionist Thomas Sylvester "Papa Dee" Allen, who'd previously played with Dizzy Gillespie, came onboard, along with two more horn players. In 1969 they were discovered by producer Jerry Goldstein, he suggested the band as possible collaborators to former Animals lead singer Eric Burdon, who along with Danish-born harmonica player Lee Oskar had been searching L.A. clubs for a new act.

After witnessing Nightshift in concert, Burdon took charge of the group. He gave them a provocative new name, War, and replaced the two extra horn players with Oskar. To develop material, War began playing marathon concert jams over which Burdon would free-associate lyrics. In August 1969, Burdon and War entered the studio for the first time, and after some more touring, they recorded their first album, 1970's Eric Burdon Declares War. The spaced-out daydream of "Spill the Wine" was a smash hit, climbing to number three and establishing the group in the public eye. A second album, The Black Man's Burdon, was released before the year's end, and over the course of two records it documented the group's increasingly long improvisations.

Burdon's contract allowed War to be signed separately, and they soon inked a deal with United Artists, intending to record on their own as well as maintaining their partnership with Burdon. Burdon -- citing exhaustion -- suddenly quit during the middle of the group's European tour in 1971, spelling the beginning of the end; he rejoined War for a final U.S. tour and then left for good.

In 1971 Burdon began a solo career. Around this time, he also recorded the album Guilty! He has led a number of groups named Eric Burdon Band or some variation thereof, with constantly changing personnel. Burdon rejoined briefly with the other original Animals in 1976 and 1983, but neither union lasted. His popularity has remained stronger in continental Europe than in the UK or U.S. Today he continues to record and tour either on his own, or in front of yet another version of "Eric Burdon and the Animals" as Black & White Blues

War had already issued their self-titled, Burdon-less debut at the beginning of 1971, but it flopped. Before the year was out, they recorded another effort, All Day Music, which spawned their first Top 40 hits in "All Day Music" and "Slippin' Into Darkness". The follow-up album, 1972's The World Is a Ghetto; boosted by a sense of multicultural harmony, topped the charts and sold over three million copies, making it the best-selling album of 1973. Deliver the Word was another million-selling hit, though it had less of the urban grit that War prided themselves on. War consolidated their success with the double concert LP War Live, recorded over four nights in Chicago during 1974.

Released in 1975, Why Can't We Be Friends returned to the sound of The World Is a Ghetto with considerable success. The bright, anthemic title track hit the Top Ten, as did "Low Rider," an irresistible slice of Latin funk that became the group's first (and only) R&B chart-topper, and still stands as their best-known tune. 1976 brought the release of a greatest-hits package featuring the new song "Summer," which actually turned out to be War's final Top Ten pop hit. A double-LP compilation of jams and instrumentals appeared on the Blue Note jazz label in 1977, under the title Platinum Jazz; it quickly became one of the best-selling albums in Blue Note history.

In 1977, the band switched labels, moving to MCA for Galaxy; though it sold respectably, and the title track was a hit on the R&B charts, disco was beginning to threaten the gritty, socially aware funk War specialized in, and it proved to be the last time War would hit the Top 40. After completing the Youngblood soundtrack album in 1978, the original War lineup began to disintegrate.

Things started to go downhill for the group in the late 70s when bassist B.B. Dickerson left and another member, Charles Miller, was murdered. Various line-up changes followed but the original magic was lost and the group were not as successful, eventually becoming just a touring act. Papa Dee Allen collapsed and died on-stage of a brain aneurysm in 1988, leaving Jordan, Hammon, Oskar, and Scott as the core membership. Interest in War's classic material remained steady, as they have been heavily sampled by hip-hop artists creating a new generation that discovered the music of War. The band continues to tour, although with only one of the original members.

On 21 April 2008, Eric Burdon and War reunited for the first time in 37 years to perform a one-time-only concert at the London Royal Albert Hall. The reunion was actually only between Eric Burdon and Lonnie Jordan, as the other original surviving members had not been asked to be a part of the reunion. The concert coincided with Avenue / Rhino Records' Eric Burdon and War reissues which included Eric Burdon Declares "War" and The Black-Man's Burdon, plus compilations The Best of Eric Burdon and War and Anthology. In 2008, Lonnie Jordan's edition of War released a live album / DVD of songs originally from 1969 to 1975: Greatest Hits Live. War were unsuccessfully nominated for 2009 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[10] There were rumours that Burdon would join them again in summer 2009, but it did not happen. In 2011, War played "Low Rider" and many other hits at the Rack n' Roll in Stamford, Connecticut with Remember September and Westchester School of Rock.

In 2014 the "new" War released a new studio album Evolutionary, coupled with  a remasterd edition of their smash hitsampler from 1976. Also in 2014, War was a nominee for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Eric Burdon was a founding member and vocalist of the Animals, a band originally formed in Newcastle in the early 1960s. The Animals were one of the leading bands of the "British Invasion", and the band had quite a following around the world. Along with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five, and Gerry and The Pacemakers, they introduced British music and fashion to an entire generation in an explosion of great tunes and outspoken attitude on, and off the stage. Burdon sang on such Animal classics as "The House of the Rising Sun", "Good Times", "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", "Bring It On Home to Me", and "We Gotta Get Out of this Place". The Animals combined the traditional blues with rock to create a unique sound. By 1966 the original members had left, except for Barry Jenkins, and the band was reformed as Eric Burdon and the Animals later going through several line-up changes, the New Animals .This lasted until 1969.

When the New Animals disbanded, Burdon joined forces with funky California jam band War. The resulting album, Eric Burdon Declares "War" yielded the classics "Spill the Wine" and "Tobacco Road". However, the debut effort by Eric Burdon and War was an erratic effort that hinted at more potential than it actually delivered. Three of the five tunes are meandering blues-jazz-psychedelic jams, two of which, "Tobacco Road" and "Blues for Memphis Slim," chug along for nearly 15 minutes. These showcase the then-unknown War's funky fusion, and Burdon's still-impressive vocals, but suffer from a lack of focus and substance. "Spill the Wine," on the other hand, is inarguably the greatest moment of the Burdon-fronted lineup. Not only was this goofy funk, shaggy-dog story one of the most truly inspired off-the-wall hit singles of all time, it was War's first smash -- and Eric Burdon's last.

Eric Burdon Declares "War"    (flac  248mb)

01 The Vision Of Rassan (7:37)
------ Dedication
------ Roll On Kirk
02 Tobacco Road (13:04)
------ Tobacco Road
------ I Have A Dream
-------Tobacco Road
03 Spill The Wine (4:51)
04 Blues for Memphis Slim (13:15)
------ Birth
------ Mother Earth
------ Mr. Charlie
------ Danish Pastry
------ Mother Earth

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Eric Burdon's second and final album with War, Black-Man's Burdon was a double set that could have benefited from a bit of judicious editing. Composed mostly of sprawling psychedelic funk jams, it finds War mapping out much of the jazz/Latin/soul grooves that would shortly bring them success on their own. Highlights include the soulful vamps "Pretty Colors" and "They Can't Take Away Our Music"; the 13-minute "Paint It Black" medley reflects the height of their eccentricity, and there isn't one, but two covers of "Nights in White Satin."

 Eric Burdon and War - The Black-Man's Burdon    (flac 524mb)

01 Paint it Black suite (01-07) (13:24)
---- Black On Black In Black (2:04)
---- Paint It Black (2:04)
---- Laurel & Hardy (1:21)
---- Paint It Black II (1:10)
---- P.C. 3 (1:33)
---- Black Bird (2:13)
---- Paint It Black III (2:57)
02 Spirit (8:34)
03 Beautiful New Born Child (5:07)
Nights in White Satin suite (10-14) (17:29)
04 Nights In White Satin I (4:28)
05 The Bird & The Squirrel (2:45)
06 Nuts, Seeds & Life (4:01)
07 Out Of Nowhere (3:21)
08 Nights In White Satin II (2:52)
09 Sun / Moon (10:07)
10 Pretty Colors (6:47)
11 Gun (5:50)
12 Jimbo (4:52)
13 Bare Back Ride (7:09)
14 Home Cookin' (4:13)
15 They Can't Take Away Our Music (6:51)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

War's first album without Eric Burdon was a strange, imposing, and beautiful hybrid -- a bridge between their then-current work with Burdon and their roots, going back to the early '60s and their origins as the Creators and the Nightshift. Although it was never a hit -- topping out at number 190 on the charts -- or yielded any substantial AM radio hits, the album is musically imposing in its sheer breadth, and its boldness, melding the new and the best of the old update, incorporating songs, arrangements, and ideas that dated well back into the prior decade, and the group's origins as the Creators and the Nightshift. From the quietly soaring 1971-vintage opener "Sun Oh Son," the music drifts back into the heavily Memphis soul-influenced "Lonely Feelin'," updated slightly but basically a rousing '60s blues-cum-gospel number that somehow ended up a failed single off the album. From there the album goes totally into left field with the gospel-style "Back Home," featuring lyrics provided by no less a figure than the Animals' Hilton Valentine. "War Drums" is a killer showcase for Charles Miller's tenor sax, Dee Allen's percussion, and Lonnie Jordan's organ, and "Vibeka" is a haunting, slow, bluesy workout, inspired by romance, tragedy, and realization, showcasing composer Lee Oskar's blues harp and Howard Scott's guitar. "Fidel's Fantasy" gets into wholly experimental territory with its length, and the topical political message seems an oddity today, but there's no questioning its musical boldness.

War - War     (flac 239mb)

01 Sun Oh Son 5:57
02 Lonely Feelin' 4:32
03 Back Home 6:43
04 War Drums 3:52
05 Vibeka 8:03
06 Fidel's Fantasy 11:03

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

As controlled as their self-titled debut was loose, War's sophomore effort, All Day Music, appearing a little over six months later in November 1971, was packed with subtly understated grooves. A hit with the fans, the LP peaked in the Top Ten, ultimately spending a massive 39 weeks on the charts. Side one is a gorgeous slab of mellow grooves and jazzed funk highlighted by both the title track and "Get Down," while "That's What Love Can Do" is an outstanding, textured, sleepy love affair revolving around the band's superior vocal harmonies and a tenor sax solo. The light, spare rhythm is like a warm treacle binding. With just three songs picking up the second half, War steps up the pace across the Latin-influenced jam "Nappy Head," the funky, bass-laden "Slipping Into the Darkness," and the all-out electric blues jam that rips through the prototype "Baby Brother." The latter was recorded live on June 30, 1971, at California's Hollywood Bowl and would, in revised and seriously edited form, be reborn as the monster "Me and Baby Brother" on War's Deliver the Word opus. Not nearly as fiery (with the exception of "Baby Brother," of course) as either their live performances or later albums, All Day Music is still one of this band's best-ever efforts. At times mellow enough to border on horizontal, the songs are filled with such texture and such rich intent that even in the band's quietest breath there is a funky resonance that fulfills Lee Oskar's vision fully.

War - All Day Music   (flac 240mb)

01 All Day Music 4:04
02 Get Down 4:29
03 That's What Love Will Do 7:17
04 There Must Be A Reason 3:50
05 Nappy Head (Theme From "Ghetto Man") 6:05
06 Slippin' Into Darkness 7:00
07 Baby Brother 7:38

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

RhoDeo 1742 Re-Ups 118

Hello, 2 'early' requests this week and 2 unable to comply at the moment


In came 10 correct requests this week, here we are another batch of 31 re-ups (9 gig)

These days i'm making an effort to re-up, it will satisfy a small number of people which means its likely the update will  expire relatively quickly again as its interest that keeps it live. Nevertheless here's your chance ... asks for re-up in the comments section at the page where the expired link resides, or it will be discarded by me. ....requests are satisfied on a first come first go basis. ...updates will be posted here remember to request from the page where the link died! To keep re-ups interesting to my regular visitors i will only re-up files that are at least 12 months old (the older the better as far as i am concerned), and please check the previous update request if it's less then a year old i won't re-up either.

Looka here , requests fulfilled up to October 19.... N'Joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

4x Aetix NOW In Flac (Mink DeVille - Coup de Grâce, Mink DeVille - Where Angels Fear to Thread, Mink DeVille - Sportin' Life, Willy DeVille - Miracle)


4x Roots Back in Flac (Antonio Carlos Jobim - Jobim, Elis Regina e Tom Jobim - Elis e Tom, Antonio Carlos Jobim - Urubu, Antonio Carlos Jobim - Terra Brasilis)


3x Aetix Back In Flac (Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth and Peel Session, Young Marble Giants - Singles and Salad Days,  Weekend - La Varieté)


4x Roots Back In Flac (Rail Band - Buffet Hotel de la Gare, Rail Band - Belle Epoque 3 - Dioba 1, Rail Band - Belle Epoque 3 - Dioba 2, Super Rail Band de Bamako - Kongo Sigui )


4x Grooves NOW In Flac (Dr. John - Gris-Gris, Dr. John - Babylon , Dr. John - Remedies, Dr. John, The Night Tripper - The Sun, Moon & Herbs )


3x Aetix NOW In Flac (The Cramps - Songs The Lord Taught Us, The Cramps - Psychedlic Jungle and Gravest Hits, The Cramps - Smell of Female)


4x Aetix Back In Flac (The Selecter - Too Much Pressure , The Selecter - Celebrate The Bullet, The Beat - I Just Can't Stop It, The Beat - Peel Sessions & Live Boston)


2x Sundaze Back In Flac (John Foxx - Tiny Colour Movies, John Foxx and Robin Guthrie - Mirrorball )


3x Grooves Back In Flac (Fred Wesley - New Friends, Fred Wesley - Wuda Cuda Shuda, Fred Wesley with Bootsy Collins - Funk For Your Ass )


xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx








.

RhoDeo 1742 Aetix

Hello, Fra Lippo Lippi is an 1855 dramatic monologue written by the Victorian poet Robert Browning which first appeared in his collection Men and Women. Throughout this poem, Browning depicts a 15th-century real-life painter, Filippo Lippi. The poem asks the question whether art should be true to life or an idealized image of life. The poem is written in blank verse, non-rhyming iambic pentameter.

Well this painter Filippo Lippi, has somehow escaped being made a film about, but a book has been written about him. He sure had a extraordinairy life, becoming an orphan early in life, picked up by the church becoming a priest age 16, leaving that save space age 28 ending up a slave 10 years later after being caught by pirates, but by then displaying his skill in art, picked upon witnessing artists painting at his previous monestry, he maneged have himself bought free, extending a career as a painter. Once Cosimo de' Medici had to lock him up in order to compel him to work, and even then the painter escaped by a rope made of his sheets. His escapades threw him into financial difficulties from which he did not hesitate to extricate himself by forgery. His life included many similar tales of lawsuits, complaints, broken promises and scandal. Somehow still close to church at age 48 he worked as a chaplain at a nonnery, 4 years later working on another madonna he fell in love with the 21 year old model Lucrezia Buti (a novice), he took her to his home impregnated her, much to the dismay of the nuns, he had another child with her and age 63 he was poisoned for refusing to marry Lucrezia after getting special dispensation by the Pope Paul II (likely by the 'dishonoured' Buti family).

I wonder how many 15th century orphans made this much out of their lives ?



Today's artists  are a band from Norway. They had several hits in the 1980s, such as "Shouldn't Have to Be Like That", "Everytime I See You" and "Light and Shade", and recorded a new album as late as 2002. The band name is derived from Robert Browning's poem about the Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi..........N'Joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Fra Lippo Lippi was founded in Nesodden, Norway in 1978 by bassist Rune Kristoffersen, drummer Morten Sjøberg and keyboardist Bjørn Sorknes. Two years prior, the group was rehearsing under the name Genetic Control. They released a 4-track instrumental EP that year.

In 1981, Sorknes left as the band was writing songs for their debut album. The band, which then consisted of the duo of Kristoffersen and Sjøberg, recorded and released In Silence under Uniton Records. In 1982, Per Øystein Sørensen came on board as the band's lead vocalist for their second album Small Mercies.

Just as the band were preparing a follow-up album, Sjøberg and keyboardist Øyvind Kvalnes departed at the prospect of giving up their day jobs for the uncertain careers as professional musicians, leaving Kristoffersen and Sørensen as the only two members. Songs was released that year to positive reviews, and 5,000 copies were sold in Norway without the aid of singles or promotion.

Months after Songs was released, the band was signed to Virgin Records. Songs was re-recorded and remixed for the international market in 1986. This version of the album also included a new song titled "Everytime I See You". In 1987, the band recorded and released their follow-up album Light and Shade in Los Angeles, CA, with the producing aid of Walter Becker. Shortly after the album's release, they were dropped by Virgin Records.

The band's popularity in the Philippines prompted them to tour the country in 1988. In Manila, their shows sold out six times over two weekends. The band continued to record and release further albums independently, starting with 1989's The Colour Album. A live album titled Crash of Light was released in the Philippines in 1990. In 1995, the band released their first compilation album The Best of Fra Lippo Lippi '85–'95. Selected tracks originally from Songs, Light and Shade and The Colour Album were re-recorded. Two years later, another compilation was released in the Philippines. The Virgin Years - Greatest Hits featured tracks directly licensed from Virgin Records.

In 2002, Kristoffersen retired from the band to focus on his record label Rune Grammofon, and the band released In a Brilliant White which contains mostly Sorensen's works and was initially produced and released only in the Philippines. The first single "Later" became a hit in the Philippines even before the album was released, hence EMI Philippines (now PolyEast Records) decided to produce a full-length album with it. It also features a collaboration single "Wish We Were Two" featuring Per Sorensen and Kyla. This album was also released in Norway eventually, following releases over other countries in Asia.

On September 2009, Sørensen released Våge, his first solo album and his first-ever work in Norwegian. An English version titled Master of Imperfection was released in 2012

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Most of Fra Lippo Lippi's catalog is own by Virgin, but leader Rune Kristoffersen still holds the rights to the group's first two LPs, In Silence (1981) and Small Mercies (1983). Both are integrally reissued here as part of a CD filled to the rim, the first release on Rune Arkiv, a sub-label of Kristoffersen's own, Rune Grammofon. The rift between these two albums and Fra Lippo Lippi's later more mainstream outings has been stressed elsewhere. As is, this collection (which also includes two B-side tracks from 1982, "In a Little Room" and "An Idea") offers a nice epochal slab of Gothic-pop.

Yet another facet of the dark-punk sound was exhibited by Norway's Fra Lippo Lippi. The usual characteristics are there: bass-prominence, cold atmospheres and tribal drums. But Fra Lippo Lippi's sound runs deeper than that. Their songs seem as if they come out of a catacomb, out of some alternate Middle-Ages dimension.
"In Silence" is built around a delicate melody carried by the bass and drums, while the guitar diffracts through mirror melodies of it's own, chanting vocals appear here and there in the background - as if to express the menace that plagues the medieval land, while the singer's ghostly baritone enhances the cursed surroundings.

"Recession" goes even deeper, 4 minutes of bass-heavy morbid monotony, slow besetting ritualistic drums and faint vocals, for an elegiac melody to finally appear through doom-laden synthesizers (as if a spectral presence is taking over), only for the song to end as it began with it's minimalistic cold-wave patterns. "The Inside Veil" goes for a very effective slow/ fast dynamic and contrasting feel between the anaemic and the epic; "I Know" goes for a symphonic coda, and in "Quiet" a humble synth line underlines the singer's feeble cry.

Without a doubt, the album reaches it's apex with "Lost", that starts as a cosmic black hole, then tribal drums kick in and the dark priest chants his ritual, the medium vortex appears courtesy of the choral vox, sub-symphonic keyboards and ecstatic guitar, only for the ceremony to end without a logical conclusion, just everything fading quietly in the brooding horizon. If Joy Division never had existed this would have been a groundbreaking album.
.

Fra Lippo Lippi - In Silence + Small Mercies   (flac  394mb)

Fra Lippo Lippi - In Silence
01 Out Of The Ruins 3:17
02 A Moment Like This 3:34
03 In Silence 4:37
04 Recession 6:18
05 The Inside Veil 4:24
06 I Know 4:27
07 Quiet 3:34
08 Lost 7:30

Fra Lippo Lippi created the blueprint for the band they'd eventually become on Small Mercies. On this album, the Norwegian group's roots in gothic rock have yet to be severed, especially with the funereal percussion, grim basslines, and sinister vocals on "Barrier." Nevertheless, the melodic, atmospheric keyboards that linger throughout the record would later shape Fra Lippo Lippi's trademark piano-based new wave pop. In fact, the second track on the album, "A Small Mercy," is the genesis of one of Fra Lippo Lippi's future hits, "Everytime I See You." The songs on Small Mercies are moody and depressing, but they're appropriate for rainy days. Like Joy Division, Fra Lippo Lippi were able to crawl into life's bleakest recesses and exit with music that emitted an ominous beauty. On "The Treasure," mournful piano, sullen bass, and hypnotic drums illustrate the story of a crumbling relationship; it is stunningly gorgeous. The wintry "Some Things Never Change" and the picturesque instrumental "French Painter Dead" contribute to the record's somber elegance. If Ian Curtis of Joy Division hadn't hung himself, he would've recorded an album like Small Mercies. Mellow and relentlessly sad, it sounds oppressive in the light of day, but it glows in the dark.

Fra Lippo Lippi - Small Mercies

01 Some Things Never Change 4:55
02 A Small Mercy 3:53
03 Barrier 3:33
04 Sense Of Doubt 5:37
05 The Treasure 5:03
06 Slow Sway 4:11
07 Now And Forever 4:45
08 French Painter Dead 3:51
bonus
09 In a Little Room 2:58
10 An Idea 2:42


xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Fra Lippo Lippi shed their skin on Songs. On Songs, Fra Lippo Lippi leave their gothic past behind, uncovering the pop heart beneath their morose perspective on life. The pulsating new wave beat and sunny chorus of "Come Summer" are exhilarating; "Come Summer" is the opening track on Songs, and it quickly establishes Fra Lippo Lippi's newfound appetite for upbeat melodies. Sad tunes still abound, but vocalist Per Oystein Sorensen expands the emotional scope of the lyrics. Instead of simply sounding depressed, Sorensen evolves into a soulful storyteller; his empathic voice vividly captures the joy and sorrow of the songs' lyrics. The listener can easily feel sympathy for the man pining for his late lover in "Shouldn't Have to Be Like That" and the woman who drowns herself in "Leaving." Musically, Fra Lippo Lippi proceed in the direction hinted at on their previous album, Small Mercies. Piano and synthesizer started becoming essential to Fra Lippo Lippi's style on Small Mercies, and they're promoted to a larger role on Songs. "Shouldn't Have to Be Like That" is elevated with uplifting synthesized hooks. On "The Distance Between Us," crestfallen piano buttresses the agony in Sorensen's voice; the moving keyboards on "Coming Home" sculpt the lyrics' profound resignation. On Songs, Fra Lippo Lippi have basically found themselves, and it's a discovery that is engaging and moving from beginning to end.

Fra Lippo Lippi - Songs (flac 242mb)

01 Come Summer 3:44
02 Shouldn't Have To Be Like That 3:54
03 Even Tall Trees Bend 3:55
04 Just Like Me 4:47
05 Leaving 3:50
06 Regrets 3:48
07 Crash Of Light 4:14
08 The Distance Between Us 4:10
09 Coming Home 3:44

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

"Let's celebrate a brand new day," proclaims vocalist Per Oystein Sorensen on "Crazy Wisdom," and that statement easily sums up Fra Lippo Lippi's surprisingly smooth evolution from gothic rock to reflective, jazzy pop on Light and Shade. Fra Lippo Lippi already began shedding their black clothes on Songs, but Light and Shade has the breezy air and sunny disposition of a walk in the park. Released during a decade wherein yuppies stressed the importance of work and money over love and leisure, Light and Shade mainly focuses on life's simple pleasures. It is an uplifting, stylish LP that swings like a pendulum between joy and sorrow. The fetching "Angel" soars with a sad yet hummable chorus; it features some of Fra Lippo Lippi's most charming piano work. "Some People" recalls the Beatles with its singalong melodies. Much of Light and Shade resembles the late ‘80s efforts of China Crisis, especially its relaxed, mellow grooves and touches of jazz. The lyrics unfold like short stories. In the moving "Beauty and Madness," Sorensen sings about a homeless man and wonders if anybody will ever see his inner worth. Sorensen manages to avoid being either saccharine or preachy because of the sincerity and soulfulness in his voice. On Light and Shade, Fra Lippo Lippi part the curtains and let the sunshine beam through the window.

Fra Lippo Lippi - Light And Shade   (flac 266mb)

 01 Angel 5:11
 02 Freedom 5:18
 03 Don't Take Away That Light 4:36
 04 Beauty and Madness 4:18
 05 Home 4:43
 06 Light and Shade 4:49
 07 Some People 4:26
 08 Crazy Wisdom 4:35
 09 Stardust Motel 4:49
 10 Indifference 5:40

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

February and March see the recording of their fifth album "The Colour Album" at the famous Rainbow Studio in Oslo. The producer this time is another Swede, Johan Ekelund. A different approach was consciously taken by the duo in the production of this album.. resulting to mixed reviews especially here in the Philippines. It was definitely, different - with a rougher edge.. But still the songs are catchy but back to their melancholic tendencies.."The Colour Album" is cracking and there are some incredibly catchy tracks on there such as "Mother's Little Soldier", which was a single in Europe, "You Bring Me Joy" and "Count On Me". There are some nice downtempo tracks too such as "Childhood Days", which is still pretty haunting to listen to even after all these years.

Fra Lippo Lippi - The Colour Album   (flac 238mb)

01 A Little Rain Must Fall 04:06
02 Mothers Little Soldier 03:38
03 Under the Same Sun 03:52
04 You Bring Me Joy 03:43
05 Love Is a Lonely Harbour 05:10
06 Count on Me 04:09
07 ABC 04:08
08 Childhood Days 06:01
09 Into the Blue 04:17

Fra Lippo Lippi - The Colour Album   (ogg  94mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

RhoDeo 1742 Roots

Hello,


Today an Argentine composer, pianist, arranger, currently the leading exponent of nuevo tango, thanks to the skills and reputation he gathered while working extensively as Ástor Piazzolla's regular pianist from 1978 until the maestro's retirement for health reasons in 1989. During their collaboration, they performed with Milva, Placido Domingo, Gary Burton among others. His playing style, both sharply percussive and metallically lyrical, is instantly recognizable and bears some similarities to that of Vladimir Horowitz as well as some of the wistfulness of Bill Evans. As a composer he has taken Piazzolla's contrapuntal approach to tango music and added more jazz influence, notably with the regular use of a drumkit, lighter harmonies similar to those used in Bossa Nova, and extended passages of improvisation.     ....N'Joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Pianist Pablo Ziegler is known as one of Astor Piazzolla's foremost protégés. He began performing classical music in concert as a teen and became inspired by Dixieland jazz soon thereafter; he combined the two styles in his Pablo Ziegler Trio, which performed classical pieces with jazz arrangements.

After his years with the trio, Ziegler was invited to play with Astor Piazzolla's New Tango Quintet in 1978, and performed and recorded with the group for over a decade. He also performed with international artists like Milva, an Italian singer with whom he collaborated on an homage to Maria Callas at the Arena de Verona, as well as American vibes player Gary Burton.

Ziegler played with Piazzolla throughout the '80s, appearing on albums like New Tango and Astor Piazzolla: The Central Park Concert. After Piazzolla's death in 1992, Ziegler formed the Quintet for New Tango, performing internationally and releasing albums like 1999's self-titled work. He has also collaborated on albums with Emanuel Ax and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, both of which showcase Piazzolla's music. From 2000 on, Ziegler spent a great deal of time as a soloist with orchestras all over Europe, Asia, and South America -- especially in Argentina. He also recorded Quintet for New Tango for BMG in 2000, before issuing Bajo Cero: Duo for Tango with guitarist Quique Sinesi and guest bandoneonist Walter Castro on Enja two years later. In 2007 he released the live Tango & All That Jazz with a new quintet that also included vibraphonist Stefon Harris in a guest role.

His orchestral appearances and tours kept him from recording again until 2013, when he signed with the Zoho label. His label debut, Amsterdam Meets New Tango, featured Ziegler as soloist with the Metropole Orkest. Two years later, another duet offering with guitarist Sinesi (with Castro again guesting) resulted in Desperate Dance for Enja's Yellowbird imprint. It was back to Zoho for 2016's Sax to Tango in collaboration with saxist Julio Botti, followed by the all-Piazzolla program Tango Nuevo in duo with American classical pianist Christopher O'Riley a year later.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

The late New Tango composer and bandleader Astor Piazzolla has cast a nearly inescapable shadow over those who have attempted to further his tango innovations. Consider the hurdles for Pablo Ziegler, Piazzolla's pianist for a decade. Remarkably, Ziegler does not shy away from Piazzolla (in fact he revisits several of the master's pieces) and still offers a personal sound. "El Empedrado" runs the gamut from Piazzolla's influence to Ziegler's lush romanticism. "Milonga en el Viento" has a surprisingly traditional feel--paced by jazz style drumming. The ambitious Radio Tango II suggests an intriguing fusion of jazz, rock, Piazzolla, classical music, and traditional tango. Ziegler has quite a challenge before him, but if Asfalto is any evidence, he has the tools, the smarts, and the imagination to inch the New Tango line forward. The most startling difference is the addition of drum set to the tango ensemble. This adds a whole new dimension of drive and excitment, although possibly a step away from the intimacy of Piazolla's ensemble style. Recommend for those who love the Piazolla sound but also enjoy more a more frantic, rhythmic sound.This is music to be appreciated on all levels, intellectual, emotional, and certainly in your groove thang!

Pablo Ziegler - Asfalto-Street Tango   (flac  355mb)

01 Asfalto 5:12
02 La Muerte del Angel 3:08
03 Milonga en el Viento 6:04
04 El Empedrado 5:27
05 La Cumparsola 5:26
06 Soledad 6:04
07 Decarisimo 2:54
08 Radio Tango II 7:20
09 Elegante Canyenguito 5:05
10 Maria Cuidad 7:55
11 Michelangelo '70 3:11
12 Dos Cadencias Sobre "Adiós Nonino" 5:48
13 Elegia Sobre "Adiós Nonino" 3:50

Pablo Ziegler - Asfalto-Street Tango (ogg  150mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

The tango nueva has a new champion in pianist Ziegler, who is well qualified since he was with grand master Astor Piazzolla's bands in the last years of Piazzolla's life. This music is even more challenging than Piazzolla's; it's jazz-oriented and not as swinging, less dominated by the bandoneon, with more piano and electric guitar lead. Ziegler's core band is Walter Castro (bandoneon), Enrique Sinesi (guitar), Horatio Hurtado (bass), and Horacio Lopez (drums), they play on ten of the twelve tracks, recorded in Buenos Aires, Two other cuts with a different band featuring tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano were waxed in N.Y.C.. Once again, this is not music strictly in the tango tradition, or following the path carved by Piazzolla, but an entirely new, creative sound inspired by the modern tango. The three selections that pay tribute to Piazzolla are the 6/8 modal, behemoth romp "Imagenes 676," the last piece recorded by Piazzolla and Ziegler and redone here; "Primavera Portena," with its staccato, head-nodding, and spontaneous half-time accents, and Ziegler's "Astor's Place," inspired by a walk with Piazzolla, actually a stealthy, slinky number that speaks directly to the intimacy of their friendship. The rest are Ziegler's riveting compositions: "Conexion Portena" with cinematic dramatism in its ever-shifting tempos, the similar "Ritmico y Nostalgico" jumpy and all over the place in its urgency, and a highlight -- "Alrededor del Choclo" -- an adaptation of the famous classic tango "El Choclo" or "The Corn," using a circle-the-wagons approach to hinting at the theme, but never actually playing it straight out. The purest tango form comes from the sad sax of Lovano during "Muchacha de Boedo" in agreement with the bandoneon of Hector del Curto, and Lovano's other feature, "Once Again...Milonga," is spirited, the tenor's moves and countermoves shadowed by bandoneon and Ziegler's piano. There's also a Chick Corea-inspired dancing figure as the centerpiece of "Sandunga," for Ziegler's wife, and the scatting, darting, daunting sounds of "Desde Otros Tiempos," which starts as a steady midtempo, goes lugubriously slow, then goes frantic with passion, as most romances go.

In the liner notes, the quite informative Fernando Gonzalez (Miami Herald) calls tango a music of "winks and dares, " a perfectly concise description for what you hear on this truly remarkable and beautiful disc of music. Listen to this in contrast to Guillermo Klein's "Los Guachos II" (Sunnyside) for both sides of the emerging sound of creative music born in Argentina, fueled and inspired by jazz improvisation. The results are revelatory. Highly recommended.

Pablo Ziegler - Quintet for New Tango (flac  370mb)

01 Conexión Porteña 6:30
02 Desde Otros Tiempos 5:21
03 Milonguera 7:24
04 Once Again... Milonga 4:25
05 Imágenes 676 4:10
06 Alrededor Del Choclo 4:56
07 El Vals Del Duende 3:13
08 Ritmico y Nostálgico 6:28
09 Astor's Place 6:15
10 Muchacha de Boedo 6:24
11 Sandunga 4:31
12 Primavera Porteña 5:26

Pablo Ziegler - Quintet for New Tango (ogg  153mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

On Bajo Cero, the internationally renowned pianist Pablo Ziegler is featured in a highly virtuosic duet setting with guitarist Quique Sinesi. The respected veteran of the vibrant Buenos Aires jazz scene and former member of Astor Piazzolla's highly regarded ensembles also invited Walter Castro to play the bandoneon and round out this great musical program of sultry tango and jazz improvisations. Among the beautiful milongas included on this program are "La Rayuela," "Milonga del Adios," and "Planufer Milonga." These are intelligent reflections of the South American dance songs that remain very popular in the southern part of the continent. To vary the song selection, Ziegler includes two of Astor Piazzolla's rarely recorded compositions: "Chin Chin," a recording dedicated to the piano, and "Fuga y Misterio," one of the most complex fugues ever composed by Piazzolla. "Bajo Cero" is but one of the four great originals penned by Ziegler. It is a standout because of its three-part structure and emotional understatements. As with previous efforts as a pianist, composer, and bandleader on his 1990s releases, Pablo Ziegler is in great form and furthers the tango nuevo movement to a new level of interest.

Pablo Ziegler - Bajo Cero     (flac  279mb)

01 La Rayuela 4:16
02 Flor De Lino 4:11
03 Chin Chin 7:47
04 La Fundicion 6:23
05 Milonga Del Adios 8:10
06 Bajo Cero 7:25
07 Yuyo Verde 4:22
08 Planufer Mionga 6:57
09 Los Mareados 7:03
10 Fuga Y Misterio 4:57

Pablo Ziegler - Bajo Cero   (ogg  134mb )

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Pablo Ziegler spent over a decade as the pianist with bandoneon player Astor Piazzolla's band and after the latter's death, he became one of the major interpreters of the modern tango. With a quartet including Hector del Curto on bandoneon, guitarist Paul Myers, bassist Pablo Aslan and adding a special guest, vibraphonist Stefon Harris on several tracks, the spirit of Piazzolla is very much alive. Two of Piazzolla's compositions are performed, "La Muerte del Angel" and "Michelangelo," both of them intense affairs. Among Ziegler's potent originals are the bittersweet ballad "Milonga en el Viento" and the haunting "Muchacha de Boedo." The presence of Harris invites comparison to Piazzolla's recording with vibraphonist Gary Burton added to his band. Intimately recorded at the Jazz Standard in New York City, the audience is clearly spellbound by the music and keep extremely quiet until offering enthusiastic applause after each number. Highly recommended.

Pablo Ziegler Quartet - Tango & All That Jazz (flac  276mb)

01 La Muerte del Angel 5:40
02 Milonga en el Viento 6:17
03 Pablo's Band Intro 1:14
04 Michelangelo '70 4:58
05 Alredor del Choclo 5:00
06 Desde Otros Tiempos 5:28
07 Once Again...Milonga 5:34
08 Muchacha de Boedo 8:28
09 La Cumparsola 6:32
10 La Rayuela 5:54

Pablo Ziegler Quartet - Tango & All That Jazz (ogg  124mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

RhoDeo 1742 Mars 06

Hello,



Today's artist was an American author and screenwriter. He worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery fiction. Widely known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953), and his science fiction and horror story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and I Sing the Body Electric (1969), our man was one of the most celebrated 20th- and 21st-century American writers. While most of his best known work is in speculative fiction, he also wrote in other genres, such as the coming-of-age novel Dandelion Wine (1957) or the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992).

Recipient of numerous awards, including a 2007 Pulitzer Citation, Bradbury also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, many of his works were adapted to comic book, television and film formats. On his death in 2012, The New York Times called Bradbury "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream.... N'joy.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

The Ray Bradbury Theater is an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO, three episodes per season from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel. All 65 episodes were written by Ray Bradbury and many were based on short stories or novels he had written, including "A Sound of Thunder", "Marionettes, Inc.", "Banshee", "The Playground", "Mars is Heaven", "Usher II", "The Jar", "The Long Rain", "The Veldt", "The Small Assassin", "The Pedestrian", "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl", "Here There Be Tygers", "The Toynbee Convector", and "Sun and Shadow".

Many of the episodes focused on only one of Bradbury's original works. However, Bradbury occasionally included elements from his other works. "Marionettes, Inc." featured Fantoccini, a character from "I Sing the Body Electric!". "Gotcha!" included an opening sequence taken from "The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair". Characters were renamed, and elements added to the original works to expand the story to 23–28 minutes or to better suit the television medium.

Each episode would begin with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementos of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first season, Bradbury sometimes appeared on-screen in brief vignettes introducing the story. During the second season, Bradbury provided the opening narration with no specific embellishment concerning the episode. During the third season, a foreshortened version of the narration was used and Bradbury would add specific comments relevant to the episode presented. During the fourth and later seasons, a slightly shorter generic narration was used with no additional comments.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

The Ray Bradbury Theater 17 There Was An Old Woman (avi  319mb)

A stubborn old woman has spent her entire life defying death; after the Grim Reaper finally pays his call, her ghost tries to reclaim her body from the mortuary.



xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

The people of Earth are preparing for war—a war that could potentially destroy the planet. Explorers are sent to Mars to find a new place for humans to colonize. Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor—of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn—first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is presented here as a full cast audio production with an original music score and thousands of sound effects by the award winning Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air. It marks their fourth collaboration with one of the most celebrated fiction writers of our time—Ray Bradbury.

Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles 06 (mp3  21mb)

06 The Martian Chronicles 25:12



xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

previously

Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles 01 (mp3  22mb)
Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles 02 (mp3  22mb)
Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles 03 (mp3  20mb)
Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles 04 (mp3  22mb)
Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles 05 (mp3  21mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Sundaze 1742

Hello,

Vidna Obmana is a pseudonym used by Belgian composer and ambient musician Dirk Serries. The name Vidna Obmana, a phrase in Serbian, literally translates to "optical illusion" and was chosen by Serries because he felt it accurately described the music. Obmana's music has often been characterized as anamorphic and organic. He uses the techniques of looping and shaping harmonies, minimizing the configurations to a few notes.....N'Joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Belgian producer Dirk Serries, aka Vidna Obmana, is a prolific composer of deep ambient and electro-acoustic music, utilizing slow, shifting electronic figures and sparse environmental recordings to construct long, minimalist, often extremely personal textural works. Taking his nom de plume from the Yugoslavian for "optical illusion" (a concept which carries much weight in his composing, as well), Serries has released material through a wide range of different labels, including Projekt, Amplexus, Extreme, Hic Sunt Leones, Syrenia, ND, and Multimood. Born and raised in Antwerp, Serries began recording experimental noise musics in the late '80s, working solo and in combination with artists such as PBK, exploring the more abrasive side of electronic composition. Beginning with the release in 1990 of Shadowing in Sorrow, however, (the first part of what would come to be known as Vidna's ambient Trilogy) Serries began moving toward an almost isolationist ambient aesthetic, exploring themes of calm, solitude, grief, and introspection in long, moving pieces which tended to chart similar ground as American space music artists such as Robert Rich, Michael Stearns, and Steve Roach (Serries has since collaborated with both Rich and Roach). The first two movements of the Trilogy -- Sorrow, as well as its follow-up Passage in Beauty -- were self-released by Serries in 1990 and 1991, with the third volume, Ending Mirag, appearing the following year on the American ND label. The album was praised as some of the finest post-classical experimental electronic music of its time, and the Stateside connection finally opened his music up to an American audience, leading also to his association with Sam Rosenthal's Projekt label (the entire Trilogy was finally reissued by Projekt sister label Relic as a boxed set in 1996, with several new Vidna releases also appearing in the interim).

Although his textural recordings form the core of his output to date, Serries' more recent solo and collaborative works (such as The Transcending Quest, Echoing Delight, and The Spiritual Bonding) have also found him pushing the minimalism of his earlier works into the Fourth World territories of artists such as Jorge Reyes, Michael Stearns, and Jon Hassell, setting lush, dreamy soundscapes in a larger, more engaging rhythmic framework (usually with contributions from percussionists Djen Ajakan Shean and Steve Roach). Still, as many compilations and retrospectives of his earlier or unreleased work have appeared in recent times so as to confuse somewhat the trajectory of his development, which at any rate seems to trade more or less equally between the freeform conceptual landscapes of his earlier Projekt, Relic, and ND works and the more structured interactivity of the Extreme and Amplexus releases. Collaborations have also increasingly occupied Serries' time, with full-length works with Steve Roach (Well of Souls, The Spiritual Bonding), Robert Rich (The Spiritual Bonding), Asmus Tietchens (a self-titled collaboration for Syrenia), Sam Rosenthal (Terrace Of Memories), and Djen Ajakan Shean (Parallel Flaming) appearing all within the space of only a few years. Both Landscape in Obscurity and The Shape of Solitude followed in 1999, and in the spring of 2000 Obmana returned with Echo Passage and Surreal Sanctuary. Subterranean Collective was issued the following year.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

The first solo Vidna Obmana work in three years is a surprising return to textural composition, particularly since intervening collaborations with Djen Ajakan Shean and Steve Roach have revealed the more restless side of Dirk Serries compositional persona. Still, an overarching focus on melody and dynamics distinguishes Appearance from earlier program works such as the Trilogy, combining mood with movement in far more obviously "musical" ways.

Vidna Obmana - The River of Appearance (flac 288mb)

01 The Angelic Appearance 5:48
02 Ephemeral Vision 8:47
03 A Scenic Fall 10:23
04 Night-Blooming 8:28
05 The Solitary Circle 6:17
06 Weaving Cluster 5:15
07 Streamers Of Stillness 7:25
08 The Ominous Dwelling 6:35

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Recycling is a process wherein a complete piece of music goes "through the wringer." It is more thorough than remixing and more respectful than deconstruction. It allows the processor to maintain a spiritual dialogue with the original composer/performer even if the new piece is unrecognizable (as often happens). Vidna Obmana (aka Dirk Serries) and Asmus Tietchens invented and named the process. Motives for Recycling is their first set of recycled material. This double CD features some of Tietchens' older material (from the '70s and '80s) recycled by Serries. Serries put his minimalist stamp on the process. He also added some experimental and avant-garde sounds to give the set some originality. This highly imaginative album will appeal to fans of Lustmord, Laszlo Hortobagyi, Jeff Greinke, and TUU.

Linea [1+3] was originally released as a cassette in 1988. Recorded at Audiplex Studios, Hamburg, Germany. Eight-track recycling by Vidna Obmana using processors, speed variations, volume changes, loops, FM noise and feedback. Produced, recorded and mixed at the Serenity Studio, Belgium, in December 1996.

Vidna Obmana and Asmus Tietchens - Motives For Recycling  1 (flac 334mb)

Linea [1+3] (1988) = Linear Writings (1996)
01 Vot 4 20:25
02 Vot 5 10:24
03 Vot 4/2 18:28
04 Vot 6 18:00

xxxxx

Nachtstücke was released in 1980. Contains pieces recorded between 1975 and 1978 on 2-track Revox and 4-track Teac tape recorders. All sounds were created on the Moog Sonic Six synthesizer, using a Philips reverb and an Echolette tape delay for effects. Composed, arranged and recorded at Audiplex Studios, Hamburg, Germany. Eight-track recycling by Vidna Obmana using processors, speed variations, volume changes, loops and harmonizers. Produced, recorded and mixed at the Serenity Studio, Belgium, in January 1998.

Vidna Obmana and Asmus Tietchens - Motives For Recycling  2  (flac 294mb)

Nachtstücke (1975-1978) = Nachtstücke Revisited (1998)

01 Opening (First Nachtstück) 5:41
02 Second Night 6:03
03 4th Theme 7:44
04 Swarm 8:18
05 Miniature One 2:57
06 In A Blaze 5:11
07 Revisited 5:50
08 Miniature Two 5:05
09 Vot 7 11:44
10 Towering 12:28

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

The Surreal Sanctuary is a monumental album from Vidna Obmana , it has seven tracks, and each features Serries showcasing a different instrument, including the human voice. (Jim Cole, an extraordinary overtone singer, is a guest performer on the track "Lamentation.") Serries uses the recycling technique that he and Asmus Tietchens perfected, which involves breaking down a base track and remanufacturing it with different shapes, timbres, and textures. At each step, the music is processed, continuously. It's like processing the process while it's being processed by a process within a process. It is endless and curiously like an endless Frippertronics loop; it just keeps going and going and going, yet it remains interesting. This description sounds like it could apply to dissonant and experimental avant-garde music, but this disc is everything that fans expect of Serries -- cutting-edge electronic ambience. This album will appeal to fans of Steve Roach and Robert Rich, and is essential for all fans of electronic music.

Vidna Obmana - The Surreal Sanctuary (flac  329mb)

01 Infinity 5:10
02 Lamentation 7:15
03 The First Coil 8:52
04 The Profound Isolates 10:05
05 Jewel Of The Underground 7:50
06 The Fragmented Dome 17:53
07 Flame 14:02

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Echo Passage is a collaboration between the gifted Belgian composer Vidna Obmana and Italy's Alio Die. Both Vidna Obmana and Alio Die are known for this excellent solo and collaborative works in the ambient genre, but Echo Passage sees these two world-renowned artists coming together to create a enigmatic blend of sonic sound space and deep, ethereal ambience. Echo Passage is a single long-running piece that clocks in at just under 69 minutes. This is a lush and fantastic recording that truly demonstrates Vidna Obmana and Alio Die working at the top of their game. The choice of timbres on Echo Passage are impeccable, and the use of silence and melodic subtlety in the compositions is comparable to the works of Steve Roach, Robert Rich, or even the symphonic works of Claude Debussy, particularly "La Mer" and "Nocturnes." This is an excellent recording, and one that is truly representative of both Vidna Obmana and Alio Die's large body of work.

All three movements merge without pause, delivering more than hour incredible immersion, boredom-free, which is not always case when dealing with time superformats Is it for a bird chant or some spacey layer, all sonic events are beautiful and contribute to maintain interest and feed soundscape with multiple degrees of depth ...Final part alone leaves one speechless, redefining what is the core in so-called "religious" or "sacred" music.

Vidna Obmana and Alio Die - Echo Passage (flac  335mb)

01  Echoes Of Light - A Slip Of Darkness - The Passage 68:32


xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

RhoDeo 1741 Grooves

Hello, yesterdays slip ups have all been smoothed


These past weeks at grooves has been all about Stevland Hardaway Morris, a child prodigy considered to be one of the most critically and commercially successful musical performers of the late 20th century. He has recorded more than 30 U.S. top ten hits and received 25 Grammy Awards, one of the most-awarded male solo artists, and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the top 60 best-selling music artists. Blind virtually since birth, his heightened awareness of sound helped him create vibrant, colorful music teeming with life and ambition. Nearly everything he recorded bore the stamp of his sunny, joyous positivity; even when he addressed serious racial, social, and spiritual issues (which he did quite often in his prime), or sang about heartbreak and romantic uncertainty, an underlying sense of optimism and hope always seemed to emerge.  ........ N'joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Stevland was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950, the third of six children of Calvin Judkins and Lula Mae Hardaway, a songwriter. He was born six weeks premature which, along with the oxygen-rich atmosphere in the hospital incubator, resulted in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a condition in which the growth of the eyes is aborted and causes the retinas to detach; so he became blind. When he was four, his mother divorced his father and moved to Detroit with her children. She changed her name back to Lula Hardaway and later changed her son's surname to Morris, partly because of relatives. Wonder has retained Morris as his legal surname. He began playing instruments at an early age, including piano, harmonica and drums. He formed a singing partnership with a friend; calling themselves Stevie and John, they played on street corners, and occasionally at parties and dances.

In 1954, his family moved to Detroit, where the already musically inclined Stevie began singing in his church's choir; from there he blossomed into a genuine prodigy, learning piano, drums, and harmonica all by the age of nine. While performing for some of his friends in 1961, Stevie was discovered by Ronnie White of the Miracles, who helped arrange an audition with Berry Gordy at Motown. Gordy signed the youngster immediately and teamed him with producer/songwriter Clarence Paul, under the new name Little Stevie Wonder. Wonder released his first two albums in 1962: A Tribute to Uncle Ray, which featured covers of Wonder's hero Ray Charles, and The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie, an orchestral jazz album spotlighting his instrumental skills on piano, harmonica, and assorted percussion. Neither sold very well, but that all changed in 1963 with the live album The 12 Year Old Genius, which featured a new extended version of the harmonica instrumental "Fingertips." Edited for release as a single, "Fingertips, Pt. 2" rocketed to the top of both the pop and R&B charts, thanks to Wonder's irresistible, youthful exuberance; meanwhile, The 12 Year Old Genius became Motown's first chart-topping LP.

During 1964, Wonder appeared in two films as himself, Muscle Beach Party and Bikini Beach, but these were not successful either. Sylvia Moy persuaded label owner Berry Gordy to give Wonder another chance. Dropping the "Little" from his name, Moy and Wonder worked together to create the hit "Uptight (Everything's Alright)", and Wonder went on to have a number of other hits during the mid-1960s, including "With a Child's Heart", and "Blowin' in the Wind", a Bob Dylan cover, co-sung by his mentor, producer Clarence Paul. He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his label mates, including "The Tears of a Clown", a No. 1 hit for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles

In 1968 he recorded an album of instrumental soul/jazz tracks, mostly harmonica solos, under the title Eivets Rednow, which is "Stevie Wonder" spelled backwards. The album failed to get much attention, and its only single, a cover of "Alfie", only reached number 66 on the U.S. Pop charts and number 11 on the US Adult Contemporary charts. Nonetheless, he managed to score several hits between 1968 and 1970 such as "I Was Made to Love Her", "For Once in My Life" and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours". A number of Wonder's early hits, including "My Cherie Amour", "I Was Made to Love Her", and "Uptight (Everything's Alright)", were co-written with Henry Cosby.

In September 1970, at the age of 20, Wonder married Syreeta Wright, a songwriter and former Motown secretary. Wright and Wonder worked together on the next album, Where I'm Coming From; Wonder writing the music, and Wright helping with the lyrics. They wanted to "touch on the social problems of the world", and for the lyrics "to mean something" 1971 proved a turning point in Wonder's career. On his 21st birthday, his contract with Motown expired, and the royalties set aside in his trust fund became available to him. A month before his birthday, Wonder released Where I'm Coming From, his first entirely self-produced album, which also marked the first time he wrote or co-wrote every song on an LP (usually in tandem with Wright), and the first time his keyboard and synthesizer work dominated his arrangements.

Wonder did not immediately renew his contract with Motown, as the label had expected; instead, he used proceeds from his trust fund to build his own recording studio and to enroll in music theory classes at USC. He negotiated a new deal with Motown that dramatically increased his royalty rate and established his own publishing company, Black Bull Music, which allowed him to retain the rights to his music; most importantly, he wrested full artistic control over his recordings, as Gaye had just done with the landmark What's Going On.

Freed from the dictates of Motown's hit-factory mindset, Wonder had already begun following a more personal and idiosyncratic muse. One of his negotiating chips had been a full album completed at his new studio; Wonder had produced, played nearly all the instruments, and written all the material (with Wright contributing to several tracks). Released under Wonder's new deal in early 1972, Music of My Mind heralded his arrival as a major, self-contained talent with an original vision that pushed the boundaries of R&B. The album produced a hit single in the spacy, synth-driven ballad "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)," but like contemporary work by Hayes and Gaye, Music of My Mind worked as a smoothly flowing song suite unto itself. Around the same time it was released, Wonder's marriage to Wright broke up; the two remained friends, however, and Wonder produced and wrote several songs for her debut album.

For the follow-up to Music of My Mind, Wonder refined his approach, tightening up his songcraft while addressing his romance with Wright. The result, Talking Book, was released in late 1972 and made him a superstar. Song for song one of the strongest R&B albums ever made, Talking Book also perfected Wonder's spacy, futuristic experiments with electronics, and was hailed as a magnificently realized masterpiece. Wonder topped the charts with the gutsy, driving funk classic "Superstition" and the mellow, jazzy ballad "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," which went on to become a pop standard; those two songs went on to win three Grammys between them. Amazingly, Wonder only upped the ante with his next album, 1973's Innervisions, a concept album about the state of contemporary society that ranks with Gaye's What's Going On as a pinnacle of socially conscious R&B. The ghetto chronicle "Living for the City" and the intense spiritual self-examination "Higher Ground" both went to number one on the R&B charts and the pop Top Ten, and Innervisions took home a Grammy for Album of the Year. Wonder was lucky to be alive to enjoy the success; while being driven to a concert in North Carolina, a large piece of timber fell on Wonder's car. He sustained serious head injuries and lapsed into a coma, but fortunately made a full recovery.

Wonder's next record, 1974's Fulfillingness' First Finale, was slightly more insular and less accessible than its immediate predecessors, and unsurprisingly, imbued with a sense of mortality. The hits, however, were the upbeat "Boogie On, Reggae Woman" (a number one R&B and Top Five pop hit) and the venomous Richard Nixon critique "You Haven't Done Nothin'" (number one on both sides). It won him a second straight Album of the Year Grammy, by which time he'd been heavily involved as a producer and writer on Syreeta's second album, Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta. Wonder subsequently retired to his studio and spent two years crafting a large-scale project that would stand as his magnum opus. Finally released in 1976, Songs in the Key of Life was a sprawling two-LP-plus-one-EP set that found Wonder at his most ambitious and expansive. Some critics called it brilliant but prone to excess and indulgence, while others hailed it as his greatest masterpiece and the culmination of his career; in the end, they were probably both right. The hit "Isn't She Lovely," a paean to Wonder's daughter, became something of a standard. Not surprisingly, Songs in the Key of Life won a Grammy for Album of the Year; in hindsight, though, it marked the end of a remarkable explosion of creativity and of Wonder's artistic prime.

more.....

Having poured a tremendous amount of energy into Songs in the Key of Life, Wonder released nothing for the next three years. When he finally returned in 1979, it was with the mostly instrumental Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, ostensibly the soundtrack to a never-released documentary. Although it contained a few pop songs, including the hit "Send One Your Love," its symphonic flirtations befuddled most listeners and critics. It still made the Top Ten on the LP chart on Wonder's momentum alone -- one of the stranger releases to do so. To counteract possible speculation that he'd gone off the deep end, Wonder rushed out the straightforward pop album Hotter Than July in 1980. The reggae-flavored "Master Blaster (Jammin')" returned him to the top of the R&B charts and the pop Top Five, and "Happy Birthday" was part of the ultimately successful campaign to make Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday (Wonder being one of the cause's most active champions). Artistically speaking, Hotter Than July was a cut below his classic '70s output, but it was still a solid outing; fans were so grateful to have the old Wonder back that they made it his first platinum-selling LP.

In 1981, Wonder began work on a follow-up album that was plagued by delays, suggesting that he might not be able to return to the visionary heights of old. He kept busy in the meantime, though; in 1982, his racial-harmony duet with Paul McCartney, "Ebony and Ivory," hit number one, and he released a greatest-hits set covering 1972-1982 called Original Musiquarium I. It featured four new songs, of which "That Girl" (number one R&B, Top Five pop) and the lengthy, jazzy "Do I Do" (featuring Dizzy Gillespie; number two R&B) were significant hits. In 1984, still not having completed the official follow-up to Hotter Than July, he recorded the soundtrack to the Gene Wilder comedy The Woman in Red, which wasn't quite a full-fledged Stevie Wonder album but did feature a number of new songs, including "I Just Called to Say I Love You." Adored by the public (it was his biggest-selling single ever) and loathed by critics (who derided it as sappy and simple-minded), "I Just Called to Say I Love You" was an across-the-board number one smash, and won an Oscar for Best Song.

Wonder finally completed the official album he'd been working on for nearly five years, and released In Square Circle in 1985. Paced by the number one hit "Part Time Lover" -- his last solo pop chart-topper -- and several other strong songs, In Square Circle went platinum, even if Wonder's synthesizer arrangements now sounded standard rather than groundbreaking. He performed on the number one charity singles "We Are the World" by USA for Africa and "That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne Warwick & Friends, and returned quickly with a new album, Characters, in 1987. While Characters found Wonder's commercial clout on the pop charts slipping away, it was a hit on the R&B side, topping the album charts and producing a number one hit in "Skeletons." It would be his final release of the '80s, a decade capped by his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

New studio material from Wonder didn't arrive until 1991, when he provided the soundtrack to the Spike Lee film Jungle Fever. His next full album of new material, 1995's Conversation Peace, was a commercial disappointment, thought it did win two Grammys for the single "For Your Love." That same year, Coolio revived "Pastime Paradise" in his own brooding rap smash "Gangsta's Paradise," which became the year's biggest hit. Wonder capitalized on the renewed attention by cutting a hit duet with Babyface, "How Come, How Long," in 1996. During the early 2000s, Motown remastered and reissued Wonder's exceptional 1972-1980 run of solo albums (Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants excepted) and also released The Definitive Collection, a representative single-disc primer.

In 2005, after a decade had transpired without a new studio album, Wonder released A Time to Love, which was bolstered by collaborations with Prince and Paul McCartney, as well as one with daughter and "Isn't She Lovely" inspiration Aisha Morris. His far-reaching influence continued to be felt through samples, cover versions, and reinterpretations, highlighted by Robert Glasper Experiment and Lalah Hathaway's Grammy-winning version of "Jesus Children of America." Well into the late 2010s, Wonder continued to appear on albums by other artists, including Snoop Dogg, Raphael Saadiq, and Mark Ronson. All the while, Wonder regularly toured. From November 2014 through 2015, he celebrated the approaching 40th anniversary of Songs in the Key of Life with lengthy set lists that included all 21 songs of the classic album.


xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Look, this album's release marked Stevie's 25th anniversary as a Motown recording artist, 25 years since his remarkable #1 hit, "Fingertips Part II," 20 years since "I Was Made to Love Her," possibly the most joyous recording in the history of mankind, and 15 years since his "Talking Book" album once and for all established what a great one for the ages this "Little Stevie" was. So when a pretty good record like "Characters" comes along, we compare it to what he's done before, rather than what his contemporaries are up to, and frankly, if this album had been recorded by a lesser talent, we might have hailed it as a breakthrough for them.

But this was Stevie The Wonder, the brilliant one whose physical blindness opened his spiritual eyes to planes that we didn't even realize intersected ours. So when he came along with embarrassing lyrics like those of "Don't Drive Drunk" from the "Woman in Red" soundtrack ("mothers against drunk driving are MADD," he sings over and over...and over...) and such a lazy bit of treacle as "I Just Called to Say I Love You" (thank you for saying it in "High Fidelity," Jack Black), well, yes, we were a bit disappointed.

But in retrospect, this is some of the better mainstream pop music to come out of the year 1987 (well, maybe not "Galaxy Paradise"), and I'll take this set any day over whatever Bob Seger's latest retread sounded like, the latest teen sweetheart like Debbie Gibson or Tiffany, or Chicago's pale attempts to sound relevant. The biggest single was the "Superstition"-like dance track "Skeletons" (number 19 pop, number one R&B), and Wonder also charted with the pretty "You Will Know" and an up-tempo duet with Michael Jackson, "Get It.

Stevie Wonder - Characters    (flac  361mb)

01 You Will Know 5:00
02 Dark 'N' Lovely 4:39
03 In Your Corner 4:30
04 With Each Beat Of My Heart 5:28
05 One Of A Kind 5:10
06 Skeletons 5:24
07 Get It (Voc Michael Jackson) 4:31
08 Galaxy Paradise 3:52
09 Cryin' Throught The Night 5:48
10 Free 4:12
11 Come Let Me Make Your Love Come Down 5:20
12 My Eyes Don't Cry 7:05

Stevie Wonder - Characters  (ogg  146mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Jungle Fever is the 1991 soundtrack album by American R&B musician Stevie Wonder to Spike Lee's movie Jungle Fever, a 1991 American romantic drama film written, produced and directed by Spike Lee, and stars Wesley Snipes, Annabella Sciorra, Lee, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Samuel L. Jackson, Lonette McKee, John Turturro, Frank Vincent and Anthony Quinn. As Lee's fifth feature-length film, the film explores an interracial relationship—its conception and downfall—against the urban backdrop of the streets of New York City in the 1990s.
This album was released by Motown Records on May 28, 1991. Despite all of the hype surrounding it, the soundtrack to Jungle Fever is Stevie Wonder's best work in years. Although it can't compare to Wonder's glory days, Jungle Fever is a considerable improvement from his bland late-'80s albums. Wonder still borders on saccharine on his ballads, although even the sappiest of them ("These Three Words") is never as sickening as "I Just Called to Say I Love You." While the keyboard funk of "Chemical Love," "Gotta Have You," and "Queen in the Black" doesn't sound new, it does sound alive, which is better than Wonder has sounded in years.

 Stevie Wonder - Jungle Fever (OST)      (flac 317mb)

01 Fun Day 4:40
02 Queen In The Black 4:46
03 These Three Words 4:54
04 Each Other's Throat 4:17
05 If She Breaks Your Heart 5:03
06 Gotta Have You 6:26
07 Make Sure You're Sure 3:31
08 Jungle Fever 4:56
09 I Go Sailing 3:58
10 Chemical Love 4:26
11 Lighting Up The Candles 4:09

Stevie Wonder - Jungle Fever (OST)  (ogg  115mb )

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Following the relative commercial failure of Conversation Peace, Stevie Wonder rushed out this double-disc live album drawn from an international tour during which he was backed by different symphony orchestras, his older songs featuring string parts in place of the synthesizer lines. He introduced several new songs -- "Dancing to the Rhythm," the instrumental "Stevie Ray Blues," "Stay Gold," and "Ms. & Mr. Little Ones" -- which demonstrated that his melodic muse was still with him and that he remained an awkward lyricist when he was more interested in the political stance than the poetical scansion. But for most of the running time, he acted as a human jukebox, pumping out his bits with enthusiasm and humor before an audibly enthralled audience. That made Natural Wonder entertaining, but inessential.

Stevie Wonder - Natural Wonder 1   (flac 410mb)

01 Dancing To The Rhythm 7:07
02 Love's In Need Of Love Today 6:02
03 Master Blaster (Jammin') 3:36
04 Stevie Ray Blues 2:28
05 Higher Ground 4:00
06 Rocket Love 4:47
07 Stay Gold 4:21
08 Ribbon In The Sky 8:37
09 Pastime Paradise 3:23
10 If It's Magic 3:35
11 Ms. & Mr. Little Ones 4:18
12 Village Ghetto Land 3:26
13 Tomorrow Robins Will Sing 4:25

. Stevie Wonder - Natural Wonder 1  (ogg  154mb)

xxxxx

Stevie Wonder - Natural Wonder 2   (flac 317mb)

01 Overjoyed 3:58
02 My Cherie Amour 3:21
03 Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours 2:46
04 Living For The City 4:27
05 Sir Duke 2:46
06 I Wish 4:07
07 You Are The Sunshine Of My Life 2:21
08 Superstition 5:38
09 I Just Called To Say I Love You 4:39
10 For Your Love 5:06
11 Another Star 5:56

. Stevie Wonder - Natural Wonder 2  (ogg  114mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

During times of extreme political and social change, Stevie Wonder's voice and songwriting served as cultural and spiritual guideposts to many a listener, often lending insight and a barometer with which to measure the ways of the world. But that was largely during the golden phase of his career, generally regarded as being the late '60s through 1980's Hotter Than July. His work in the mid-'80s through the '90s was marginal in comparison, only hinting at glimpses of former brilliance, sugar-coated by over-polished production and radio-friendly content. So with a decade passing since his last full-length, 1995's Conversation Piece, people waited with bated breath for a sign of his return...and wondered which Wonder would show up: would it be the socially conscious genius who wrote anthems for a generation, or the R&B crooner who dominated quiet storm radio? Thankfully, it's a blend of both. For every forward-moving song with a theme, there's a gentle moment of tranquility to cancel it out. Many of these songs, save for their warm and polished digital production values, could have easily found a home in Talking Book, Music of My Mind, or any of the other albums for which Wonder will forever be praised. In an age when the majority of R&B is about money, drugs, infidelity, or getting it on, Wonder's lyrics (especially during the love songs) recall the simplicity and innocence of early Motown without sounding trite. It's definitely a refreshing change of pace and hopefully something one or two aspiring producers and songwriters are paying attention to. These are love songs of maturity that are carefully crafted, which would more or less explain why it took nearly a decade to get them finalized, with many of them feeling like mature revisitations of the classics. (If "Happier Than the Morning Sun" and "Little Girl Blue" were a pair of teenagers in love, "Sweetest Somebody I Know" is that couple 30 years later at its class reunion.) The jazzy "How Will I Know," featuring Wonder's daughter on lead vocals (the same Aisha sung about nearly 30 years ago on "Isn't She Lovely"), is the gateway to the album's second half, a five-song cycle of ballads and quiet storm jams that will appease fans of Wonder's later work. Especially notable is "My Love Is on Fire," featuring a beautiful guest appearance from jazz flutist Hubert Laws, which exemplifies the other thing that makes A Time to Love the comeback album of the year: the never-ending list of celebrity cameo appearances so extensive it would make Carlos Santana and Clive Davis blush with modesty. Guest appearances from rap pioneer Doug E. Fresh, Bonnie Raitt, Sir Paul McCartney, Kim Burrell, Prince, Kirk Franklin, and India.Arie just scratch the surface of who contributed to this record. It's one Michael Jackson and one Lionel Richie cameo short from being a USA for Africa reunion. But while each artist lends his own style to the mix, the songs definitely remain 100 percent Wonder thanks to his distinctive singing and arrangements. The album begins its landing with "So What the Fuss," a chunky block of funk with a distorted bassline. It served as the lead single and was met with surprisingly little fanfare, especially since it's one of Wonder's most straight-ahead slices of funk in some time. And the album's title track serves as a fitting conclusion to the album, spreading Wonder's message of love and peace as strongly and convincingly as any other song he's ever done. On the whole, A Time to Love is the record Wonder fans have been waiting for, and the wait has more than paid off. Through exploration and balance, A Time to Love finds the two halves of Wonder's adult career finally coming to home to roost in peaceful harmony with one another, and it's one of the finest records he has done in decades.

Stevie Wonder - A Time To Love   (flac 527mb)

01 If Your Love Cannot Be Moved 6:12
02 Sweetest Somebody I Know 4:31
03 Moon Blue 6:45
04 From The Bottom Of My Heart 5:12
05 Please Don't Hurt My Baby 4:40
06 How Will I Know 3:39
07 My Love Is On Fire 6:16
08 Passionate Raindrops 4:50
09 Tell Your Heart I Love You 4:30
10 True Love 3:32
11 Shelter In The Rain 4:19
12 So What The Fuss 5:04
13 Can't Imagine Love Without You 3:45
14 Positivity 5:07
15 A Time To Love 9:17

.Stevie Wonder - A Time To Love  (ogg  188mb)

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx