Angèle Durand - Lieder der Claire Waldoff (1980)

The husky-voiced Belgian pop singer and actress Angèle Durand sings on this album some of Claire Waldoff´s "greatest hits".  Durand's tribute to Claire Waldoff, the famous lesbian cabaret performer of Berlin, was recorded in 1980.

Angèle Durand , civil Angèle Caroline Liliane Josette Marie-José DeGeest (* 23 October 1925 in Antwerp , Belgium , † 22 December 2001 in Augsburg ) was a Belgian singer and actress. She was married from 1958 to 1961 with producer Nile Nobah. Later she had a long-time relationship with the entertainer Lou van Burg.

Claire Waldoff was a star on the stage of the great cabarets and variety shows between 1907 and 1935, not only in Berlin. Their songs were sung in the streets or whistled by garbage carters and millionaires. "Hermann heeßt er", "Wer schmeißt denn da mit Lehm?" or "Das war sein Miljöh" knew every child.

Angèle Durand - Lieder der Claire Waldoff (1980)
(192 kbps, front cover included)

VA - Reggae Archive Vol. 2 (On-U Sound)

Unique, maverick and massively respected, On-U Sound is undoubtedly one of the UK’s most important independent labels.

Contributing a strikingly diverse soundtrack to chaotic post-punk, post-colonial Britain, On-U has become a by-word for experimentalism, spewing forth incredible, far-fetched, sometimes completely baffling tunes, never straying far from the cutting edge.

Primarily associated with the sound of ‘dub’, the label’s heritage is far broader, with many of its artists having backgrounds in punk & post-punk, industrial, hip-hop and funk where the cross-pollination of punk experimentation and Jamaican dub has mapped out the innovative, culturally exciting territory the label has covered over the years.

Since 1981, with label boss and producer Adrian Sherwood at the helm, On-U Sound has released over 100 albums and singles and has launched the careers and/or inspired an endless list of artists.
The label’s influence upon a younger generation of musicians, not to mention the ambient/techno style in general, has proved enormous, helping to fuse dub with both the independent rock and post-punk scenes

Tracklist:

1. Deadly Headley - 35 Years From Alpha

2. Deadly Headley - Head Charge

3. Bim Sherman/Deadly Headley - Without A Love Like Yours

4. Bim Sherman/Deadly Headley - Little Dove

5. Deadly Headley - Two From Alpha

6. Deadly Headley - Headley's Meadly

7. Deadly Headley/Singers & Players - Revolution Part 5

8. New Age Steppers - Some Love Dub

9. New Age Steppers - 5 Dog Race / Tribute

10. Lol Coxhill/New Age Steppers - 5 Dog Race Part 3

11. Bim Sherman - Accross The Red Sea

12. Bim Sherman - Awake The Slum

13. Bim Sherman - You Are The One

14. Bim Sherman - Golden Morning Star

15. Bim Sherman - Sit And Wonder

VA - Reggae Archive Vol. 2 (On-U Sound)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Sonja Kehler - Dessau Lieder (Nova)

This is an album with songs by Paul Dessau and lyrics by Bertolt Brecht, in the interpretation of Sonja Kehler. The album was recorded in 1976 and released in 1977 on the NOVA label in the GDR.

Paul Dessau, (born Dec. 19, 1894, Hamburg, Ger.—died June 28, 1979, East Berlin, GDR) was a German composer and conductor best known for his operas and other vocal works written in collaboration with Bertolt Brecht. Dessau’s conducting career included posts in Cologne (1919–23) and Berlin (1925–33). His long collaboration with Brecht began in 1942 in the United States, where he wrote the music (1946) for Brecht’s play Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and Her Children), the most popular of the Brecht-Dessau works. From 1948, they continued their partnership in East Germany, where Dessau composed his most successful opera, Die Verurteilung des Lukullus (1949; “The Sentencing of Lucullus”; also called Das Verhör des Lukullus [“The Trial of Lucullus”]), with libretto by Brecht. Dessau’s other works include the opera Einstein (1971–73).
His opera "Die Verurteilung des Lukullus" drew sharp criticism from the Party. Still, Dessau was highly respected: in 1952, he was voted membership into the Academy of Arts in East Berlin, then was appointed its vice president in 1957, serving until 1962. From 1962 to 1975, he taught at a primary school in the Berlin suburb of Zeuthen, where he lived since 1954. He remained active in composition in his last years and never acquiesced to Party officials, who often condemned his works.        

Sonja Kehler was born on February 2, 1933 in Haldersleben near Magdeburg. After graduating from the College of Drama in Leipzig she was given engagements at several theatres in the GDR, before launching on an international career as a freelance singer and actress. Sonja Kehler made a name for herself above all as a performer of works by Bertolt Brecht, whether as Shen Te in “The Good Person of Sezuan”, as Jenny in “The Threepenny Opera” or as Grusche in “The Caucasian Chalk Circle”.

Nevertheless in the 80s she was barely alowed to perform in the GDR. The repression started when one of her musicians didn´t come back to GDR after a concert “in the West”. Sonja Kehler told about that time in an interview: “I couldn´t get work in the GDR, no concerts, no recordings, but I was allowed to tour abroad again because it brought in foreign currency. I had of course done a lot in the GDR before that: concerts, theatre, shows, television work. But at a particular point that all stopped and I was only allowed to perform abroad. At that time Bernd Wefelmeyer was already my accompanist. In 1978 I made a very accomplished Brecht recording with hi but it was never released in the GDR, although WERGO did market it in the West”.
 

Tracklist:

Das Zukunftslied
Zwei Lieder aus Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis"
Bei den Hochgestellten
Zwei Kinderlieder
Drei Lieder aus "Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder"
Historie vom verliebten Schwein Malchus
Tierverse
Kampflied der schwarzen Strohhüte
Drei Lieder aus"Der gute Mensch von Sezuan"
Bitte der Kinder aus Herrnburger Bericht"

Sonja Kehler - Dessau Lieder (Nova)
(ca. 224 kbps, cover art included)

Eddie Gale ‎– Black Rhythm Happening (1969)

Love it or hate it, trumpeter Eddie Gale's second Blue Note outing as a leader is one of the most adventurous recordings to come out of the 1960s. "Black Rhythm Happening" picks up where "Ghetto Music" left off, in that it takes the soul and free jazz elements of his debut and adds to them the sound of the church in all its guises - from joyous call and response celebration on the title track (and album opener), to the mournful funeral sounds of "Song of Will," to the determined Afro-Latin-style chanting on "Mexico Thing" that brings the pre-Thomas Dorsey gospel to the revolutionary song style prevalent in Zapata's Mexico - all thanks to the Eddie Gale Singers. 

Elsewhere, wild smatterings of hard and post-bop ("Ghetto Love Night") and angular modal music ("Ghetto Summertime," featuring Elvin Jones on drums and Joann Stevens-Gale on guitar), turn the jazz paradigm of the era inside out, simultaneously admitting everything in a coherent, wonderfully ambitious whole. There is no doubt that Archie Shepp listened to both "Ghetto Music" and "Black Rhythm Happening" before setting out to assemble his "Attica Blues" project. The album closes with "Look at Teyonda," a sprawling exercise in the deep melding of African and Latin folk musics with the folk-blues, flamenco, and jazz rhythms. Funky horns (courtesy of Gale, Russell Lyle, and Roland Alexander) moan toward Fulumi Prince's startlingly beautiful vocal. Stevens-Gale's guitar whispers the tune into the field before the saxophones and brass come to get it, and when they do, long open lines are offered slowly and deliberately, as Jones' shimmering ride cymbals triple-time the beat into something wholly Other. 

"Black Rhythm Happening" is a timeless, breathtaking recording, one that sounds as forward-thinking and militant in the 21st century as it did in 1969.


Tracklist:

Black Rhythm Happening 2:57

The Gleeker 2:16

Song Of Will 3:08

Ghetto Love Night 5:30

Mexico Thing 5:08

Ghetto Summertime 3:13

It Must Be You 5:44

Look At Teyonda 9:31


Eddie Gale ‎– Black Rhythm Happening (1969)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Prince Far I - Under Heavy Manners (1977)

A fairly obscure figure even by reggae standards, Prince Far I was one of the sternest of the "cultural" DJs that proliferated on the Jamaican scene in the late '70s; he rarely toasted (or, as he preferred, "chanted") about the joys of dancing or romantic love; his message was always focused on matters spiritual and political. This didn't mean he couldn't be whimsical at times: He once used his musical pulpit make fun of neo-Nazis for the clothes they wore and sometimes (as on this album's title track) lectured the youth on matters of etiquette, and he once recorded an entire album of Old Testament psalms.

"Under Heavy Manners", which he recorded for the great producer Joe Gibbs, is one of his finest albums, but until the Rocky One label was revived in the late '90s as Joe Gibbs Music, it was almost impossible to find.  It is a classic late seventies deejay album, featuring frog-throated mic chanter Prince Far I and featuring his monster 1977 Joe Gibbs hit "Under Heavy Manners" plus nine other tracks, some featuring the interjections of Joseph Hill of Culture, utilising riddims such as Dennis Brown’s Ghetto Girl, Junior Byles’ Heart & Soul and Gibbs’ second cut of Satta. Mixed by the great Errol T.


Tracklist:

"Rain a Fall"
"Big Fight"
"You I Love and Not Another"
"Young Generation"
"Shine Eye Gal"
"Boz Rock"
"Show Me Mine Enemy"
"Shadow"
"Deck of Cards"
"Heavy Manners"

Prince Far I - Under Heavy Manners (1977)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Sun Ra - United World In Outer Space (1975)

Decades before his time, political and musical revolutionary, Sun Ra, developed a new plane of cultural existence where black people were all-powerful beings from outer space, sending their intergalactic message through jazz music.

Recorded live in 1975 at Cleveland's legendary jazz club, the Smiling Dog Saloon, when Sun Ra and his Arkestra descended on the city for a week-long residency. You can imagine how the uninitiated's jaw must have dropped when Ra and his 15 musicians marched out onto the stage decked in glittery space costumes, playing percussion instruments and chanting. This high quality live performance is top-shelf Ra playing a kind of spaced out world music with hints of disco. Ra sings, plays the Moog, piano and organ, while everyone else plays alternately some kind of percussion or reed instrument, sings, dances, and claps hands. Check out his other-worldly version of Duke Ellington's 'Sophisticated Lady', featuring John Gilmore on sax, and his extended Moog solo!


Tracklist:

A1 Astro Nation (Of The United World In Outer Space) 11:01
A2 Enlightenment 2:10
A3 Friendly Galaxy 12:49
B1 Theme Of The Stargazers / The Satellites Are Spinning 2:32
B2 Synthesizer Solo 8:34
B3 Sophisticated Lady 14:09


Sun Ra - United World In Outer Space (1975)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

VA - Bluegrass Breakdown - Newport Folk Festival

This recording documents live Newport Folk Festival performances by many of the greatest bluegrass artists of the Sixties, an era in which bluegrass was to see some radical changes. Younger artists were discovering the music with great enthusiasm, and were carrying on the tradition established by the music´s originators with tremendous vitality.

Here can be heard the roots of bluegrass, in the od-timey fiddle styles of Lue Berline, Clayton McMichen and Fiddling Arthur Smith; the bluegrass bands that were legends in their time, Bill Monroe and The Bluegrass Boys, The Stanley Brothers and The Dillards; and of course the next generation, citybillies who eagerly embraced the older styles and embellished them with their own imaginations and talents: Byron Berline, The New York City Ramblers and the Greenbriar Boys.

This album was recorded at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 - 1965. It ends with "Bluegrass Breakdown", which gives this collection its name, another Bill Monroe original that always left the audience hollering for more.


Tracklist:

1	–Lue Berline And Byron Berline	New Broom
2	–Lue Berline And Byron Berline	Old Logan
3	–Lue Berline And Byron Berline	Crazy Creek
4	–Lue Berline And Byron Berline	Dusty Miller
5	–Stanley Brothers, The	How Mountain Girls Can Love
6	–Stanley Brothers, The	A Man Of Constant Sorrow
7	–Stanley Brothers, The	Big Tildy
8	–Stanley Brothers, The	Orange Blossom Special
9	–Fiddling Arthur Smith	Leather Britches
10	–Fiddling Arthur Smith	Blackberry Blossom
11	–Greenbriar Boys, The	Levee Breakin' Blues
12	–Greenbriar Boys, The	At The End Of A Long Lonley Day
13	–Dillards, The	Old Joe Clark
14	–Dillards, The	Ground Hog
15	–Dillards, The	Banjo In The Hollow
16	–Dillards, The	Polly Vaughn
17	–Dillards, The	Dueling Banjos
18	–Clayton McMichen	Alabama Jubilee
19	–Clayton McMichen	Sourwood Mountain
20	–New York City Ramblers, The	You Better Get Right Little Darlin'
21	–New York City Ramblers, The	I'm Coming Back But I Don't Know When
22	–New York City Ramblers, The	Cedar Hill
23	–New York City Ramblers, The	Tell It To Me
24	–Bill Monroe And The Bluegrass Boys*	Muleskinner Blues
25	–Bill Monroe And The Bluegrass Boys*	Blue Moon Of Kentucky
26	–Bill Monroe And The Bluegrass Boys*	Walls Of Time
27	–Bill Monroe And The Bluegrass Boys*	Somebody Touched Me
28	–Bill Monroe And The Bluegrass Boys*	Bluegrass Breakdown

VA - Bluegrass Breakdown - Newport Folk Festival
(256 kbps, front cover included)

Nina Simone - Nina´s Choice (Colpix, 1963)

The now-legendary Nina Simone began her recording career in 1959, after briefly studying classical piano at Juilliard and performing at an Atlantic City nightclub where the club's owner allegedly ordered her to sing as she played.

Simone specializes in the eclectic, and her personal variety of musical magic is without equal. With her androgynous, deeply burnished vocals and her extraordinary, classically influenced piano technique, Simone refashions any song to fit her own fiercely artistic vision. Always cutting edge, her sound has influenced and continues to influence other artists.

NINA'S CHOICE is a fine 1963 compilation of favorite tracks that Simone selected from her five prior albums on the Colpix label. Every song is a stunner. The insanely quirky "Rags and Old Iron" sounds like something off a Tom Waits album. The strange, slow tango of "Just Say I Love Him" features the brilliantly haunting guitar work of Al Shackman, Simone's longtime guitarist. Also included here is a rollicking version of the traditional "Little Liza Jane," a highpoint of Simone's appearance at Newport in 1960. This thoughtfully selected compilation is well worth owning.

Tracklist:

A1	Trouble In Mind
A2	Memphis In June
A3	Cotton Eyed Joe
A4	Work Song
A5	Forbidden Fruit
B1	Little Liza Jane
B2	Rags And Old Iron
B3	You Can Have Him
B4	Just Say I Love Him

Nina Simone - Nina´s Choice (Colpix, 1963)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Dresden Theaterplatz, 19. November 1989

The Monday demonstrations in East Germany in 1989 to 1991 (German: Montagsdemonstrationen) were a series of peaceful political protests against the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) that took place every Monday evening. Because the church played a big role in them, the Monday demonstrations are also sometimes called the Religious Protest. The protests that occurred between 1989 and 1991 can be separated into five cycles. The Monday demonstrations started in Leipzig and were spontaneous, meaning that the demonstrations were not planned beforehand.

These two CDs are featuring the complete and restaured recordings from the demonstration on November, 19, 1989, in Dresden on the "Theaterplatz" against the GDR governement.

Dresden, Theaterplatz, 19. November 1989

(320 kbps, small front cover included)

Cochise - Die Erde war nicht immer so (1984)

Maybe this is another great "Volksmusik" recording in the literal sense: Simple, but always nice melodies, uncomplicated lyrics, refrains you can sing along and all in all songs that tell us stories about real life in a certain society and time, about the social struggles and everyday fights. Thanks, Jenny Bauer, for bringing our attention to this topic (see Staff Benda Bilili concert review).

Cochise from Dortmund played folk music with mostly political lyrics inspired by left wing perspective.

Cochise were founded in 1979 and became one of the musical voices of the alternative movement in Germany.

They developed an unique lyrical and musical language connecting the political contents of the 70s and 80s with powerfull, delightfull music and the rebellious attitude of a whole generation.

Tracklist:

A1	Die Erde war nicht immer so	5:11
A2	1, 2, 3, laßt die Leute frei	4:16
A3	Lacht mich ruhig aus	3:50
A4	Raus, raus, raus	3:00
A5	Sachbeschädigung	3:16
B1	Komm zu uns	4:02
B2	Der Staat ist doof und stinkt	3:43
B3	Feuer	4:45
B4	Schnee zu Ostern	5:28
B5	Die Nacht nach der Heidehof-Räumung	1:45

Cochise - Die Erde war nicht immer so (1984)
(192 kbps, cover art inlcuded)

Katja Ebstein - Laßt euch nicht verführen (Bertolt Brecht)

Katja Ebstein is a german pop vocalist, most famous in the 70s with a lot of popular german pop songs.

She was activ in the 60s student movement and began performing in the Berlin cabaret scene at the end of the 60s with Insterburg & Co.
In the 70s she was married with her manager and producer Christian Bruhn, who wrote a lot of german pop hits for her.

Today she is performing chansons and poems by Heinrich Heine, Kurt Tucholsky and Bertolt Brecht. She was and is active in social movements, for example against nucelar weapons and for the rights of children and women.

Here is a programm by Katja Ebstein singing and reciting songs and poems by Bertolt Brecht.
Tracks:

Jetzt wachen nur noch Mond und Katz
Der Bilbao Song
Die Auswanderung der Dichter
Über die Bezeichnung Emigranten
Das Lied von der Moldau
Vom armen B.B.
Gegen Verführung (Vers. 1)
Mögen andere von ihrer Schande sprechen
Das Lied vom SA Mann
Gegen Verführung (Vers. 2)
Lied einer deutschen Mutter
Intervention
Gegen Verführung (Vers. 3)
Kälbermarsch -Kindermarsch
Gegen Verführung (Vers. 4)
Bitten der Kinder
Das Lied von der Judenhure Maria Sanders
Kinderhymne
Das Lied von der Unzulänglichkeit menschlichen Strebens
Lob des Lernens
Das Lied von der harten Nuss
Jugend
Das Lied von der Suppe
Surabaya Johnny
Der Nachgeborene
Ein bitteres Liebeslied
Wechsel der Dinge
Erinnerungen an Marie A
Ih möchte mit dem gehen
Der Pflaumenbaum
Die Liebenden
Die Kellerassel
Wenn ich auf zuberischen Karussellen
Das Pferd
An die Nachgeborenen
Das Lied der Seeräuber Jenny
Ich benötige keinen Grastein
Alles wandelt sich

Katja Ebstein - Laßt euch nicht verführen (Bertolt Brecht)
(256 kbps, small front cover included) 

Helmut Eisel & JEM - Klezm´n Soul

From the world of mathematics to the realm of music, from Germany to Israel, from classic to Klezmer, the journey of Helmut Eisel through the Clarinet Klezmer is quite unique.

Born In Germany in 1955 he graduated in Mathematics in 1985 and began to work as business consultant.

Those days Giora Feidman, the famous clarinet Klezmer player, was conducting masters classes in Germany and Helmut Eisel began to take part to them.

Soon he became Giora Feidman's assistant and then he was at a crossroad, having to choose between a business career or a full time job playing clarinet. Fortunately for us he chose the musical career and since then, he dedicated himself entirely to music. Since 1993 he is conducting workshops "Klezmer Improvisation" in Germany and each summer in Tsfat (Safed-Israel) at Clarinet and Klezmer in Galilee's Seminars and Masters Classes.

Helmut Eisel founded several orchestras and ensembles, a clarinet quartet,"Helmut Eisel Clarinet Funtet", a duo "Clarinet Stories", a solo program, a quintet "Helmut Eisel and Band", and his trio, "Helmut Eisel and JEM" (JEM are the initials of the three founders of the group Herbert Jagst, Helmut Eisel und Michael Marx; Jagst, the double bass player deceased in 2000, Stefan Engelmann took over his place) .

He is also performing with Marina Baranova, a classical Ukrainian pianist, and they are playing masterpieces by Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Bela Bartok together with traditional Klezmer melodies. The chemistry between Helmut and Marina is absolute, their virtuosity is phenomenal still full of sensibility, emotion and expressiveness.This exceptional chamber music duo program is called "Impromptu".

During one of the Clarinet and Klezmer in the Galilee workshops Helmut jammed with some talented youg musicians and together they founded the "Klezmer All Star Clarinet Gang" (David Orlowsky Clarinet, Avi Avital Mandolin, Michal Beit Halachmi Bass Clarinet, Moran Katz Clarinet, Stefan Engelmann Bass...).

Helmut is performing all around Germany and Europe as well as in Israel where he has been awarded by The Israel Music Society for his contribution to the Klezmer music.

Helmut Eisel is also a composer, he wrote film scores, theater music and appeared on numerous radio and TV shows. He composed a symphonic fairy tale "Naftule and the King" for symphonic orchestra and Klezmer trio.

He played together with Giora Feidman an original composition dedicated to the musicians murdered during the Holocaust at Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem.

Each of his performances is quite unique, his ability to invent and to improvize is infinite, always imagining new incredible sounds, new harmonies, new paths to emotion, stirring the soul, reaching the inner voice. His fingers are running on the clarinet, the air is blowing through the mouthpiece, from silence, almost inaudible pianissimo to a roaring fortissimo, from altissimo to lower register, the audience is ecstatic, deeply moved by the power of his music.

Tracklist:

1.	Blindroter Chor Und Wirtshaust Chter	3:28
2.	Bulja, Bulja	4:07
3.	Jonny And Chris Awake	5:21
4.	Uv' Yom Hashabbat	3:54
5.	Cousins Jump Suite: Prelude/The Big And The Quick/Waltz Of The Princes	8:11
6.	Black Curly Kids	4:16
7.	The Ballad Of A Lonesome Maestro	4:08
8.	The King Of The Sitz	4:31
9.	Moritz	3:46
10.	Beyond The Blue	3:44

Helmut Eisel & JEM - Klezm´n Soul
(256 kbps, cover art included

39 Clocks - Subnarcotic (1982)

Here´s another 39 Clocks album: "Subnarcotic" was released in August, 1982 on the german Eigelstein label.

Enjoy it!

Tracks:

Heat Of Violence

Dom (Electricity Elects The Rain)

Psychotic Louie Louie

Past Tense Hope &

Instant Fears On 42nd Street

Virtous Girl

Three Floors Down

Rainy Night Insanities

A Touch Of Rot

Aspetando Godo

Fresh link:

39 Clocks - Subnarcotic (1982)

(256 kbps, front & back cover included)

King Tubby Meets The Upsetter At The Grass Roots Of Dub (1975)

Seminal dub album produced by Winston Edwards. In 1974 Edwards left Jamaica to reside in the UK and through his strong connections with such reggae luminaries as Joe Gibbs, Lee Perry and King Tubby began to travel back and forth between London and Kingston (JA) to bring back recordings to issue on his Fay Music label here in the UK. 

In 1974 he released this controversial, seminal dub set, shunned by some at the time due to the spurious marketing device employed. The whole album appears in fact to have been mixed at Tubby’s, while the rhythms were possibly built at Perry’s Ark and maybe Gibbs’ studio, but at this length memories are stretched. Now of course, it sounds like what it is, a classic early Tubby’s dub album, musical, tuneful, heavy dubwise set with Vin Gordon’s unique trombone lines well to the fore. Essential dub.

Tracklist:

A1	Blood Of Africa
A2	African Roots
A3	Rain Roots
A4	Wood Roots
A5	Luke Lane Rock
B1	People From The Grass Roots
B2	Crime Wave
B3	No Justice For The Poor
B4	300 Years At The Grass Roots
B5	King And The Upsetter At Spanish Town

King Tubby Meets The Upsetter At The Grass Roots Of Dub (1975)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Judy Collins - A Maid Of Constant Sorrow (1961)

Judy Collins' debut LP shows her relying more on enthusiasm than subtlety in her singing, with a deeper, heavier style than anyone would be accustomed to from her. It's almost as though, lacking confidence, she tried too hard in various spots to make the songs (and her voice) sound profound and significant, and wasn't aware of what the strongest part of her range was. 

Occasionally, on "The Pickilie Bush" or "Wild Mountain Thyme" when she reaches for the high notes, listeners hear the future of Collins' sound, but much of what's here is more strident than listeners are accustomed to from her. Not that's it's bad -- she makes a good case for her renditions of those songs and Ewan MacColl's "Tim Evans (Go Down You Murderers)" within the context of their time. She is more relaxed on the sea shanties such as "Sailor's Life," and those tracks have a timelessness that is lacking in much of the rest. The whole album has value, however, both as an artifact of the early New York folk boom and the first effort of a major artist -- and "John Riley" could fit in on any career retrospective on Collins' work.

Tracklist:

A1 A Maid Of Constant Sorrow 2:35

A2 The Prickilie Bush 3:25

A3 Wild Mountain Thyme 2:30

A4 Tim Evans 2:51

A5 Sailor's Life 2:41

A6 Bold Fenian Men 2:44

B1 Wars Of Germany 3:10

B2 O Daddy Be Gay 2:34

B3 I Know Where I'm Going 1:50

B4 John Riley 3:30

B5 Pretty Saro3 :03

B6 The Rising Of The Moon 4:07

Judy Collins - A Maid Of Constant Sorrow (1961)

(256 kbps, cover art included)

Oliver Tuku Mutukudzi - Ziwere MuKobenhavn

Oliver Tuku Mutukudzi is from Zimbabwe and with his unique Tuku beat has created his own brand of popular music. The music represents for the people of his country the ritual campfire around which the words of life are talked about. This has been lost in the transfer of the population into the urban centers.

In his music he has melded Mbira, traditional mystical Shona music usually played on a thumb piano, with Mbaqanga, the South African stew made up of township jive, Jit, and other traditional elements. His brew is unique, combining the rural Mbira rhythms with the high-energy urban Mbaqanga.

The result is a dance album with punch but without synthesized drum machines. He utilizes the Bantu African structure of interlocking patterns, thus creating a unified sound collage that is mesmerizing. This is how the Tuku beat becomes a dancing image of the life and spirit of the township. Trance and ecstasy overtake the dancer and he or she is one with the community ritual. The music unites the bush with the city and thus ameliorates the alienation from the roots of culture, a very important matter.

His lead vocals, sung in Shona and English, tell the event he's describing and the response of the chorus confirm and enhance what has been sung. Listen to him sing "Kusaziva," which means "Ignorance," and "Hear Me Lord." It is a circle of song, of community, and mystical unity in the round. A truly mystical album with that South African danceable drive underpinning it all. Recommended.    


Oliver Tuku Mutukudzi - Ziwere MuKobenhavn 
(256 kbps, cover art included)   

The Members - 1980 - The Choice Is Yours (1980)

Formed in Surrey, England, in the summer of 1977, the Members were among the new wave of British bands jumping on the punk bandwagon. The band -- composed of Nicky Tesco (vocals), Jean-Marie Carroll (guitar), Gary Baker(guitar), Adrian Lillywhite (drums), and Chris Payne (bass) -- was among the first to successfully blend reggae rhythms with punk's attitude and aggression. Stiff Records saw some promise in the band and signed them early in 1978, releasing their first single, "Solitary Confinement." The success of the single led to their signing with Virgin Records in 1979. Their Virgin debut single, "Sound of the Suburbs," made it into the British Top 20 but subsequent singles failed to match its success. After replacing Baker with Nigel Bennett, they recorded their first LP, "At the Chelsea Nightclub", which also made a brief appearance in the lower reaches of the U.K. charts.

Around this time, the 2-Tone movement was stealing much of their limelight and their popularity began to fade. After one more album for Virgin in 1980, "1980 -  The Choice Is Yours", they were dropped by the label. After a brief layoff, they returned in 1982 with "Uprhythm, Downbeat" (released in 1983 in the U.K. as "Going West"), broadening their sound with horns and a more serious attitude. "Working Girl" from the album became a cult classic in the U.S. through MTV exposure, but mainstream acceptance eluded them on both sides of the Atlantic. The band called it quits the following year. Carroll became a film composer, noted for working with Julien Temple, and in 2008, an incarnation of the band toured around the world, including Glastonbury and the Isle of Wight Festival. The Members also returned to recording, with a lineup that included Carroll, Payne, Bennett, and drummer Nick Cash. Tesco, having bowed out due to health problems, was replaced by the Damned's Rat Scabies. The band recorded two albums, 2012's "InGrrLand" and 2016's "One Law".

"1980 - The Choice Is Yours" is The Members' second album, released in 1980.

Tracklist:

The Ayatollah Harmony 2:45
Goodbye To The Job 2:25
Physical Love 3:20
Romance 3:12
Brian Was 3:28
Flying Again 3:27
Normal People 3:25
Police Car 3:50
Clean Men 3:57
Muzak Machine 2:48
Gang War 5:27

The Members - 1980: The Choice Is Yours (1980)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Liberation Sounds - Revolutionary Dancehall & Reggae mixed by Zero G Soundsystem

Fiveteen years ago the Zero G Soundsystem built a fine reggae and dancehall mix, bringing together vintage and recent tracks with an explicit political and critical message.


They started with the great and mind-blowing "Dis Poem" by Mutabaruka - one track to tell it all! - and then jumped through dancehall burners and reggae classics. Besides some well expected Bob Marley songs you hear Johnny Clarke, U Roy, Junior Byles, Jimmy Cliff, Dillinger, Big Joe, John Holt and some others in the classic sections of the mix. And nowadays dancehall is represented by artists like Bounty Killer, Baby Cham, Beenie Man and Anthony B. And - `cause they are a Germany based sound system - last but not least they included some great tracks out of the growing german reggae scene, with artists like Gentleman, Seeed and Nosliw.



Liberation Sounds
(192 kbps, front & back cover with tracklist included)

Asian Dub Foundation - R.A.F.I.

On "R.A.F.I.", the Asian Dub Foundation further refines their sound, honing their blend of miscellaneous styles -- ragga, jungle, dub, rock, hip-hop, rap -- to a consistent aesthetic characterizing each of the songs and the album as a whole.

Yet with this newfound consistency, part of the experimental ideology that fueled their breakthrough album, "R.A.F.I.", has been polished in favor of the evolved sound. If this album is less daring with its application of influence, it also benefits from this very lack of daringness by staying true to a common sound: fractured drum'n'bass rhythms, deep dub basslines, dancehall reggae rapping, revolutionary ideology, and rock accessibility. This album won't lead anyone to call them the next Rage Against the Machine, but it will satisfy anyone with a hunger for the group's truly patented sound.

Tracklist:

Assassin 4:13
Change 3:07
Black White 3:34
Buzzing 5:35
Free Satpal Ram 4:24
Modern Apprentice 4:55
Operation Eagle Lie 4:17
Hypocrite 4:29
Naxalite 4:56
Loot 5:07
Dub Mentality 4:26
Culture Move 4:30
Real Areas For Investigation 4:22


Asian Dub Foundation - R.A.F.I.
(320 kbps, cover art included)       

Billie Holiday - Velvet Mood (1956)

Velvet Mood (subtitled Songs by Billie Holiday) (MGC 713) is an album by jazz singer Billie Holiday, released in 1956 on Clef Records.

The music was recorded over the course of two sessions in Los Angeles, two days apart, which had also resulted in all the material for her previous album "Music for Torching" (MGC 669) .

Tracklist:                           

A1	Prelude To A Kiss	5:30
A2	When Your Lover Has Gone	4:53
A3	Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone	4:16
A4	Nice Work If You Can Get It	3:47
B1	I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues	5:47
B2	What's New	4:13
B3	I Hadn't Anyone Till You	4:00
B4	Everything I Have Is Yours	4:27

Billie Holiday - Velvet Mood (1956)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Alberto Mizrahi - Die Stimme der Synagoge (Andor Izsák, Gerhard Dickel, Chor Peter und Paul)

Today we remember the anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria on 9 to 10 November 1938, also known as "Novemberpogrome", "Reichskristallnacht", "Reichspogromnacht" or "Pogromnacht" in German.

During the "Progromnacht" on 9 to 10 November 1938, in a coordinated attack on Jewish people and their property, 99 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. 267 synagogues were destroyed and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked. This was done by the Hitler Youth, Gestapo, SS and SA.

The world of Jewish music is one of great diversity. Speaking of it nowadays, we tend to think of the instrumental music of east European Jewish folk musicians, the klezmorim. Recently different forms of Jewish folk music and Israeli folklore have become very popular. The eastern Jewish culture created its own world of musical expression with its Yiddish folklore. The great longing of people n the ghettos of Rusia expressed itself in these songs.

But it is not only folk musical tradition to which we can look back. There existed also a classical liturgical Jewish culture whose art and form was characteristic of Jewish religious life in central and eastern Europe. With the Holocaust, knowledge of the rich musical life which shaped Jewish liturgy in both family and synagogue disappeared almost completely from public awareness. Very few today know of the European synagogue music in bloom in the 19th and early 20th century.

This album features synagogue music with the cantor Alberto Mizrahi, Chicago.


Tracklist:

1. Mah Tovu (Wie schön sind...)

2. Mismor Lesodo (Psalm zum Dankopfer)

3. Vajehi Binsoa (Wenn die Lade aufbrach)

4. Ani Ma Amin (Ich glaube)

5. Enosch, K'chozir Jomow (Des Menschen Tage sind wie Gras)

6. El Male Rachamim (Herr voller Barmherzigkeit)

7. Kaddisch (Heilig)

8. Uwenucho Jomar (Und wenn sie sich niederließ, sprach er)

9. Adon Olom (Herr der Welt (Adon)

10. Halalujoh (Lobet den Herren)

Alberto Mizrahi - Die Stimme der Synagoge
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Ernst Toller - Eine Jugend in Deutschland

Ernst Toller, (born Dec. 1, 1893, Samotschin, Ger.—died May 22, 1939, New York, N.Y., U.S.), dramatist, poet, and political activist, who was a prominent exponent of Marxism and pacifism in Germany in the 1920s. His Expressionist plays embodied his spirit of social protest.

Toller studied at Grenoble University in France but went back to Germany in 1914 to join the army. Invalided after 13 months at the front during World War I, Toller launched a peace movement in Heidelberg. To avoid arrest he fled to Munich, where he helped lead a strike of munition workers and was finally arrested. In 1919 Toller, an Independent Socialist, was elected president of the Central Committee of the revolutionary Bavarian Soviet Republic. After its suppression he was sentenced to imprisonment for five years. A scheme to get him shot in the prison yard was frustrated by a kindly old guard, who routed him away from the gunmen.

In confinement Toller wrote Masse-Mensch (1920; Man and the Masses, 1923), a play that brought him widespread fame. Books of lyrics added to his reputation. In 1933, immediately before the accession of Hitler, he emigrated to the United States. Also in that year he brought out his vivid autobiography, Eine Jugend in Deutschland (I Was a German, 1934).

In Hollywood Toller had a brief, unhappy stint as a scriptwriter. Impoverished, convinced that his plays were passé, and separated from his young wife, he committed suicide in his Manhattan hotel.

 'Eine Jugend in Deutschland', (1933, translated into English 'I was a German') is his biography, detailing the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, Hitler's rise to power and his experiences.  I would recommend 'Eine Jugend in Deutschland' to anybody interested in German history of that era.

Ernst Toller - Eine Jugend in Deutschland
(Audiobook, German language)

VA - Geliebt - Verjagt - Ermordet - Jüdische Künstler und ihre Hits der 20er & 30er Jahre

Tomorrow will be the  80th anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria on 9 to 10 November 1938, also known as "Novemberpogrome",
"Reichskristallnacht", "Reichspogromnacht" or "Pogromnacht" in German.

In the 1920s, most German Jews were fully integrated into German society as German citizens. They served in the German army and navy and contributed to every field of German science, business and culture. Conditions began to change after the election of the Nazi party on January 30, 1933 and the assumption of power by Adolf Hitler after the Reichstag fire. From its inception, Hitler's regime moved quickly to introduce anti-Jewish policies. The 500,000 Jews in Germany, who accounted for only 0.76% of the overall population, were singled out by the Nazi propaganda machine as an enemy within who were responsible for Germany's defeat in the First World War, and for her subsequent economic difficulties, such as the 1920s hyperinflation and Great Depression. Beginning in 1933, the German government enacted a series of anti-Jewish laws restricting the rights of German Jews to earn a living, to enjoy full citizenship and to educate themselves, including the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which forbade Jews from working in the civil service. The subsequent 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped German Jews of their citizenship and forbade Jews from marrying non-Jewish Germans.

The result of these laws was the exclusion of Jews from German social and political life. Many sought asylum abroad; thousands did manage to leave, but as Chaim Weizmann wrote in 1936, "The world seemed to be divided into two parts — those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter." In an attempt to provide help an international conference was held on July 6, 1938 to address the issue of Jewish and Gypsy immigration to other countries. By the time the conference was held, more than 250,000 Jews had fled Germany and Austria, which had been annexed by Germany in March 1938. However, more than 300,000 German and Austrian Jews were still seeking shelter from oppression. As the number of Jews and Gypsies wanting to leave grew, the restrictions against them also grew with many countries tightening their rules for admission.

By 1938, Germany had entered a new radical phase in anti-Semitic activity. Some historians believe that the Nazi government had been contemplating a planned outbreak of violence against the Jews and were waiting for an appropriate provocation; there is evidence of this planning dating to 1937. The Zionist leadership in Palestine wrote in February 1938 that according to "a very reliable private source – one which can be traced back to the highest echelons of the SS leadership" there was "an intention to carry out a genuine and dramatic pogrom in Germany on a large scale in the near future."

During the "Progromnacht" on 9 to 10 November 1938, in a coordinated attack on Jewish people and their property, 99 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. 267 synagogues were destroyed and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked. This was done by the Hitler Youth, Gestapo, SS and SA.

At the time of Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Jewish musicians were perhaps Germany's and Austria's most important living cultural assets. There was hardly a note of popular music that did not rely on Jewish artists for either the tunes or the words, and often both. Jewish musicians were equally active in the established and avant garde music scenes.

»Loved, chased away and murdered« is a CD with popular hits by Jewish artists that was brought out by the "Foundation Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe" (www.stiftung-denkmal.de). It features well-known german interpreters from the 1920s and 30s, including the Comedian Harmonists with their rendition of "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt" and Richard Tauber singing "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz". It recalls the memory of 20 Jewish artists murdered or forced to emigrate after the National Socialist takeover of power.

Geliebt - Verjagt - Ermordet
(192 kbps, front cover included)