Ernst Busch - Aurora-Schallplatten Rote Reihe 7 - Hanns Eisler zum 75. Geburtstag (vinyl rip)

This year saw the 121th birthday of Ernst Busch, the great German antifascist singer and actor.

Busch first rose to prominence as an interpreter of political songs, particularly those of Kurt Tucholsky, in the Berlin cabaret scene of the 1920s. He starred in the original 1928 production of Bertolt Brecht's "Threepenny Opera", as well as the subsequent 1931 film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. He also appeared in the movie "Kuhle Wampe".

A lifelong Communist, Busch fled Nazi Germany in 1933 with the Gestapo on his heels, eventually settling in the Soviet Union. In 1937 he joined the International Brigades to fight against Fascism in Spain. His wartime songs were then recorded and broadcasted by Radio Barcelona and Radio Madrid. After the Spanish Republic fell to General Franco, Busch migrated to Belgium where he was interned during the German occupation and later imprisoned in Camp Gurs, France and Berlin. Freed by the Soviet Army in 1945, he settled in East Berlin where he worked with Bertold Brecht and Erwin Piscator at the "Berliner Ensemble". A beloved figure in the German Democratic Republic, he is best remembered for his performance in the title role of Brecht's "Galileo" and his stirring recordings of workers songs, including many written by Hanns Eisler. He also made a memorable and haunting recording of Peat Bog Soldiers.

We celebrate his birthday with a vinyl rip of an original "Aurora-Schallplatte" honouring Hanns Eislers 75th birthday in the year 1973. This EP is a part of Ernst Busch´s recordings on the "Aurora" label between 1964 and 1974. It is a part of Busch´s great "Chronicle of the first half of the 20st century in songs and ballads".

Ernst Busch - Aurora Schallplatte Rote Reihe 7 - Hanns Eisler
(vinyl rip, 256 kbps, front cover included)

Sonny Rollins - Freedom Suite (1958)

By February of 1958, when Sonny Rollins recorded "Freedom Suite", his political consciousness had risen to match the poetic scope of his music. In addressing his place as a creative artist and an African-American, Rollins recognized that both aspects of his being existed under second-class circumstances, and that it was time for this country to review these inequities. "Freedom Suite" was done in 1958, trying to make a statement about the freedom of his people and about his own musical freedom as well. This is after all, four years after Brown v. Board of Education... the beginning of, the building of the Civil Rights Movement. And Rollins wanted to make a contribution to that in his own way.

In recording with bassist Oscar Pettiford and drummer Max Roach, Rollins aligned himself with the modern jazz innovators who best exemplified his righteous brand of freedom. Pettiford is particularly inspired on trio and duo versions of "Till There Was You," where he displays an uncanny knack for enunciating lyrical syncopations without losing the flow of the beat or a sense of harmonic structure. His ringing half notes on the head to "Will You Still Be Mine?" set up a vibrant series of Rollins/Roach exchanges, while his charming solo distills the melody into its most swinging components. 

But it's "Freedom Suite," with its stunning stops and starts, extended variations, thematic interludes, and exhilarating denouement, that invites the most superlatives. Rollins' sense of sustained melodic invention is remarkable, as is his cyclical formal structure. The opening theme, with its affectionate parody of a formal overture, sets the band in motion, as if motifs and contrasting themes criss-cross and collide in a swinging trialogue. A waltz figure and dramatic, extended cadenza introduces one of Rollins' most touching ballads, richly tinted in smoky shades of blue, with some joyous buck and wing by Pettiford and Roach. Finally, a reprise of the waltz theme gives way to a climactic chase, inspiring some of Roach's most fervent, singing breaks, before a return to the opening theme ties it all up.

Tracklist:

The Freedom Suite (Sonny Rollins) – 19:17
Someday I'll Find You (Noël Coward) – 4:35
Will You Still Be Mine? (Tom Adair, Matt Dennis) – 2:54
Till There Was You (Meredith Willson) – 4:54
Till There Was You [Alternate Take] (Willson) – 4:55
Shadow Waltz (Al Dubin, Harry Warren) – 4:08

Sonny Rollins - Freedom Suite (1958)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Guts Pie Earshot - 10 Years Compilation (1993 - 2003 The Early Years)

Guts Pie Earshot was founded in 1991 in Cologne, Germany as a
"punk band with cello" called Flowerhouse, which in turn emerged from the band Lucy Killed The Dragon. From the beginning, the political relationship to 

the Squatters and "Caravan" Scene scene was relevant to the band. 

In their early days they also influenced their affiliation to bands like The Ex,  

Chumbawamba, Dog Faced Hermans and No Means No. The concert venues were and still are very often small venues and squats, and associated with the do-it-yourself idea. In 1993, the band was renamed Guts Pie Earshot.

From the beginning it was their trademark to push music to the limits of what is feasible through deliberate neglect (no guitar, then no vocals and sampler, now without bass, and the omission of electronic "replacement" devices such
as samplers or laptops) ( "Punk without guitar", "Drum and Bass without bass",
"Techno without technique", "Pop without vocals").

To break out of existing musical norms in order to create something completely
new, one's own - without degenerating into intellectual construction is the goal.
The quotes from the punk and hardcore are implemented as authentic as drum
and bass, breakbeat, techno or classical influences. Their music lives from the
contrast of catchy-danceable grooves, as opposed to the explosion of listening
habits and punk.


Tracklist:

1 Exit 5:46
2 Close To Distance 5:35
3 Isolated 4:50
4 Can't Make Me 4:28
5 Silence 4:41
6 Enemy Today 2:01
7 Butterfly Murder 6:33
8 Who's Gonna Tell My Story 4:14
9 Sonic You 2:25
10 Woodloop 8:57
11 Under My Skin 10:09
12 Me Grain 6:57
13 Wait 4:29

Guts Pie Earshot - 10 Years Compilation (1993 - 2003 The Early Years)
(320 kbps, front cover included)

Martin Carthy - Martin Carthy (1965)

If the English folk revival of the 1960s had a single "father" and guiding spirit, then Martin Carthy was it. Carthy's influence transcends his abilities, formidable though those are - apart from being one of the most talented acoustic guitarists, mandolinists, and general multi-instrumentalists working the folk clubs in the 1960s, he was also a powerful singer with no pretensions or affectations, and was an even more prodigious arranger and editor, with an excellent ear for traditional compositions. In particular, he was as much a scholar as a performer, and frequently went back to the notes and notebooks of folk song collectors such as Percy Grainger, scouring them for fragments that could be made whole in performance - no "second hander," he used the earliest known transcriptions and recordings of many of the oldest folk songs known in England as his source, and worked from there. By 1966, at the time he was cutting his first two albums, Carthy was already an influence on Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and by the end of the 1960s was de facto mentor to virtually every serious aspiring folk musician in England. At least three major English folk-rock bands, Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, and the Albion Band, were formed either directly or indirectly with his help and influence.               

Carthy's debut album rates a place alongside the album by Bob Dylan, as the debut work of a man who ultimately revolutionized folk music performance in England (Carthy is mentioned as an influence on the notes to Dylan's Freewheelin' album). This is Carthy's purest and simplest folk effort, an all-acoustic recording done in barely an afternoon that includes his version of "Scarborough Fair," awhich Paul Simon learned from Carthy (including the chords and changes from Carthy's arrangement) and transformed into a hit of his own. Also here is "Two Magicians," a song that later entered the repertory Steeleye Span, and "Lovely Joan," a folk song that is most familiar to classical listeners as the source of the counter-melody to Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on Greensleeves." The playing and the interpretations are somewhat less ambitious and rather rougher than subsequent efforts, with Dave Swarbrick guesting on fiddle on about half the tracks, and Carthy's guitar covering all but the acapella tracks.      


Tracklist:                           

High Germany	2:31
The Trees They Do Grow High	3:31
Sovay	2:09
Ye Mariners All	1:47
The Queen Of Hearts	2:21
Broomfield Hill	2:51
Springhill Mine Disaster	4:21
Scarborough Fair	3:25
Lovely Joan	1:49
The Barley And The Rye	1:39
The Wind That Shakes The Barley	4:26
The Two Magicians	3:23
The Handsome Cabin Boy	3:24
And A-Begging I Will Go	2:54

    
Martin Carthy - Martin Carthy (1965)    
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Lee Wiley With Billy Butterfield And His Orchestra – A Touch Of The Blues (1958)

Her husky, surprisingly sensual voice and exquisitely cool readings of pop standards distinguished her singing, but Lee Wiley earns notice as one of the best early jazz singers by recognizing the superiority of American popular song and organizing a set of songs around a common composer or theme -- later popularized as the songbook or concept LP. She was also a songwriter in her own right, and one of the few white vocalists with more respect in the jazz community than the popular one. Even more tragic then, that while dozens of inferior vocalists recorded LPs during the late '50s and '60s, Wiley appeared on record just once between 1957 and her death in 1975.

The stellar "A Touch of the Blues" pairs Lee Wiley with an exceptional band led by trumpeter Billy Butterfield, whose warm, beautiful tone proves a sympathetic counterpoint to Al Cohn and Bill Finegan's otherwise dark, melancholy arrangements. While a title like "A Touch of the Blues" guarantees the listener few surprises, the album consistently avoids the familiar bluesy clichés -- Wiley's sensuality and sophistication suggest emotional depths to make such gestures redundant anyway. And like her more celebrated songbook sessions, the material here is expertly selected, complementing Wiley's inherent strengths while affording her the latitude to stretch out in new directions.


Tracklist:

01. The Memphis Blues (Handy-Norton) 3:26
02. From The Land of Sky Blue Water (Eberhart-Cadman) 2:43
03. The Ace in the Hole (Dempsey-Mitchell) 3:00
04. Someday You'll Be Sorry (Armstrong) 4:10
05. My Melancholy Baby (Norton-Burnett) 3:12
06. A Hundred Years from Today (Young-Washington-Young) 3:09
07. Blues in my Heart (Carter-Mills) 2:59
08. Maybe You'll Be There (Gallop-Bloom) 3:14
09. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea (Koehler-Arlen) 2:57
10. I Don't Want to Walk Without You, Baby (Loesser-Styne) 2:43
11. Make Believe (Kern-Hammerstein) 3:16
12. A Touch of the Blues (George-Wilcox) 4:14


Lee Wiley With Billy Butterfield And His Orchestra – A Touch Of The Blues (1958)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Nicolette ‎– I Am Where The Party's At

This maxi single features remixes of "I Am Where the Party's At," a track off of Nicolette's third album "Life Loves Us", released in late 2005. "Life Loves Us" proved itself to be a life-affirming, true and uplifting river of sound, with twelve quirky, catchy songs plus interludes and soundbytes. "I Am Where the Party's At" is a song of astonishing energy and inventiveness, as per usual with Nicolette's trademark asymmetric beats and high-toned lush vocals. 

This time, there are the spicy added flavors of drum n' bass, old school dancefloor funk, space-age microtones, futuristic gospel, and even a hint of Public Enemy thrown in. The result is a pop song of exceptional originality, with a ridiculously catchy hook and a driving warped bassline that rattles the spine. 

Including a remix by the Bug, this track is rendered melodic and funky, yet deep and hard - infecting us with it's uplifting mood and bright bubbles of high-pitched sound. Strange and evocative melodies run lightly in the background against Nicolette's rich and childlike voice (or should we say voices?)."

Also included is an 'early version' from the track 'No government'.

Tracklist:

I Am Where The Party's At3:59
I Am Where The Party's At (Bug Remix)4:05
I Am Where The Party's At (Album Version)8:17
No Government (Early Version)5:31


Nicolette ‎– I Am Where The Party's At
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Martin Carthy ‎– Martin Carthy's Second Album

This record stands in British music history and Carthy's career roughly where "Another Side of Bob Dylan" does in American music - the more florrid tracks here, recorded with violinist Dave Swarbrick, show the path to the bridge between Carthy's traditional singer/scholar background and the folk-rock played by bands such as Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. 

"Lord Franklin" is a narrative tour-de-force (from which Bob Dylan got the melody for "Bob Dylan's Dream" on Freewheelin' ), "Ramblin' Sailor" is boisterous cautionary tale about the company the title character keeps ashore, and there's also an acoustic recording of "Sailor's Life," a song that Fairport Convention would transmute into an epic electric version, and "Lowlands of Holland," which Steeleye Span later recorded.


Tracklist:
1 Two Butchers 2:27
2 Ball O' Yarn 1:45
3 Farewell Nancy 2:07
4 Lord Franklin 3:35
5 Ramblin' Sailor 2:49
6 Lowlands Of Holland 2:53
7 Fair Maid On The Shore 3:40
8 Bruton Town 4:35
9 Box On Her Head 2:10
10 Newlyn Town 2:20
11 Brave Wolf 3:22
12 Peggy And The Soldier 2:47
13 Sailor's Life 3:09


Martin Carthy ‎– Martin Carthy's Second Album
(320 kbps, cover art included)

The Kingston Trio - Live At Newport 1959

"Live at Newport" is a live album by the American folk music group The Kingston Trio. It contains a performance by the trio at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. At the time of the performance, the group consisted of Dave Guard, Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds.

The Kingston Trio had just become superstars when they performed this 12-song set at the Newport Folk Festival. Including well-known features of their repertoire such as "M.T.A.," "Scotch and Soda," and "All My Sorrows," it's a good-sounding and well-executed performance.   

It's been half a century since The Kingston Trio set the pop world afire with "Tom Dooley" and "(Charlie on the) MTA," and, in the process, turned "folk" music mainstream. College kids with energy, talent, and lively humor to burn, the Trio avoided the protest songs and controversy which led to the blacklisting of The Weavers during the McCarthy era. Featured at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, they became star attractions the following year when the Newport Folk Festival was inaugurated.

This album, recorded at that 1959 Festival but not released until 1994, highlights the youth, high spirits, and just plain good fun of a Kingston Trio concert, long before rock concerts became the norm. Only thirty-seven minutes long, this album contains mostly songs that were already big hits (and had already been recorded), but for those newbies wanting a short sample of their music and performing style, or long-time fans wanting a historic live recording, this does the job nicely.

"Saro Jane," "Hard Ain't It Hard," "When the Saints Go Marching In," and "Three Jolly Coachmen" have the insistent rhythms of guitar and banjo, the unrelenting energy, and the easy harmonies that typify Kingston Trio albums. "All My Sorrows," "South Coast," and "Scotch and Soda" add some quieter, minor-keyed variety to the selection. Their wild, irreverent humor, as close as the Trio gets to a protest, is seen in "Merry Minuet," in which the "rioting in Africa" and "starving in Spain," become a comment on politics and the environment, which may someday be solved by the "mushroom-shaped cloud."

Filled with the high-pitched screams and cheers of their young audience, to which the group plays with asides and seemingly off-the-cuff remarks, this album is classic Kingston Trio - loads of fun and loads of now-familiar songs.

The Kingston Trio - Live At Newport
(256 kbps, front cover included)

Josh White - Harlem Blues (Musicraft, 1940)

Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914–-September 5, 1969), best known as Josh White, was a legendary American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He was also known by the name "J King".

White's anti-segregationist and international human rights political stance presented in many of his recordings and in his speeches at rallies resulted in the right-wing McCarthyites incorrectly assuming that he must have been a Communist. Accordingly, from 1947 through the mid 1960s, White was caught in the vise grip of the anti-Communist Red Scare, and combined with his resulting attempt to clear his name, his career was harmed immeasurably. However, regardless of the purists' debate over the artistic change in his presentation or from those who opposed his politics, White unarguably inspired several generations of guitarists with his new and unique stylings and techniques, and is cited as a major musical and social influence by dozens of future stars.

"Harlem Blues" was a set of three 78 rpm singles, recorded March 7, 1940 in New York City

Josh White - Harlem Blues (Musicraft, 1940)
(192 kbps, front cover included)

Pete Seeger - Dangerous Songs (1966)

In 1966, when the topical song movement had gained national attention through the newly written material of Bob Dylan and such compatriots as Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger set out to demonstrate that "protest" songs were not a new thing by putting together an album largely made up of traditional material that had its roots in long-since-forgotten political issues, everything from the nursery rhyme "Little Jack Horner" to the Civil War march "John Brown's Body."

 

Further, Seeger suggested that everything is political, whether it's the apparently comic children's song "Beans in My Ears" or that piece of Irish advice "Never Wed an Old Man." ("In the long run, the most truly dangerous songs of all may prove to be love songs and lullabies," he wrote in the liner notes.)

And then there were songs that all would agree are political (though humorous), such as "The Pill" and Ochs' "Draft Dodger Rag." The resulting collection is one of Seeger's funniest, and at the same time most pointed albums. It took Columbia Records 32 years to reissue it on CD, with three bonus tracks from the sessions.

When the era of hootenanny of the fifties and early sixties were gone, and Pete Seeger was no longer one of the Weavers, he challenged the American conscience with these "dangerous songs." And why dangerous? We must not forget that in an age of McCarthy and his witchhunts, people like Pete Seeger were in danger of being labeled communists and being persecuted whenever they gave a wake-up call to common sense, social responsibility and budding eco-awareness. One of the songs,DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI (thoughts are free) an adaptation of a song long used among German-speaking cultures has been around since the 16th or 17thcentury (country or time of origin not entirely clear), needed only to be whistled or hummed to indicate to others that the whistler was a freedom-seeker.What a fine choice of a song to bring to the "silent majority" opposing war in general, and the Vietnam War in particular.

 

Pete Seeger - Dangerous Songs (1966)
(192 kbsp)

Paul Robeson - Paul Robeson singt (ETERNA)

Paul Leroy Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American concert singer (bass), recording artist, actor, athlete, and scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the 20th century.

He gained international attention for his work in the arts and he merged his artistic career with political activism to speak out for the equality of minorities and the rights of workers throughout the world.

His friendship with the Soviet Union USSR and the Soviet peoples plus criticism of the lack of progress in civil rights in the United States (US) at the outset of the Cold War and during the age of McCarthyism brought scrutiny, conflict and retribution from the American government. His public persona became diminished, his income plummeted and he faced isolation from the Civil Rights Movement in the second half of the 20th century.

Robeson endured McCarthyism and briefly returned to the artistic spotlight, but the events in the 1950s combined with ongoing severe health breakdowns well into the 1960s virtually destroyed his health. Robeson lived out the last years of his life privately in Philadelphia.

Here´s a compilation released on ETERNA in 1976:

01 - O Honey Baby Feelin' Mighty Low
02 - Now My Soul Is A Whiteness
03 - Go Down Moses
04 - Yiddish Folk Song
05 - Song of the Warsaw Ghetto
06 - Viva La 5. Brigada
07 - The Four Generals
08 - Russian Folk Song
09 - Volga Boat Song
10 - Ol' Man River
11 - John Brown's Body (Glory Glory Halleluja)
12 - Goin' home
13 - Joe Hill
14 - O Mistress Mine
15 - Baby sleeping in Thy Cradle Swinging (Schlafe, holder süßer Knabe)
16 - O Isis And Osiris
17 - Brother Sing Your Countries Anthem (Freude schöner Götterfunken)

Paul Robeson - Paul Robeson singt (ETERNA)
(320 kbps, cover art included)



Here you can read the lecture "Paul Robeson - schwarzer Zeit- und Kampfgenosse von Ernst Busch” (Hans Christian Nørregaard, 20. Mai 2011 bei Helle Panke e.V.).

Jean Ritchie, Oscar Brand & David Sear - A Folk Concert In Town Hall, New York (1959)

A spirited 1959 live set from the ongoing duo of Jean Ritchie and Oscar Brand (with their usual banjo-playing accompanist, Dave Sear, getting equal billing for the first time), "A Folk Concert in Town Hall, New York" sounds downright jubilant most of the time. 

Although Ritchie and Brand had long and successful solo careers, there's something special about their harmonies. Unlike many of the more mannered and academic folksingers of the age -- Pete Seeger comes immediately to mind -- Jean Ritchie grew up singing these songs for fun, and that brand of unfeigned enthusiasm comes through on her freewheeling renditions of familiar tunes like "Shortenin Bread" (sung as a round with Brand and Sear) and "Shady Grove." 

Even less familiar to the casual folk fan, nuggets like "Ennery My Son" and "The Inniskillin Dragoon" sound intimate and lived-in (Brand, who had a sideline in risqué folk ditties, spins the occasional double entendre with dry wit) in comparison to the technically "correct" but often far-too-stiff versions so common in the '50s folk revival. 

"A Folk Concert in Town Hall, New York" is an impressive addition to both Jean Ritchie and Oscar Brand's catalogs.

Tracklist:

Shortnin' Bread
Ha Ha This-A-Way
Shady Grove
The Rolling Of The Stones
Pretty Polly
The Admiral
Dhrinnin Dhu Dhrinnin
My Boy Willy
Jenny Jenkins
Poor Howard
Lord Randall
Ennery My Son
The Inniskillin Dragoon
Trip Trap Robbers In The Sea
The Talking Atom
Aiken Drum
Fair And Tender Ladies
Black-Eyed Susie


Jean Ritchie, Oscar Brand & David Sear - A Folk Concert In Town Hall, New York (1959)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Anita Lane - Dirty Pearls (1993)

On 28 April 2021, it was announced that Anita Lane had died at age 61. Thanks for the wonderful music and rest in peace!

Nick Cave:
"You think you know grief, you think you’ve worked out its mechanics, you think you’ve become grief-savvy — stronger, wiser, more resilient — you think that there is nothing more that can hurt you in this world, and then Anita dies."
"Everyone wanted to work with her but it was like trying to trap lightning in a bottle. Mick Harvey managed to coral her into the recording studio, but these precious offerings are a fraction of what she was."
"She was the brains behind The Birthday Party, wrote a bunch of their songs, wrote ‘From Her to Eternity’, ‘The World’s a Girl’, ’Sugar in a Hurricane’ and my favourite Bad Seeds song, ‘Stranger Than Kindness’, but was much more than that."


Not so much an album as a collection organized in reverse chronological order, Dirty Pearl takes in just about all the various tracks Lane had recorded by herself or with other groups over a decade's worth of recording. Given her early association with Nick Cave and the Birthday Party, it's little surprise that Cave and various Bad Seeds and associated bands, like Einstürzende Neubaten and Die Haut, crop up as backing performers, while Mick Harvey handles most of the production and instrumentation and Barry Adamson contributes some of his sharp arranging skills here and there. If a bit fragmented as a result, Dirty Pearl still makes for an involving listen, demonstrating clearly that her work is worth taking on its own terms instead of simply being a Cave footnote. Besides having a good if at points girlish voice, albeit one that she's shown more control over with time -- rather like Cave! -- she has a taste for smoky sonic settings for her vocals, sometimes low-key and sly, other times frenetic even as she keeps her cool. Her ear for cover versions, in particular, shows somebody unafraid of taking chances -- besides a gripping revamp of the Sisters Sledge hit "Lost in Music," backed in part by Cave and Adamson that originally appeared on the Dirty Sings EP, there's also a more recent take on Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing." Compared to the near-contemporary Soul Asylum groan through the same song, Lane hits incredible heights, her delivery sensuous even as the familiar melody becomes a beautifully dramatic film noir tearjerker. Her originals, including a slew of excellent numbers co-written with Harvey, like the ruined cowboy/western sorrow of "Jesus Almost Got Me" and the heavy moodout of "Picture of Mary," a collaboration with Blixa Bargeld, are just as fine.

Sleevenotes: "Recorded in Berlin, London, Sydney and Melbourne 1993 - 1982. Presented here in reverse chronological order."
Album includes some previously released tracks: The Dirty Sings EP (tracks 10 to 13), "Blume" (track 4) from Tabula Rasa, "How Long" (track 5) from Head On and "A Prison In The Desert" (track 9) from Ghosts ...Of The Civil Dead.

Tracklist:



1 Jesus Almost Got Me 2:34
2 The Groovy Guru 3:09
3 Sexual Healing 5:39
4 Blume 4:33
5 Subterranean World (How Long...?) 5:51
6 Picture of Mary 4:14
7 The World's a Girl 3:20
8 Stories of Your Dreams 2:50
9 A Prison in the Desert 2:50
10 If I Should Die 3:01
11 I'm a Believer 4:45
12 Lost in Music 4:37
13 Sugar in a Hurricane 4:10
14 The Fullness of His Coming 2:54


Anita Lane - Dirty Pearls (1993)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Lizzy Mercier Descloux ‎– Suspense (1988)

After swinging from no wave experimentalism to internationalist grooves on her first four albums, Lizzy Mercier Descloux was asked to do something new on LP Number Five: deliver a sure-fire hit. Released in 1984, "Zulu Rock" produced a surprise hit single in Europe, "Mais où Sont Passées les Gazelles?," but EMI Records wanted bigger returns for her fifth album, especially after the critical and commercial disappointment of 1986's "One for the Soul". Mercier Descloux was credited as co-producer on 1988's "Suspense", but the real overseers of the project were Mark Cunningham (who Lizzy knew from her days on New York's no wave scene when he was a member of MARS) and John Brand (who had previously worked with Aztec Camera, the Waterboys, Magazine, and Gene Loves Jezebel), and they delivered Mercier Descloux's most polished work. 

"Suspense" is a work of slick Eurocentric pop that sounds very '80s, from the popping basslines and cracking drum sounds to the jangling guitars and trademark synth patches. The horns and Latin percussion glance to the flavors of Mercier Descloux's previous work, and Kim Burton's accordion work adds a welcome Parisian flair, but despite it all this is Lizzy's least musically interesting album.

However, in spite of this, Mercier Descloux's vocal work is excellent on "Suspense", and she rarely sounded as confident and emphatic as she does on this material, especially on the French-language numbers, where she seems to be truly in her element. It's a shame that "Suspense" proved to be the last album Lizzy Mercier Descloux would release in her lifetime -- for all its flaws, it shows that she continued to grow and mature as a vocalist even in less than inspired surroundings, and if it had been a hit, the success could have earned her the chance to do something more idiosyncratic.


Tracklist:

Gypsy Flame 3:06

Cape Desire 3:44

Salomé 3:48

Lucky Strike Drive 4:06

The Long Goodbye 5:24

Playtime 4:13

Hurricane 4:26

Once Upon A Time Out 3:35

Echec Et Mat 3:19

A Room In New York 4:19

Lizzy Mercier Descloux ‎– Suspense (1988)

(192 kbps,cover art included)

Belina - Jeder träumt seine eigenen Träume (1963)

Belina was born on February 6, 1925 in Treblinka, Poland as Lea-Nina Rodzynek. As a young woman, Lea-Nina fled to Germany, where she found work in a factory with fake documents and under a false name. When the fraud was discovered she was arrested and deported to a concentration camp, from which she escaped. She managed to be hidden until the end of the Third Reich. Paris was the first station in the freedom. There she traveled as a singer through the many taverns where the people called her "the Black Angel from Montparnasse".

She spoke six languages: Polish, English, Yiddish, Russian and German. Yet, she was also able to express herself and sing in another dozen foreign languages.

Belina performed in 1964/65 in more than 120 countries - a triumphant series of concerts which met with one rave review after another.
During her world tour with guitarist Siegfried Behrend, she was once given the score of a Korean folksong at noon with the request that she sing it the same evening. Belina sang it and the following day the concert reviews spoke of her rendition of the song in Korean as being a natural part of her - so convincing and immediate was the quality of her singing.

In 1981 she made a final, very beautiful, but unfortunately unacknowledged LP recording with guitarist Ladi Geisler. After this project, Belina retired from show business.

She was also an actress, known for "Treffpunkt Baden-Baden" (1964), "Rhythmus der Nationen" (1962) "Das gefällt auch morgen noch" (1963) and "Hoheit liebt nur dufte Puppen" (1965).

Belina died on December 12, 2006 in Hamburg, Germany.

The album "Jeder träumt seine eigenen Träume" features original recordings from a TV show in March 1963 called "Belina - Porträt einer Sängerin".


Tracklist:

A1 Exodus (Ein Land Ist Mein)
A2 Hava Naghila
A3 Dreh' Dich Nicht Um Nach Fremden Schatten (Le Grisbi)
A4 A Yiddische Momme
A5 Le Bonheur
A6 Blue Balalaika
B1 Jeder Träumt Seine Eigenen Träume
B2 Ich Weiß, Es Wird Einmal Ein Wunder Gescheh'n
B3 Tamburine
B4 Man Hat Uns Nicht Gefragt
B5 Einsamkeit (Blue Melody)
B6 Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (Nein, Es Tut Mir Nicht Leid)

Belina - Jeder träumt seine eigenen Träume (1963)

(192 kbps, cover art included)

Zulus ‎– Destruction Is The Art Of Creation (1996)

Conscious hip-hop of the mid-1990s from the UK focused on society's ills, reminiscent of Public Enemy, Paris, P.O.W.E.R., or the Brotherhood. 

Check out the bass-banging tracks, such as "Black Power," "Attack the Structure," or the rock-heavy tracks "Ruffneck" or "Instruments of Genocide." A lot of mellow track as well, but sharp and powerful messages throughout.


Tracklist:

Mission Imperative 6:13
Radio Skit 0:32
Black Power 5:13
Zulu Soul 4:36
Ruffneck 4:15
Live N Direk (4 Da Headz) 3:52
Rich Man Poor Man 4:48
Nah Go Slip 3:58
Attack Da Structure 4:28
Fight Da Force 4:29
No Otha Pussy 5:23
Black Britain 4:48
Instruments Of Genocide 5:33
Thoughts Uplifted 4:28
No Change 4:38
Rough Justice 3:37
On Da Phone 0:20

Zulus ‎– Destruction Is The Art Of Creation (1996)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Maria Bethania - Recital Na Boite Barroco (1968)

Maria Bethânia Viana Teles Veloso (born June 18, 1946) is a Brazilian singer and songwriter. Born in Santo Amaro, Bahia, she started her career in Rio de Janeiro in 1964 with the show "Opinião" ("Opinion"). Due to its popularity, with performances all over the country, and the popularity of her 1965 single "Carcará", the artist became a star in Brazil.

Bethânia is the sister of the singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso and of the writer-songwriter Mabel Velloso, as well as being aunt of the singers Belô Velloso and Jota Velloso

She recorded "Recital Na Boite Barroco" for the Odeon label in 1968 and it was reissued on compact disc in 2007 by EMI. This passionate interpreter of Brazilian popular song was some three years into her recording career when she was taped in live performance with the Tamba Trio (pianist Luiz Eca, bassist Bebeto, and percussionist Helcio Milito). The Maria Bethânia heard on this album was already an adept handler of intimate ballads, jazz samba and bossa nova. Standing as it does among the earliest entries in her discography, "Recital Na Boite Barroco" serves as a pleasant prologue to her major triumphs of the '70s and her subsequent successes over the years.

Tracklist:

Marginália II
Carinhoso
Se Todos Fossem Iguais A Você
Último Desejo
Camisa Listada
Marina
O Que Tinha De Ser
Molambo
Lama
Pano Legal
Café Soçaite
Pé da Roseira
Êle Falava Nisso Todo Dia
Baby
Maria, Maria

Maria Bethania - Recital Na Boite Barroco (1968)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Mikis Theodorakis, Maria Farantouri, Petros Pandis - Canto General (1975)

An historical recording of the first performance in Athens, of "Canto General", the "Bible of South America" composed by Mikis Theodorakis, on the poetry of the Nobelist Chilean "national poet", Pablo Neruda. Maria Farantouri and Petros Pandis are singing in spanish, the original Neruda lyrics. They are backed by the National Chorus of France, the Percussions of Strasbourg and a Greek Folk Orchestra with two great bouzouki soloists. This live recording is unique, since it immortalized the superb enthousiastic atmosphere created by 75.000 applauding spectators. A collector's item, recorded live on August 13, 1975, at the Karaiskakis-Stadium, Pireus and on August 16, 1975, at the Panathinaikos-Stadium, Athens, by Polysound Studio.

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The "General Song" or "Canto General" is the ultimate creation of the greatest of "the soul engineers", the Chilean Pablo Neruda. In these burning pages he is poet, revolutionist, soldier, chilean, american, universal. Neruda honors the people and the people honors Neruda. Never again such a deep, close and glorious union between a nation and a poet has been achieved. Canto General is the voice of the people, of all the nations of the World. Mikis Theodorakis was touched and impressed and added his own magic touch. And the result was a masterpiece, by all means.

Tracklist:

01. Manos Katrakis - Prologue
02. Maria Farantouri - Algunas bestias
03. Petros Pandis - Voy a vivir 1949
04. Maria Farantouri - Los libertadores
05. Petros Pandis - La United Fruit Co.
06. Maria Farantouri - Vienen los pajaros
07. Maria Farantouri - Vegetaciones
08. Petros Pandis - America insurrecta 1800

Mikis Theodorakis, Maria Farantouri, Petros Pandis - Canto General (1975)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

The Ex & Tom Cora - And The Weathermen Shrug Their Shoulders

The second album of this winning collaboration between the legendary independent post-punk group and avant garde cellist Tom Cora sees the group continue to indulge their collective love for European folk themes and free improvisation.

At moments, the stuttering, angular Gang of Four sound rises up, and the group carries a stilted groove through the extended pieces, when their trademark skittering guitars walk a line between artful control and willful chaos, recalling their explosive Crass-like '80s sound. While the delicate melodious folk patters, curious improvised sound-searching marked a new tangent the group followed into a total free-form improvisation inspired by the likes of avant-garde jazz associates Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg.

They never left their punk roots behind ,however. The Ex is one of the genre's most interesting and inventive groups.               

Tracklist:

1. "Dere Geliyor Dere" - 4:20
2. "The Big Black" - 5:33
3. "What's the Story" - 2:19
4. "Lamp Lady" - 3:48
5. "One-Liner from China" - 1:32
6. "Everything and Me" - 3:59
7. "New Clear Daze" - 4:41
8. "Oh Puckerlips Now" - 4:04
9. "Empty V" - 2:25
10. "Okinawa Mon Amour" - 2:26
11. "Dear House" - 4:41
12. "Conviction Going Gaga" - 1:36
13. "Stupid Competitions" - 4:15
14. "Hickwall" - 3:11
15. "War OD" - 6:12
16. "Untitled" - 2:01

The Ex & Tom Cora - And The Weathermen Shrug Their Shoulders
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Patricio Manns, Karaxu, Angel Parra – Chile: Songs For The Resistance (1975)

"In every epoch, certain struggles against oppression have come down through history and sum up for us in a single heroic shout the great reservoir of courage and humanity which is the common birthright of all people. France of 1789, Russia of 1917, China of 1949, Cuba of 1959; these are both milestones and symbols, the tradition of revolution which demonstrates that historically all reactionaries have been, in essence, paper tigers. That a people united can never be defeated. But not every symbol is a victorious one. The world has borne to witness to the bloody coup of September 1973 which swallowed and destroyed the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende..."




Tracklist:

A1 Patricio Manns– La Cancion De Luciano 5:40
A2 Patricio Manns– La Ventana 5:25
A3 Patricio Manns– La Resistencia Se Organiza 4:56
A4 Patricio Manns– Bolivariana 3:30
B1 Daniel Viglietti– Solo Digo Compañeros 2:22
B2 Patricio Manns– Los Libertadores 4:30
B3 Patricio Manns– La Dignidad Se Hace Costumbre 3:55
B4 Patricio Manns– Ya No Somos Nosotros 2:40
B5 José Durán– Carta A Mi Compañero 5:36
B6 José Durán– Trabajadores Al Poder 2:50

Patricio Manns, Karaxu, Angel Parra – Chile: Songs For The Resistance (1975)

(320 kbps, cover art included)