Finally Woken, Jem's full-length debut, fleshes out the It All Starts Here EP with six additional tracks. It features the addicting title track, the same one that blew away KCRW and Nic Harcourt and got her signed to ATO, and it really is quite brilliant. With a dizzy main loop and loping percussion that undulates slyly beneath Jem's dusky vocal detachment, it sounds like what would happen if Beth Orton started bouncing ideas off of Super Furry Animals' hard drive. The song's formula essentially repeats throughout Finally Woken – Jem's simplistically alluring vocals stringing along subtle electronic percussion, ear-catching samples, and melodic loops built from traditional instruments. However, perhaps because this debut sort of snuck up on her, it seems stylistically scattershot. Jem and collaborator Yoad Nevo have a jones for switching things up. They elongate and reduce their elements wildly, to varying degrees of success.

America is a huge, diverse country with Yankee home cooking and Tex Mex cuisine. People ski on frozen Vermont mountains and surf the big waves in sun drenched California. One thing that binds it all together is TV. Television is American culture, a common thread that holds it all together on a nightly basis as we assemble around our living rooms to watch our favorite characters and shows. Twenty years ago, TVT Records was born with its first release, Television's Greatest Hits. Now after having sold millions of its TV theme compilations around the world, America's #1 independent label for the past 4 years running is returning to its roots. In celebration of TVT's 20th Anniversary, it is releasing the ultimate TV collection, All Time Top 100 TV Themes, featuring themes drawn from all the original sources.

This installment in the spate of releases showcasing Philadelphia's Cameo Parkway label focuses on the Orlons, a three-woman, one-man quartet that blended soulful doo-wop and R&B in the manner of contemporaries like the Shirelles and the early Miracles. The Orlons offered up several playful, rhythm-driven dance songs ("The Wah-Watusi"), but they are at their best on uptempo pop like "Don't Hang Up" and dramatic ballads like "The Conservative", which let lead vocalist Rosetta Highwater shine. Remastered sound and fine liner notes make this release a treasure for fans of doo-wop and R&B from the early '60s.

Jacintha is a Singaporean jazz singer/torch singer and stage actress who has been well-known in parts of the Asia-Pacific region since the '80s and has been increasing her exposure in North America since the late '90s. Jacintha has never been the type of jazz artist who goes out of her way to be abstract, difficult, or complicated; her work has been quite accessible and easy to absorb, drawing on direct or indirect influences that have included Julie London and Shirley Horn as well as Brazilian star Astrud Gilberto. Jacintha has long been fluent in English. Her visibility in the United States and Canada started to increase in the late '90s, when she began working with producer Ying Tan and started recording for the Los Angeles-based Groove Note label. Jacintha's first Groove Note release, Here's to Ben: A Vocal Tribute to Ben Webster, was recorded in 1999 – and that album marked the first time that a Jacintha album was widely distributed in North America.

Rock Swings is an album by Paul Anka. Recorded in November 2004 and released on May 31, 2005 in Canada and June 7, 2005 in the United States, it contains swing jazz covers of popular rock and pop songs from the 1980s and 1990s. The idea of an established vocalist giving rock hits a "standards" treatment was earlier realized by Anka's contemporary Pat Boone in the 1997 album, In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy, with Boone doing covers of songs by Alice Cooper, Van Halen and Judas Priest. That same year, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé covered Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" in a lounge-jazz style on the 1997 compilation album release, Lounge-A-Palooza. Anka also covers "Black Hole Sun" on Rock Swings. Reportedly, the Michael Jackson song "Billie Jean" was slated to be on the album in the recording stages, but Paul Anka could not get through a vocal take without bursting into laughter.

The Essential Review by Johnny Loftus
Concrete Blonde's entry in Capitol's Essential series is similar to its Classic Masters retrospective from 2002. In fact, it's exactly the same track listing until Essential opts for "Happy Birthday" and "Sun," two tracks from 1989's Free. But neither collection adequately replaces 1996's comprehensive, out of print Recollection: The Best of Concrete Blonde, and Essential only goes as far as the 1992 LP Walking in London, excluding the following year's Mexican Moon. It's also curious that nothing unreleased could be scrounged from the vaults for this set. Still, diehards can cover with 2003's Live in Brazil (Ark 21), meaning Essential is probably OK for the casual Concrete fan. It's in chronological order for one thing, beginning with the fabulously hungry "Still in Hollywood" and rolling right through to "Caroline," "Joey," and "Tomorrow, Wendy" from the 1990 breakthrough, Bloodletting. The band's atmospheric cover of Hendrix's "Little Wing" dates from the same year, as does a live version of "Roses Grow." (Both were originally released on the Caroline single.) It might have switched out "Sun" for "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)." And it really could have used the title track to Mexican Moon. But otherwise, Essential is a pretty satisfactory overview of Concrete Blonde's IRS output.

Three concertos, three orchestras, three soloists, one conductor–an interesting concept, and it works. These are very fine performances by any standard. The First Concerto at first seems not to have quite as much rhythmic heft as say, Kocsis or Ashkenazy, but a glance at the score reveals Pierre Boulez and Krystian Zimerman to be exceptionally attentive to Bartók’s dynamic markings. The first fortissimo arrives five bars after figure 11, exactly as written, but it would be a mistake to typify this reading in any way as soft-edged. Bartók himself, as a pianist, was noteworthy for stressing his music’s lyricism and folk-orientation. So does Zimerman, and the combination of this quality with Boulez’s typical clarity makes for an unusually probing reading.

The brief opening piece for chorus on this new release, "Da Pacem Domine," is based on a 9th century Gregorian work and has the usual, familiar–and very beautiful–Pärt-ian characteristics: a soft, endless stream of easy tritones and harmonies that make this plea for peace immensely moving. The major work, Lamentate, is scored for large orchestra and solo piano–a very unusual combination for Pärt. Even his fans will be surprised. In ten brief sections, it begins with a quiet drum roll, immediately followed by horn calls. There are forte explosions for full orchestra and piano, with heavy percussion. At times the only thing we hear is a hushed piano part with strings supporting very quietly. The effect is dark yet alluring. It ends peacefully. This is another stunning CD of Pärt's music for his fans–old and new.

Amazon Review by JRK: Bought this to get hold on one particular track that I couldn't find anywhere else… and discovered many others that I'd only heard on white label back in the 80s. Took me right back to my yoof! Some real gems on here - proper rare - with others more obvious and widely available.
A few of the tracks are obviously recorded straight from vinyl - a few clicks and hisses, and even a small jump at the end of one track (something for all the vinyl junkies out there). Shame that some of the tracks are faded out too soon but then they have crammed 100 tracks onto 5 CDs. Large value!

Swing-era bandleader with the most overall popularity, driven by his remarkably melodic trombone playing.
Though he might have been ranked second at any given moment to Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, or Harry James, Tommy Dorsey was overall the most popular bandleader of the swing era that lasted from 1935 to 1945. His remarkably melodic trombone playing was the signature sound of his orchestra, but he successfully straddled the hot and sweet styles of swing with a mix of ballads and novelty songs. He provided showcases to vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, and Jo Stafford, and he employed inventive arrangers such as Sy Oliver and Bill Finegan. He was the biggest-selling artist in the history of RCA Victor Records, one of the major labels, until the arrival of Elvis Presley, who was first given national exposure on the 1950s television show he hosted with his brother Jimmy.

When you want music filled to the brim with despair and death, Carlo Gesualdo is the composer you want. Consider opening lines like those of the first four of his third collection of madrigals: "You want me to die," "Whether I die or not," "Alas, life of despair," and "I languish and die": even Dowland and Shostakovich are cheerier than Gesualdo. But, however dark his texts, it cannot be denied that Gesualdo set them with absolute fidelity and utmost sincerity. His lines are twisted, his harmonies are tortured, and his counterpoint is agonizing, but they suit his morbid and morose texts like George Gershwin's music fit his brother Ira.

Out of all Italian verismo operas, Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier is one of the few of lasting popularity that is still performed regularly on major opera stages worldwide. This 1981 production features a stellar Plácido Domingo in the title role and a classic staging by Otto Schenk, making for one of the finest readings of the opera. Andrea Chénier was an overwhelming success when premiered at La Scala in 1896 and first performed in Vienna in 1926, returning to the stage whenever a truly great tenor was available to tackle the demanding title role. Gabriela Benacková and Piero Cappuccilli lead a strong supporting cast in this tragic love story set during the times of French Revolution.

Adam Pacione is a Fort Worth, Texas based sound artist who's work primarily falls within the Ambient/Drone genre. There are artists that look into the subconscious aspects of perception through plain coincidences generated by even simpler sonic architectures, achieving results that are unequivocally inimitable. Without a doubt, Adam Pacione can proudly stand among them.
Sisyphus (2005). Stars come out early when this dry womb surrounds, when Texan hills and houses become miniature ziggurats under heat-lamp, and faces adopt the timelessness of cut Roman masks without hesitation. The music reflects the gauzy thickness of the air, the feeling of conscious breath, of thorough body suspension, but rock-garden clean, sacred sterile, and nearly monolithic in the clarity of each second’s noise…

This 22-cut double-disc set finally gets at it. Issuing a single disc of Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler would be a silly thing at best and a hopelessly frustrating one at worst. When the band burst on the scene with "Sultans of Swing," there was a lot happening in rock music, but most of it was under the radar and remains forgotten except in the historic annals of music fanatics. Knopfler and his band were full of rock & roll romance and proved it through their first four recordings time and again. They couldn't help but become superstars and mainstays of MTV. But there is another story told on this best-of, which begins with "Telegraph Road."

A Switzerland-based hard rock act formed in 1997, Shakra went through a number of lineup changes (including a vocalist change when the bands' momentum was just gaining attention) but managed to persevere and keep going for over two decades. Their first album, 1998's Shakra, and its follow-up, 1999's Moving Force, were strong enough to earn them support slots touring with bands like Great White and Uriah Heep. Real progress was being made with their third album, Power Ride (2001), but unfortunately a health situation forced the departure of vocalist Pete Wiedmer. Mark Fox stepped in to fill the frontman role, and the band recorded and released Rising in 2003.