Rubin,Amy - Hallelujah Games - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Pale Sunday is a magnificent new trio from Brazil whose outstanding debut EP is on every hipster's shopping list already. While demonstrating a love for classic acts from the Creation and Sarah rosters, the band manages to sound entirely modern with four of the catchiest songs in a long while. Combining perfectly jangling and sometimes fuzzy guitars with keyboards, strings, sing-along choruses, superb melodies, sha-la-la's and a beefy rhythm track, the songs are top quality A-sides that demonstrate great promise for a superb young act. Fans of the Field Mice, Jesus and Mary Chain, Adorable or the Orchids meet your new favorite band.

This year's Christmas CD from OehmsClassics presents the baroque specialist par excellence Michael Hofstetter. With the Neumeyer Consort and the Ensemble Barock Vokal of Mainz, he has recorded the great and famous choruses from Handel's Messiah. As always with Hofstetter, the result is phenomenal and each tiny sonic nuance is meticulously worked out in the greatest detail.

Stellar piano duo Quattro Mani's latest recording features John Adams's ebullient InchHallelujah JunctionInch, and premiere recordings by Paul Moravec and Danish composer Bent Sørensen. Bonus tracks include rarities by Paul Creston and Paul Bowles. Fanfare's Robert Carl writes that InchQuattro Mani is one of the most enduring and leading keyboard duos anywhere.Inch