The Mekons - So Good It Hurts - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

After touring on the back of their twisted non-retrospective InchPunk RockInch in 2004, The Mekons picked up their instruments and lost themselves far beyond the beaten path in the wilds of the English countryside. Removed from the restraints of conventional studio technology, they navigate an undulating sonic landscape of lavish melodies, mantric chants, and shimmering acoustic experimentation. This is their first new material in five years since 2002's critically acclaimed InchOOOH!Inch Look for them on tour this fall.

Limited double 180gm vinyl LP pressing. Upon it's in the summer of 1971, Shaft became the first double album of original studio material released by an R&B artist. The album peaked at #1 on The Billboard 200 chart, and spent sixty weeks on the chart despite Stax bootlegging their own album. In a long career full of triumphs as a singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor and soul-music visionary, Shaft was the pinnacle for Hayes. The theme shot to #1, the album hit #1 and stayed on the pop charts for well over a year and the sound of it all not only defined blaxploitation, but also helped usher in the sound of the '70s. It's still a powerful experience, one that's best served here Theme from Shaft and the hit Do Your Thing join Ellie's Love Theme, No Name Bar, Soulsville, Café Regio's, and the rest of this essential classic.

The autograph of Bernardo Pasquini's collection Sonate per uno o due Cembali con il basso cifrato is held at the British Library of London (Ms. Add. 31501, I). It consists of three small compositions written in intavolatura notation (Tastata, Corrente, Aria), as well as Sonatas and Bassi written in figured bass notation, so-called partimenti. The pieces are marked with dates from 6 May 1703 to 3 December 1704, suggesting the time when the work was created, or possibly copied. The Sonatas and Bassi form a substantial collection of 28 pieces, 14 of each type. The Sonatas are for two keyboard instruments, while the Bassi are for one. The recordings of the Sonatas presented on this album are fully written-out pieces, not a sound recording of improvisations. The partimento notation became a pretext for Joanna Solecka to develop different varieties of polyphonic texture, in accordance with the rules of counterpoint characteristic of the composer's period. In the presented realisations there is thus room for canon, fugue and free imitative polyphony, as well as for contrastive polyphony and nota contra notam texture. The realization of the Sonatas in counterpoint style is a truly fascinating study of elaborate polyphony and composition, requiring insight beyond the ephemeral nature of improvisation. Hopefully the presented interpretations of Bernardo Pasquini's Sonate per due Cembali con il basso cifrato will take listeners not only on a journey through the world of Baroque contrapuntal techniques, but above all will touch their souls with their variety and depth of affect.