CD/DVD suggestion of the day

[Progger58]

Hey, folks, I have just got an idea (not any original idea, must admit): how about creating this place specifically for us to share suggestions of CDs and DVDs we think are really worth recommending to everybody else?

Any genre, so that we can make this topic the most eclectic possible.

Let’s also try, whenever it’s possible, to give some description of the disc we are recommending, all right? From my part I will try to do my best, in spite of my poor English.

I will start the game suggesting this very beautiful CD, one of my all time favorites:

Group: OCTOBER PROJECT
Title: October Project
Year: 1993
Genre: Art-Rock

Tracklist:

1. Bury My Lovely
2. Ariel
3. Where You Are
4. A Lonely Voice
5. Eyes of Mercy
6. Return to Me
7. Wall of Silence
8. Take Me As I Am
9. Now I Lay Me Down
10. Always
11. Paths of Desire
12. Be My Hero

One of the best things which happened in the music scene in the 90’s (that’s what I do think about this wonderful band), OCTOBER PROJECT released only two albums, by Sony/Epic Records (October Project, from 1993, and Falling Farther In, from 1995), before getting dumped by their record company in ‘96, when they simply broke up. Some of the band members formed a short-lived band called November Project, which released an EP of songs entitled A Thousand Days (1999), but they soon reverted back to their former name, releasing a self-produced CD entitled Different Eyes, in 2003.

The debut, self-titled release of the group, though, is the true musical gem I want to talk about here. This is simply one of the most beautiful albums I had the chance to listen to in all my life. It is mesmerizing, it is magical, it is mystical. Kind of vocal dominated symphonic rock, featuring a lush combination of keyboards, strings, percussion and guitars with emotive, gorgeous female vocals.

The lush instrumentation and the rich, pristine vocal harmonies provided by lead vocalist Mary Fahl, with her powerful, deep, mysterious voice, combined with backing vocalist Marina Belica’s sweet voice, are indeed the trademark of the music of October Project. You can dream, you can even cry, you can get totally mesmerized by listening to this wonderful stuff.

I find it hard to categorize or compare October Project's beautiful music, but I would say they sound to me like a mix of Renaissance (akin to their beautiful orchestral textures) with folk-rock à la Clannad, Capercaillie and Steeleye Span, and also some tinge of quiet music in the vein of Enya and Loreena McKennitt.

So, who else wants to play the game?

Kind regards,
Demetrio.

 

[skizzerflake]

Good idea for a new thread. Your start seems to suggest a little more rigor than a quick comment like "cool tunes". I'm a little too late in my day to start writing anything good, so I'll be back tomorrow.

 

[Progger58]

Let's go, folks, just take a little of your time to write some words about a good CD or DVD you own. If it's a little hard for me to write a short review about my favorite releases, given that English is not my native language, I guess you won't have the same hard work to do so.

In the meantime, let me give you all my today's suggestion:

PROJECT LO – Black Canvas

Tracklist:

1. Black Canvas I
2. Mercy Street
3. Rajah
4. Your Mind
5. Tolerance - Acceptance – Transformation
6. Perfection
7. Retribution
8. D.I.E.
9. Black Canvas II

Project Lo is, in fact, a group/project joined by some musicians from LoLoRecords. The project is leaded by guitarist/keyboardist Bon Lozaga (ex-Gong, Gongzilla) and also joined by Brand X bassist Percy Jones, keyboardist J.Hatch, violinist Caryn Lin, vocalist Happy Rhodes, among others.

The music is calm and haunting at the same time, with very beautiful symphonic passages provided by violinist Caryn Lin, and also great performances of Percy Jones in the bass and Happy Rhodes with her haunting vocals, especially in their wonderful rendition of "Mercy Street", by Peter Gabriel (track 2).

Important to mention: this is also one of the best recorded cd’s I have listened to lately.

More details on this link:

http://www.lolorecords.com/project_lo.html

Cheers,
Demetrio.

 

[Progger58]

Pure Reason Revolution

Group: PURE REASON REVOLUTION
Title: The Dark Third
Year: 2006
Genre: Progressive Rock

Tracklist:

1. Aeropause – 5:04
2. Goshen's Remains – 5:45
3. Apprentice of the Universe – 4:16
4. The Bright Ambassadors of Morning – 11:56
5. Nimos & Tambos – 3:44
6. Voices in Winter / In the Realms of the Divine – 6:35
7. Bullitts Dominae – 5:23
8. Arrival / The Intention Craft – 8:53
9. He Tried to Show Them Magic / Ambassadors Return – 13:14


PURE REASON REVOLUTION is a new progressive band from London. They released some EP's (Apprentice of the Universe, in 2004, and The Bright Ambassadors of Morning and The Intention Craft, in 2005) and a mini-album (Cautionary Tales for the Brave, also in 2005) before releasing their debut full length album, The Dark Third, in 2006.

I find the music of PRR very fresh and new, not sounding like any other band specifically, although we can find some sparse elements of Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree, Timothy Pure, Dredg, Yes e The Beach Boys in their music. Most notably Pink Floyd, as you can infer by the title of the track "The Bright Ambassadors of Morning" (with it’s clear reminiscences to Floyd’s Echoes suite), but fact is that the band manages very well to blend together the old and the new, making this album very modern sounding overall, even appearing to draw some interesting influences from the Indie scene as well (Dredg, Secret Machines, Arcade Fire, etc).

The album opens with "Aeropause", a spacey, trippy instrumental piece in the best Pink Floyd tradition, with Gilmour-inspired guitar work. The whole album flows very nicely and there are absolutely no fillers here, no bad tracks at all, making the experience of listening to this album very enjoyable and refreshing.

The vocals are shared by female and male vocalists, with some wonderful, gorgeous interplay between them. If you also enjoy pristine vocal harmonies, then you’ll also love this album, given that they are in abundance all over this awesome recording.

MySpace of the band:

http://www.myspace.com/purereasonrevolution

Demetrio.

 

[Progger58]

Hey, guys, let's share good music suggestions here........ It's a real shame nobody seems interested in talking about their favorite recordings.

Demetrio.

 

[skizzerflake]

OK...I'll go. Back in January the Drive By Truckers were in town (Baltimore), and I saw their show. The opening band was somebody I never heard of, Don Chambers and Goat. I really liked their set so I bought a CD from the guy at the table. I don't think many people more than 25 miles from Athens GA have heard about him. The CD, "Zebulon", is really good. You have to be in the right mind set. Chambers is like having Edgar Allen Poe doing a set at a rock club, dark and chanty, characterized as "Southern Gothic", but not "Goth" at all. I really like this CD for it's wierdness. It isn't every day that you hear a lyric that mentions "the lantern of the decapitated man". Strange as it might seem, if you can find it, it's pretty good. Highly recommended.

 

[armaraas]

What the heck...
Soon after my 21st birthday, my brother in law and sisters took me out to a local bar to celebrate. They happened to have a cover band that evening. The band just blew us away literally with their ability to cover a lot of the 80's rock scene. The singer could do a dead on cover of Geoff Tate of Queensryche, and had an amazing vocal range that enabled him to cover pretty much anything from Van Halen to Ozzy Osbourne.

The band had originally started out as Pavlov's Dogs, but ended up changing their name to Conditioned Response, I believe because of copyright or some such thing. We continued to follow them for a the next several years, which saw the release of their second album in 1999- In Flagrante Delecto.

This band was just a local band to the Twin Cities area, playing bars and mostly doing covers, but they put together two albums and won a battle of the bands to open for Van Halen in Minneapolis (we went to that, just to watch them open). The album In Flagrante Delecto quickly became a favorite of mine, as well as others who knew them.

It is in essence a concept album, that takes all of the best qualities of the rock bands from the 80's and puts it together in nice, neat little package. Even though we compared them to Queensryche over the years, this album stands on its own as a strong release that I think any major band could be proud of, much less a local band. Sadly the band broke up a few years later when they were supposedly starting their next album. This is one band I really would have liked to have seen more from, I think they could have gone on to big things.

If you decide to listen to the samplers from Amazon, be patient, they will load, just takes a couple of minutes (probably archived).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000IMXK/lamoursound

It looks like you can listen to whole album at this website (deezer.com?), I checked it out and didn't have a problem, but I am not familiar with this site, so use at your own risk, click on the song names for them to play-

http://www.deezer.com/en/conditioned-response/in-flagrante-delecto-A185011.html

 

[Progger58]

Hey, guys, thanks for the suggestions!!

And another one from myself:

Huns & Dr. Beeker – The Middle of Somewhere

Tracklist:

1. A Day Like This
2. Cereal Girl
3. The Dew Drop Inn
4. Ponies
5. You Are the Best
6. Rosie
7. Cry Me a River
8. Second and Main
9. Company Man
10. How Lucky
11. Keeper of the Flame
12. Ghost Town
13. Lucy

HUNS & DR. BEEKER is an American duo from Burlington, WI, joined by Jon Hunsbusher (aka Huns) and Eric Erickson (aka Dr. Beeker).

The Middle of Somewhere, their unique release I know, is one of the most beautiful albums I have listened to in my life. It’s a wonderful combination of acoustic-driven compositions with gorgeous vocal harmonies and lush arrangements.

I came to know this stuff very casually, when I was navigating through internet pages about Chernobyl nuclear accident and suddenly found these two videos and the beautiful song played with them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbfsDAD-Hhk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lleQPaALSLo

I was totally blown away by that song and it touched me so deeply that I wanted to get the disc with it at that same moment. The song title is “Ghost Town”, a haunting tribute to the victims of that terrible nuclear disaster, as you’ll see on the videos above.

Samples of this great album available at these links:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/hunsbeeker

http://www.hunsanddrbeeker.com/music/?id=2

http://www.amazon.com/The-Middle-of-Somewhere/dp/B0016LUE1W

Demetrio.

 

[fast1]

hmm haven heard any of these before, thanks for the share!

 

[skizzerflake]

Right now, the CD of the day is Rush, "Snakes and Arrows". These veterans of highly produced metal are at their best in this symphonic song set. Believers that there is no gadget you can attach to a guitar that is too much and no additional drum that is too many, these 3 guys sound like an orchestra on this CD. Neil Peart's world weary Buddhist leaning lyrics fit well with the thick textures of sound produced by layers of distortion and massive chords. Metal music with so much production can be overblown, but in this case these guys have the chops to support such ambitious music. If you run this album through a spectrum analyzer it's almost pure white noise with a beat, but what great white noise.

 

[jamie2112]

Quicksand- Slip sick recording and sick band..