Title: Brian Flanagan – Where Dreams Are Made (2017)
Genre: Folk
Format: MCH SACD ISO
Brian Flanagan is an Irish songwriter, composer, vocalist, musician & poet. He has worked with artists from diverse musical backgrounds such as Michael Flatley, Nadine Coyle, Eric Bibb, Nathan Carter, Finbar Furey, Brian Kennedy & Sharon Shannon.
![Bread - The Best Of Bread (1973) [Audio Fidelity 2015]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/14/pkBeQEh.jpg "Bread - The Best Of Bread (1973) [Audio Fidelity 2015]")
Title: Bread – The Best Of Bread (1973) [Audio Fidelity 2015]
Genre: Rock
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
The Best of Bread, is the single-disc collection of Bread’s hits, spanning 12 tracks, including lesser-known hits that didn’t reach the heights of “Make It With You”, “Everything I Own”, “If”, or “Baby I’m a Want You”. Though this isn’t as comprehensive as Rhino’s previous double-disc set – which means it doesn’t contain the David Gates solo cuts that the first one does – it still provides most casual listeners with all the Bread they’d need, in a highly listenable fashion, too.
![Bread - Baby I'm-A Want You (1972) [MFSL 2019]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/14/z1JW36s.jpg "Bread - Baby I'm-A Want You (1972) [MFSL 2019]")
Title: Bread – Baby I’m-A Want You (1972) [MFSL 2019]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
Baby I’m-a Want You is the fourth album by Bread, released in 1972. Its singles included the title cut (which reached #3 on the Billboard Top 100), “Everything I Own” (#5), “Mother Freedom” (#37), and “Diary” (#15). This was the first Bread album to feature keyboards player Larry Knechtel.
Baby I’m-A Want You is Bread’s best album, showcasing its soft and hard sides (yes, Bread had a hard side) at their respective peaks. “Mother Freedom”, with its crunchy James Griffin guitar solo, and the superb soft rocker “Baby I’m-A Want You” made a brilliant opening which the rest of the album had a hard time matching. The songs range from wistful sentimentality (“Diary”) to spirited protest (“This Isn’t What the Government,” a poor man’s “Taxman” with an anti-war slant). The high points outnumber the flat spots, and the playing is very polished (with unexpected hard rock flourishes on “Dream Lady”), but this is still a ’70s period piece.
Title: Brad Shepik Trio – Places You Go (2007)
Genre: Jazz
Format: MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC
While named after himself, guitarist Brad Shepik’s trio is as much about his bandmates as Shepik himself, with Gary Versace on Hammond B-3 and Tom Rainey on drums. All three masters of musical invention, this album features technically advanced, elegantly integrated, beautifully detailed jazz improvising. It’s also pretty soulful. The trio has a knack for honing in on the heart of the music, reflecting both the exhilaration of collective creation and the subtler emotional tints unique to each piece.
Although he holds onto the trio configuration for Places You Go, Brad Shepik has made one rather major change here: out goes the bassist of the jazz guitarist’s past two albums and in comes Hammond B-3 organist Gary Versace. To say that Shepik’s shaken things up a bit in the rhythm department with this move would be stating the obvious, but with Versace handling the basslines on his keys, and holdover drummer Tom Rainey not only tying up the loose ends but quite often pointing the way, the additional textures aren’t so much a switcheroo as an opening up of myriad new possibilities. And the trio do take advantage of those possibilities, even if, in doing so, they give up a certain amount of the abandon that characterized their previous output (as well as some of Shepik’s other projects, such as the Commuters and Babkas): Versace’s approach is more often than not far removed from that of classic B-3 players like Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff, save for one thing: like them, he’s got soul, and thus he and Shepik make sure to play off of the organ’s natural funkiness as often as possible. There is a cost to all this, though: Shepik’s music has lost a good deal of its worldliness. Where past projects were likely to visit traditions from the Balkans to Africa, the improvisations on Places You Go keep largely within more conventional Western jazz structures – if the word conventional can be applied to music this elastic and relatively edgy. Shepik has in the past shown a predilection for angular, strong, rhythmic bursts, and while there are still plenty of those, as well as many a time signature trick within these grooves, Shepik spends much of this record applying his technical prowess and songwriting acumen to what can only be considered rather straightforward, un-harsh tones and lyrical, easier-to-follow melodic and harmonic paths. Places You Go isn’t a lightweight album by any means – Shepik and both bandmembers kick out some serious musicality here from top to bottom, the smoother ballads being no exception – but it is a less experimental one. It would be foolhardy to expect a musician such as Shepik to stay here long, however – moving forward is too much a part of who he is.
![Brad Fiedel - Terminator 2: Original Soundtrack (1991) [Reissue 2003]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/14/LIoV6GC.jpg "Brad Fiedel - Terminator 2: Original Soundtrack (1991) [Reissue 2003]")
Title: Brad Fiedel – Terminator 2: Original Soundtrack (1991) [Reissue 2003]
Genre: Soundtrack
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
Brad Fiedel’s score for Terminator 2: Judgment Day expands on the largely synth-based sound of the original Terminator music with taut, percussive interludes and evocative, symphonic passages. Pieces like “Sarah’s Dream,” “Desert Suite,” “Cameron’s Inferno,” and “T1000 Terminated” range from the spare to the claustrophobic, but all of them capture the post-apocalyptic tension of the film perfectly.
Title: Brooke Miller – Familiar (2012)
Genre: Folk
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
Brooke Miller is an artist who distills all of the these experiences to produce the album’s uniquely inspired, character-rich compositions delivered with emotional warmth and melodic softness – but also with plenty of drive and energy.
This exhilarating Canadian singer/songwriter grew up in the maritime province of Prince Edward Island off Canada’s East coast. Already at the age of twelve Brooke Miller made her un-timid mark singing in a punk band. And, with her looks, one is not hard put to imagine that the attractive artist could have made a successful career in acting or modeling. This, however, would have been to deprive the musical world of an artist who distills all of the experiences to produce the album’s uniquely inspired, character rich compositions delivered with emotional warmth and melodic softness – but also with plenty of drive and energy. The rich timbre of her voice and the quality of the guitar sound while entirely unique, resonates with influences ranging from Bruce Coburn to Joni Mitchell. The rhythmic, catching melodies with fresh elements of folk and a dash of country evoke the oceanic grandeur of her homeland. Brooke is aided by Don Ross, on bass, piano and Fender Rhodes.
![Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Volume II (1971) [Audio Fidelity ‘2013]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/14/t2PSfl1.jpg "Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Volume II (1971) [Audio Fidelity ‘2013]")
Title: Bob Dylan – Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Volume II (1971) [Audio Fidelity ‘2013]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
Where Dylan’s first Greatest Hits took its title literally, Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 is a greatest-hits album only in the loosest sense of the term. While the double album does contain several genuine hits — “Lay Lady Lay,” “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You,” the non-LP “Watching the River Flow” — it is largely comprised of album tracks that became classics, either through Dylan’s own version or through covers. These include “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” “All I Really Want to Do,” “My Back Pages,” “Maggie’s Farm,” “She Belongs to Me,” “If Not for You,” and “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” among many others. There are also various rarities scattered throughout the 21 songs, including a live version of “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” from 1963, a live take of “The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo),” and the Basement Tapes songs “I Shall Be Released,” “Down in the Flood,” and “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” While some of the cuts may not be immediately familiar to some listeners, Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 in many ways is a more accurate picture of the depth and breadth of Dylan’s talents, making it an excellent introduction. And it’s not just for casual fans, because the rarities and sequencing are revealing for even devoted Dylan fans.
![Blue Cheer - Vincebus Eruptum (1968) [Audio Fidelity 2017]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/14/ekzB9PO.jpg "Blue Cheer - Vincebus Eruptum (1968) [Audio Fidelity 2017]")
Title: Blue Cheer – Vincebus Eruptum (1968) [Audio Fidelity 2017]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
Vincebus Eruptum is the debut studio album by American rock band Blue Cheer. The album features a heavy-thunderous blues sound, which would later be known as heavy metal. It also contains elements of acid rock, grunge, experimental rock, blues rock, stoner rock, and garage rock. A commercial and critical success, Vincebus Eruptum peaked at number 11 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and spawned the top-20 hit cover of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues”. Being an example of hard rock, it is also lauded as one of the first heavy metal albums. Online music service Rhapsody included Vincebus Eruptum in its list of the “10 Essential Proto-Metal Albums”, suggesting that the band “not only inspired the term ‘power trio,’ they practically invented heavy metal”.
Rock & roll had grown louder and wilder by leaps and bounds during the ’60s, but when Blue Cheer emerged from San Francisco onto the national rock scene in 1968 with their debut album, Vincebus Eruptum, they crossed a line which most musicians and fans hadn’t even thought to draw yet. Vincebus Eruptum sounds monolithically loud and primal today, but it must have seemed like some sort of frontal assault upon first release; Blue Cheer are often cited as the first genuine heavy metal band, but that in itself doesn’t quite sum up the true impact of this music, which even at a low volume sounds crushingly forceful. Though Blue Cheer’s songs were primarily rooted in the blues, what set them apart from blues-rock progenitors such as the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds was the massive physical force of their musical attack. Jimi Hendrix, the Who, and the MC5 may have anticipated the sound and fury of this music, but Blue Cheer’s secret was not just being louder than anyone else, but staying simple enough to give each member the space to do damage both as individuals and as a group. Paul Whaley’s drumming combined a crashing dustbin tone with a constant, rolling pummel that suggested Ginger Baker with less finesse and more bludgeoning velocity. Dickie Peterson’s basslines were as thick as tar and bubbled like primordial ooze as he bellowed out his lyrics with a fire and attitude that compensated for his lack of vocal range. And guitarist Leigh Stephens may have been the first genius of noise rock; Lester Bangs once wrote that Stephens’ “sub-sub-sub-sub-Hendrix guitar overdubs stumbled around each other so ineptly they verged on a truly bracing atonality,” and though that doesn’t sound like a compliment, the lumbering chaos of his roaring, feedback-laden leads birthed a more glorious monster than many more skillful players could conjure. Put them together, and Blue Cheer’s primal din was an ideal corrective for anyone who wondered if full-on rock & roll was going to have a place in the psychedelic revolution. From the opening rampage through Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” (which miraculously became a hit single), to the final one-two punch of “Parchment Farm” and “Second Time Around,” Vincebus Eruptum is a glorious celebration of rock & roll primitivism run through enough Marshall amps to deafen an army; only a few of Blue Cheer’s peers could come up with anything remotely this heavy (the MC5’s Kick Out the Jams and side two of the Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat were its closest rivals back in the day), and no one could summon so much thunder with just three people. If you want to wake the neighbors, this is still the album to get, and it was Blue Cheer’s simplest and most forceful musical statement.
Title: Blue Chamber Quartet – Chick Corea: Children’s Songs (2009)
Genre: Jazz, Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO
A word of warning: the notes to this CD may detract from the lovely music it contains. German ensemble Blue Chamber Quartet commissioned journalist Cathrin Kahlweit to write a brief essay for each of the work’s 20 movements, first-person vignettes describing the lives of children in 20 countries that seemingly have no discernable relationship to Corea’s gentle, sophisticated miniatures. Corea wrote this suite of pieces for piano in the 1970s and ’80s, and it has been recorded both in the original version and in various arrangements numerous times. The pieces are delightful — playful, lively, graceful, and inventive — and there is nothing about them that marks them as entertainment only for children. This is music that can be savored by anyone with a taste for directly communicative new music. The music works beautifully in this arrangement by group member Thomas Schindl, scored for piano, harp, vibraphone, and double bass, along with a part for guest percussionist Sven von Samson. The colorful and unusual instrumentation creates an even broader expressive palette than the piano version, and the evocative percussion atmospherics that surround some of the pieces add about 10 minutes to the total duration of the suite. The playing is delicate and spirited throughout, and the sound quality of the SACD is balanced and detailed. ~allmusicguide “The arrangements are subtle and tasteful in expanding the simple but lovely melodies of each of the songs into quartet or quintet form.” John Sunier: www.audaud.com
Title: Blue Öyster Cult – Secret Treaties (1974/2016)
Genre: Rock
Format: MCH SACD ISO
Secret Treaties is the third studio album by the American hard rock band Blue Öyster Cult, released in 1974 by Columbia Records. The album spent 14 weeks in the US album charts, peaking at No. 53. It was certified gold by the RIAA in 1992. In 1975, a poll of critics of the British magazine Melody Maker voted Secret Treaties as the “Top Rock Album of All Time”. In 2010, Rhapsody called it one of the all-time best “proto-metal” albums. Many songs from this album found their way into BOC playlists over the following years, including “Career of Evil”, “Subhuman”, “Astronomy” and “Harvester of Eyes”. It is the only Blue Öyster Cult album that does not feature any track with lead vocals by guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser.