Ten Years After - Cricklewood Green

Ten Years After guitarist Alvin Lee's hyperactive guitar solos (fretboard attacks a speed-metal guitarist would be proud to unleash) caught the ear of British rock fans and built a bridge to the blues. The well-produced Cricklewood Green, consisting of all-original material by Lee, is the group's best studio effort. For a band that made its reputation with live performances, most conspicuously at the Woodstock festival, that's probably minor praise, but it's praise nevertheless. The extended workout of the hit single "Love Like a Man" is the centerpiece of the album, one that opens with the frantic buzz of the back-to-back road songs "Sugar the Road" and "Working on the Road." But Lee, ably assisted by keyboardist Chick Churchill, fleshes out the trademark Ten Years After blues frenzy with an assortment of atypical approaches and styles. "Me and My Baby" delivers Lee and the band in a relaxed, almost swinging, mode, while "Circles" is a rare ballad offering. The sci-fi blues of "Year 3000 Blues" and semi-psychedelia of "50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain" and "As the Sun Still Burns Away" further extend the album's reach without sacrificing any of Lee's guitar excursions.

1. Sugar the Road

2. Working on the Road

3. 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain

4. Year 3, 000 Blues

5. Me and My Baby

6. Love Like a Man

7. Circles

8. As the Sun Still Burns Away

ご存じギター早弾きで有名なアルヴィン・リー率いるTen Years Afterですが、ブルース色が強いこのアルバムもなかなか味わい深いものがあります。

★★★★

The Future Sound Of London - Papua New Guinea

The Track that Sparked the Ambient Electronic Revolution of the Early 90's is Now Reissued with New Mixes by Remixes from Satoshi Tomiie, Hybrid, Simian, and Blue States.



1. Papua New Guinea [7" Original]


2. Papua New Guinea [Andrew Weatherall Mix]


3. Papua New Guinea [Dub Mix]


4. Papua New Guinea


5. Papua New Guinea [Graham Massey Mix]


6. Papua New Guinea [Dumb Child of Q Mix]


7. Papua New Guinea [12" Original]


8. Papua New Guinea [Hamish Mcdonald Mix]


初期のFSOLという事でなかなかノリが良くサウンドも気持ち良い★★★★

The Future Sound Of London - Papua New Guinea Translations

In 1992, Future Sound of London released the single "Papua New Guinea". Fueled by electronica-meets-dub rhythms, an insistent sequencer pattern, and the sampled voice of Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance, it floated alongside Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds" as one of the signature sounds from those trippy years. On this disc, FSOL creates a "Papua New Guinea" canon with eight variations on the original theme. As opposed to the guest remixers who twiddle the tune on the reissue of FSOL's Accelerator, here, the boys retool their own work. There's an Isaac Hayes-like "Shaft" revision on a version called "The Lovers" and an ambient chamber music rendition with banjo on "Requiem." Filtered through acid rock guitars on "Wooden Ships," the original "Papua" is rendered completely unrecognizable. And if this isn't enough, the bonus CD of Accelerator Deluxe has 10 more versions. Translations also includes the original video of "Papua New Guinea." FSOL can be accused of milking their greatest hit for all it's worth, but the milk is still sweet.

1. 12" Original

2. Papsico

3. Lovers

4. Wooden Ships

5. Great Marmalade Mama in the Sky

6. Requiem

7. Things Change Like the Patters and Shades That Fall from the Sun

8. Big Blue

9. Original Papua New Guinea [Multimedia Track]

★★★

New Order - Singles

The massively influential band New Order formed in Manchester, England, in 1980, rising from the ashes of U.K. post-punk pioneers Joy Division (after singer Ian Curtis took his own life). Guitarist Bernard Sumner assumed vocal duties for the new unit, and with drummer Stephen Morris, bassist Peter Hook, and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, made music history. Successfully fusing new wave, electronica, synth-pop, and club music earlier than many bands now seen as contemporaries, their unique sound was as insightful and soulful as it was perfectly suited for the dance floor. From their earliest singles to their latest hits, this historic double-disc collection offers a career-spanning portrait of one of the most enduring and distinctive bands in modern rock.

ディスク：1
1. Ceremony
2. Procession
3. Everything's Gone Green
4. Temptation
5. Blue Monday
6. Confusion
7. Thieves Like Us
8. Perfect Kiss
9. Sub-Culture
10. Shellshock
11. State of the Nation
12. Bizarre Love Triangle
13. True Faith
14. 1963
15. Touched by the Hand of God
ディスク：2
1. Blue Monday '88
2. Fine Time
3. Round and Round
4. Run
5. World in Motion
6. Regret
7. Ruined in a Day
8. World (Price of Love)
9. Spooky
10. Crystal
11. 60 Miles an Hour
12. Here To Stay
13. Krafty
14. Jetstream
15. Waiting for the Sirens Call
16. Turn
17. Temptation

factory時代のSubstance以降の曲も収録されリマスターされたベスト盤の決定版。
ただし今回も残念ながら12インチ音源のPerfect Kissは収録されず。★★★★

Everything But The Girl - Amplified Heart

Amplified Heart marked a number of changes in Everything but the Girl's career, the most obvious of which was their sudden popularity when a Todd Terry remix of "Missing" became a dance-floor hit. But before the album was even recorded, Ben Watt--who with Tracy Thorn is EBTG--was hospitalized for a life-threatening intestinal disorder (see his book, Patient: The True Story of a Rare Illness, for a full account). His recovery invigorates Amplified Heart, making the love songs that much more passionate, the relationship songs that much more tender, and "25th December"--the one song in which Watt sings lead--that much more heartbreaking. Thorn's captivating vocals are the focus on the rest of the album, and she's as smooth as ever; combined with the focus that she and Watt share here, it makes for EBTG's best album.

1. Rollercoaster

2. Troubled Mind

3. I Don't Understand Anything

4. Walking to You

5. Get Me

6. Missing

7. Two Star

8. We Walk the Same Line

9. 25th December

10. Disenchanted

11. Missing [Remix]

ドラムンベースが流行りだした頃かな。アコースティック以外も魅力的なEBTGで★★★

Suzanne Vega - Beauty & Crime

Suzanne Vega、レコード会社をBlue Note Recordsへ移籍しての第1弾となるニュー・アルバムをリリース!オリジナル・アルバムとしては、約6年ぶりとなり、レコーディングはニューヨークとロンドンで行われたようです。今作は、プロデューサーに、Corinne Bailey RaeやK.T. Tunstallを手掛けたJimmy Hogarthを迎え、ゲストミュージシャンとして、Sonic YouthのLee Ranaldo やPatti Smith BandのTony Shanahan、そしてK.T. Tunstallなどが参加している模様です。

1. Zephyr & I

2. Ludlow Street

3. New York Is a Woman

4. Pornographer's Dream

5. Frank & Ava

6. Edith Wharton's Figurines

7. Bound

8. Unbound

9. As You Are Now

10. Angel's Doorway

11. Anniversary

ご無沙汰なスザンヌ・ヴェガ久々のアルバム。歌もサウンドも全然OK　★★★

Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express

On Trans Europe Express, Kraftwerk celebrates a romantic, retro future of shimmering elegance and glistening decadence where travel and technology merge across infinite sonic vistas. This milestone in avant-pop modernism later becomes a crucial influence on the early pioneers of hip-hop & sampling, electro and industrial music. "With Trans Europe Express, they set out to reinvent a different legend: that of Europa itself. In the process, they changed pop music forever.

1. Europe Endless

2. Hall of Mirrors

3. Showroom Dummies

4. Trans Europe Express

5. Metal on Metal

6. Abzug

7. Franz Schubert

8. Endless Endless

予想以上にリマスター効果あり。★★★★