Anda retrospectives continue to prove salutary. Testament has devoted a number of important re-releases to him, and there is fortunately not much duplication between them and this DG boxed set of five discs – Kreisleriana and the later Symphonic Etudes. The kernel of this set is Schumann augmented by Bartók, though not one of the more well-known Anda recordings, and his famed Brahms B flat major Concerto, and a wartime record of which he was greatly proud, the Franck Symphonic Variations. There’s also the not inconsiderable pleasure of listening to him in Chopin, in the Diabelli variations, a Schubert sonata and in some Liszt recorded at various times during his career.

This Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack release is worth extended attention. The album is pulsingly rhythmic from the start, beginning with syncopation driven by whipcrack percussion and a clock-precise digital synthesizer pulse, on which Goldsmith builds ascending orchestra chords that sneakily reference Mars from Holst's The Planets without utterly aping the piece; this builds to a climax and changes, softening before managing to indicate menace without using the easy escape of minor chords. For once, despite the inevitable digital synthesizers and distinctive electronic percussion, Goldsmith has fashioned a score that's primarily driven by the orchestra, rather than being primarily dependent on electronic keyboards. To that extent, it's a rather old-fashioned action/suspense score, building and releasing tension in many varied ways.

The 18 songs on this CD, comprising the group's entire single and EP output, are some of the best British-spawned R&B of their time, and can stand alongside the best work of the Animals, Manfred Mann, or the Yardbirds in that vein. The Artwoods were a virtuoso outfit from the get-go, with a natural feel for the music as singers and players, whether they were working in the vein of Sam & Dave or Booker T. & the MG's, or just having fun in the studio as they do on several of the B-sides represented here…

If you are a fan of Budgie, Dust, Sir Lord Baltimore, Hawkwind, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, you must hear Sorcery…

Gold started out as a San Francisco and Daly CIty garage band. They slowly developed into a top notch performing group that caught the attention of Bill Graham. Bill had them appear at an audition night then hired them to open a Fillmore-West show for Mike Bloomfield…

This eponymous release from Irish hard rockers Mama's Boys was intended to cherry-pick the best tracks from the band's first years of independent activity (two albums and a handful of singles) as a means for new label, Jive Records, to introduce them to America. Problem was, Jive's notion of "best" actually translated as "most accessible," and this meant that many nuggets from Mama's Boys' wonderfully unassuming first album were passed over for unquestionably sleeker but creatively more pedestrian offerings from their second…

A pretty good album even know the vocalist struggles a bit - they band were competent musicians and crank out solid rockers…

Following up the Lazy Cowgirls' masterful Ragged Soul was no easy task, especially after longtime guitarist D.D. Weekday hung up his Les Paul, causing A Little Sex and Death to suffer a bit by comparison. New axeman Eric Chandler delivers solid work and suits the band's style quite well, but he lacks Weekday's undertow of sloppy genius, and while the songs on Ragged Soul were pure meat, this disc seems to have a bit of filler here and there…

Beauregarde (off-stage name Larry Pitchford,[1] born April 1936) is a former pro wrestler and musician from Portland, Oregon in the United States… ~ wiki