Robert Johnson (1999) -Steady Rollin' Man

Artist:Robert Johnson
Albums:Steady Rollin’ Man
Released:1999
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 248 MB

“One of the greatest blues artist of all time, the legendary Robert Johnson recorded only enough music to fit onto two CDs. After his death at the age of 27 in 1938, Johnson had only 12 known 78rpm records (42 tracks in total if you include alternate takes) under his belt. But those records would go on to influence the world of blues and rock & roll like no other recordings and become an essential influence to Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, and Keith Richards (to name just three). When you think of the blues -- despair-filled, acoustic, yet often sly and humorous -- you think of recordings such as these. Though myths about the blues icon selling his soul to the devil abound, all that really matters is the wonderfully timeless, and frustratingly small, body of music he left us.” - ©

Roma Trio (2009) -The Four Seasons

Artist: Roma Trio
Albums: The Four Seasons
Released: 2009
Quality: FLAC / mp3 CBR 320
Size: 441 / 163 MB

Roma Trio is splendid piano trio from Italy that debuted on Venus Records. The youngish trio consists of pianist Luca Mannutza, bassist Gianluca Renzi and drummer Nicola Angelucci. They are all up-and-coming artists who have played with Paolo Fresu, Steve Grossman, Fabrizio Bosso, Marc Johnson and Giovanni Mirabassi.

Charlie Haden Quartet West (2010) -Sophisticated Ladies

Artist: Charlie Haden
Albums: Sophisticated Ladies
Released: 2010
Quality: FLAC
Size: 373 MB

One of the finest double bassists in jazz Charlie Haden says more with a few finely chosen notes than many lesser musicians try and say with a hundred. His warm bass tone is the core element of his stunning Quartet West whose smoky, atmospheric approach to jazz has won them critical acclaim for over twenty years with pianist Alan Broadbent casting a harmonic spell from which phenomenal saxophonist Ernie Watts can take flight, while Laurence Marable’s subtle drumming is perfectly in synch with Haden’s hypnotic bass work.

Returning with a new album Sophisticated Ladies, that’s inspired by and dedicated to their mutual love of the some of jazz’s most celebrated female singers, French jazz expert Jean-Phillipe Allard writes about this spellbinding new project from one of jazz’s most consistent and compelling artists:

“I had the occasion to meet up with Charlie Haden in New York in July 2009. As I’ve been working in publishing, I hadn’t worked with him in almost ten years and had rarely seen or spoken to him during all that time. After hugs and small talk, he asked me if I’d like to work with him again on the production of two projects: a duet with Hank Jones and a new Quartet West recording. Those ten years just dissolved and it felt as though yesterday was the last time we’d spoken. Feeling honoured and very excited at the thought of working once again with Charlie and the Quartet. I heard myself say: “yes”!

After a couple of long-distance brain-storming phone sessions we decided to do a sequel to the Quartet West album “The Art of the Song” which had featured the late Shirley Horn and the unique Bill Henderson. In this case we wanted to feature our favourite contemporary jazz singers (I myself am passionate about jazz singers!) and the concept of “Sophisticated Ladies” was born. The dream became reality when all the singers enthusiastically agreed to appear on the album.” - Jean-Philippe Allard

Various Artists (2004) -The Rubble Collection Vol. 11-20

Artist: various
Albums: The Rubble Collection Vol. 11-20
Released: 2004
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 210 + 212 + 209 + 220 + 202 MB

The second box in as many years of a truckload of obscure British psychedelia. Here are ten more CDs' worth of serious rarities by some bands that barely scratched the surface of the British freakbeat scene during rock's golden era, and a few who went on to other things. In all, there are 128 cuts here, all compiled and annotated by Phil Smee -- of Perfumed Garden fame (also issued by Past And Present). While some of these acts, such as the Poets, the Human Instinct, Outer Limits, and Denny Laine left marks on the scene, as did mod bands such as les Fleur De Lys and the Buzz; many others came from the swamp and returned with only these few minutes of glory for all of their efforts. As one would imagine, this is a mixed bag, with some of this material being absolutely sublime, while some never should have been recorded at all, with the vast majority falling in between the two poles somewhere. Nonetheless, for those who have been bitten by the Nuggets bug, and procured the highly sought after Perfumed Garden volumes, this second set of Rubble will no doubt feed the jones in you like nothing else. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

Various Artists (2003) -The Rubble Collection Vol. 1-10

Artist: various
Albums: The Rubble Collection Vol. 1-10
Released: 2003
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 222 + 233 + 218 + 238 + 230 MB

Originally appearing on LP from the Bam Caruso label in the 1980s, and then on CD on the Past & Present imprint in 2003, these first ten volumes (boxed) in the Rubble Collection were conceived and collected by Phil Smee. For fans of the Nuggets series, both the two American volumes and the British Nuggets, you won't find a lot of overlap. The Nuggets comps were and are for people who want what was at least the stuff of legend, if not readily available. The collection here digs deep and are, for the most part, flawless in what they present. This set, and its companion volumes 11-20 (a separate box), are very different creatures. For starters, they dig a lot deeper into the hopelessly obscure 45s and tapes of Brit psychedelia, freakbeat, Mod, and pop. This is for the listener who wants to dig down and get virtually everything. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

Fairfield Parlour (1970) -From Home To Home

Artist: Fairfield Parlour
Album: From Home To Home
Released: 1970
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 148 MB

Fairfield Parlour were an English progressive rock band that recorded in the late 1960s into the early 1970s. After the psychedelic rock group Kaleidoscope moved further into progressive rock, and also to avoid confusion with the American group Kaleidoscope, they renamed themselves Fairfield Parlour. The members were Peter Daltrey (vocals, keyboards), Eddy Pumer (guitars), Steve Clark (bass, flute) and Dan Bridgman (drums) ©

Kaleidoscope (1971) -White Faced Lady

Artist: Kaleidoscope
Album: White Faced Lady
Released: 1971
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 162 MB

It is a concept album that tells the story of a pale-skinned girl named Angel, from her troubled youth to her sudden rise to fame as a movie star to her tragic decline and untimely death. Reportedly, it was inspired by the life of Marilyn Monroe, and indeed the final track name-checks Marilyn and Arthur Miller. As a rock opera, it follows the example of The Pretty Things' S. F. Sorrow rather than The Who's Tommy, with the liner notes telling the complete story and the songs expounding on key events. Many of the songs are tied together by brief musical segues.

The band worked on the album privately from 1970 to 1971. They had a deal in place to deliver the finished album to a record label for distribution, but the deal suddenly dissolved. The album went unreleased until 1991.©

Kaleidoscope (1969) -Faintly Blowing

Artist: Kaleidoscope
Album: Faintly Blowing
Released: 1969
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 156 MB

Faintly Blowing (Fontana) came out in 1969. While it may lack some of the key album cuts that made Tangerine Dream so special, Faintly Blowing is consistently strong and features influences as diverse as folk and hard rock. Some of the highlights include “Poem,” a soft folk track similar to “Please Excuse My Face,” the phased out hard rocker “Music” and the edgy psychedelic title cut. Abrasive numbers “Snapdragon” and “Love Song From Annie” represent Kaleidoscope’s new hard rock approach while still retaining the group’s clever edge – these cuts are both gems. Some songs’ lyrics, like that on the tuneful folk-rocker “A Story From Tom Blitz,” deal with morals and important life lessons to be learned.

The music on Faintly Blowing is a bit more professional sounding, lacking the reckless energy and psychedelic feel of the debut. But make no mistake, this is a very good album full of sharp ideas, fairytale lyrics, fine songcraft and pretty vocals. If you’re intrigued by psychedelic, progressive or folk sounds, this disc is not to be missed. ©

Kaleidoscope (1967) -Tangerine Dream

Artist: Kaleidoscope
Album: Tangerine Dream
Released: 1967
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 121 MB

Though not as popular as the U.S. Kaleidoscope, this British band was also a band from the psychedelic movement with moderate domestic success, and just enough international exposure to have this album recognized in the genre's catalogue and regarded as one of the best in the same.

Now sought by collectors and highly acclaimed by critics and fans this album has been musically compared to Nirvana's "Story of Simon Simopath" and Pink Floyd's "Piper at the Gates of Dawn".

Peter Daltrey, lead singer of the band was asked about the lyrics and the music of the album, and he wrote the following statement in the album's sleeve notes:

"The collective subject of our songs is simple, life and people. We have written our songs about you. Happy people, sad people, lovely people and a few confused people. We have written of the children, of the king and his queen, and we have also included a few words about ourselves, about our lives, about our loves and about our dreams".” ©

E. Power Biggs (1973) -Scott Joplin on the Pedal Harpsichord

Artist: E. Power Biggs
Album: Scott Joplin on the Pedal Harpsichord
Released: 1973
Label: Columbia
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 78 MB

“This LP should come as a surprise not only to those familiar with E. Power Biggs as an organist, but also to ragtime aficionados who associate this repertoire exclusively with the piano. For Biggs is performing a set of Scott Joplin compositions on a pedal harpsichord, specially made for him and incorporating three sets of bass strings which are played with the feet—just as they are on the organ. This enables the performer to sustain bass notes, while the left hand plays the off-beat chords, in a way which is impossible on the conventional harpsichord. It scarcely needs saying that Biggs demonstrates remarkable technical facility. What is more arguable is whether his approach always fits the material. Certainly he gives Joplin's melodic lines a suitably light and dancing quality in Elite Syncopations, Sunflower Slow Drag (actually a collaboration between Joplin and Scott Hayden) and Pine Apple Rag, but Maple Leaf Rag comes across as heavy and melodramatic, with the rhythms much too laboured. Similarly, Peacherine Rag, another early but attractive composition, sounds a little as though it were being played on a calliope. And the second strain of The Easy Winners is made to resemble The Ham) Lime Theme (or is it the Cafe, Mozart Waltz?) even more than usual. Most of the time, though, these are fascinating and agreeable interpretations with Biggs changing the textures cunningly in the repeats of various strains, using, in fact, the kind of discretion that seems called for. And it is pleasant to find a selection that does not consist entirely of the best-known Joplin compositions. I was especially delighted to discover Cleopha, a march and two-step which was a firm favourite with the Sousa Band, and The Strenuous Life. My only quibble concerns the inclusion of Binks' Waltz, not syncopated at all (unlike the delightful Bethena, which was published the same year—in 1905) but just a straightforward and really rather commonplace waltz.” C.F.

Amanaz (1975) -Africa

Artist: Amanaz
Album: Africa
Released: 1975
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 141 MB

“…on record, they sound like a band that wanted to ply their trade in heavy rock, folk-pop, and funk all at once-- but there's a rawness on this album that gives it a familiar garage-band appeal. Rhythms shift from minimalist plod-stomps one track to supple grooves the next; lead singer Keith Kabwe's voice sometimes stretches past his melodic range into an off-key flatness that would be more off-putting if it didn't sound so spontaneous, and it's all recorded with a muddy fidelity that, if reminiscent of bedroom tape culture, doesn't do the music any favors by turning what could've been a wall of guitar squall into a flimsy chain-link fence.

Not like much of that can be helped or even really matters, since Africa is one of those albums we should at least consider ourselves lucky to even get a chance to hear. Kabwe had retired to a life of farming by the time this album was proposed for reissue, and out of the other four band members, only guitarist Isaac Mpofu still survives. So hearing Kabwe wail, "Lemme tell you something new/ About the history of the man/ He's got nothing to lose," in "History of Man" resonates a bit more knowing just how little was saved from the Zam-rock scene for future posterity and how close to impermanence Amanaz's music actually came." - Nate Patrin, March 30, 2010

Microwave Dave & The Nukes (1996) -Nothing But The Blues

Artist: Microwave Dave and The
Nukes
Album: Nothing But The Blues
Released: 1996 (originally released in 1995 at BluesWorks Records as Goodnight, Dear)
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 141 MB

Twenty years of performances in the U.S and Europe and six albums-with more on the way-have helped Microwave Dave & The Nukes establish a wide multinational audience. Venues vary from French soccer stadiums to Bike Week in Daytona Beach, from blues cruises on the Big Red Boat to neighborhood saloons, but the thousands of shows delivered by the band all reflect one core element: the heritage blues music enjoys as a lifter of spirits. As Microwave Dave puts it: "Blues is America's first-and still best-self-help program." ©

Bornand Music Box Collection -Old Music Box Waltz Melodies

Bornand Music Box Collection
Album: Old Music Box Waltz Melodies
Quality: mp3 CBR 320 (vinyl rip)
Size: 103 MB

This record celebrates the 10th anniversary of "OLD MUSIC BOX MELODIES" with 26 familiar, always popular, old and new world waltzes. It is recorded from two large fine Swiss cylinder music boxes and four of the various size disc music boxes, among them the "King of Music Boxes" the 27" disc Regina.

As time cures many ills, it began to right this injustice; one after another, music boxes came back - museums became interested - collections were started, and the services of Joseph Bornand, one of the last surviving factory trained experts in this field, were again in demand. It was a great joy for Mr. Bornand to open his music box shop again and he in turn taught his son Adrian V. all the secrets of this long lost art, a Bornand family business in Switzerland since 1825.

The Bornand music box collection containing many rare one of a kind instruments from all parts of the world, has long been recognized as one of the foremost in existence. To share this beauty and give the world this music which will probably never be produced in its original form again, the Bornands have recorded it for the modern record players. Thus the phonograph, which ended the music box business so long ago, is now the means of bringing this music into thousands of homes, which would otherwise not know of its existence or enjoy its nostalgic beauty. (from the liner notes)

Various Artists (1997) -Prison Songs: Historical Recordings 1947-48 (vol. 1 & 2)

Artist: various
Album: Prison Songs: Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947-48 Vol. 1 & 2
Released: 1997
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 105 + 109 MB

"These songs belong to the musical tradition which Africans brought to the New World, but they are also as American as the Mississippi River. They were born out of the very rock and earth of this country, as black hands broke the soil, moved, reformed it, and rivers of stinging sweat poured upon the land under the blazing heat of Southern skies, and are mounted upon the passion that this struggle with nature brought forth. They tell us the story of the slave gang, the sharecropper system, the lawless work camp, the chain gang, the pen." - Alan Lomax

Los Kabanos (2010) -Темне Весiлля

Artist: Los Kabanos
Album: Темнее Весiлля
Released: 2010
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 50 MB

Koshi Yamada (2010) -Theatre Solo

Artist: Koshi Yamada
Album: Theatre Solo
Released: 2010
Quality: lossless (Flac)
Size: 186 MB

Naoki Suzuki & Eddie Higgins (2007) -Melodious Time

Artist: Eddie Higgins & Naoki Suzuki
Album: Melodious Time
Released: 2007
Label: ONKEN
Quality: lossless (Flac+cue)
Size: 345 MB

Os Mugstones (1967) -Os Mugstones

Artist: Os Mugstones
Album: Os Mugstones
Released: 1967
Quality: mp3 CBR 192
Size: 48 MB

Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators (2006) -Keep Reachin' Up

Artist: Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators
Album: Keep Reachin’ Up
Released: 2006
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 93 MB

" After a pair of essentially modern-styled R&B outings, the Brooklyn-born, Europe-based vocalist Nicole Willis struck out in a new direction on her third full-length, teaming up with Finnish funk combo the Soul Investigators in 2005 for a hearty take on '60s and '70s stylings which, by accident or design, fit right in with the vintage soul resurgence that was then getting underway. Relative to other diva-led throwback acts such as Sharon Jones and Amy Winehouse, Willis and her cohorts come off as especially convincing revivalists (or especially deceptive simulators), despite seeming comparably laid-back about taking an authentically "retro" approach, or at least about sticking to one particular type of soul. Stylistically, they trend toward the more polished, pop-oriented Northern Soul end of things, occasionally using strings in place of horns and generally keeping things up and peppy, on stomping highlights like "If This Ain't Love," "Invisible Man" (which features girl group-styled falsetto backups sung by noted dance producers Maurice Fulton and Jimi Tenor, who's also Willis' husband) and "My Four Leaf Clover," which nods specifically and delightfully to early Motown and to Martha & the Vandellas in particular. Opener "Feeling Free," which boasts the album's most uplifting and irresistible chorus hook, sports a similarly chunky early-'60s backbeat wrapped in a lavish arrangement of strings, bongos, and palm-muted guitar that suggests more of an early-'70s, Philly International vibe, whereas the slightly groovier "A Perfect Kind of Love" lays on the Stax-style horn parts and chicken shack organ. The detours into harder-headed funk ("Holdin' On" and the title track) and smoky balladry ("Blues Downtown" and "No One's Gonna Love You") are somewhat less effective: despite some compelling and atmospheric playing from the Investigators, Willis' voice isn't quite richly textured enough to be as effortlessly authoritative here as it is on the more melodic, poppier material. Still, these tracks are far from serious missteps, and they do add some well-intentioned variety to an album that, on the whole, stands as one of the finer soul full-lengths of the decade." by K. Ross Hoffman, AMG

Brian Finnegan (2010) -The Ravishing Genius Of Bones

Artist: Brian Finnegan
Album: The Ravishing Genius Of Bones
Released: 2010
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 158 MB

"Brian Finnegan from Armagh, in the North of Ireland, is widely regarded as one of the true pioneers in Irish music. Front man with the legendary Flook for over 13 years, this maverick flute and tin whistle player has toured the world and recorded three highly acclaimed studio albums, Flatfish, Rubai and Haven, with the band. Collecting awards and a huge fan base wherever they toured, Flook were crowned BBC Band Of The Year 2006. Brian's music is forged from both his native tradition and from his love of a wider musical tapestry. His traveling and touring in India and Eastern Europe had a deep and profound affect on his talent as a composer, hinted at early on with the release of his first cd,'When The Party's Over' in 1993. In 2008 he was commissioned by The Sage Centre in Newcastle Upon Tyne to compose a piece for the opening of 'The Eighth Bridge', a major art installation across the river Tyne. He has toured and recorded with many artistes including Cara Dillon and Kate Rusby, and at Celtic Connections 2008 premiered his northern big band, The Singing Tree; thirteen performers, musicians,singers, poets and dancers, all from the northern counties of Ireland. Brian's new album, 'The Ravishing Genius Of Bones' was released in March 2010 and coincided with the formation of his new quartet KAN" ©

Various Artists (1997) -The Music of Prohibition

Artist: various
Album: The Music of Prohibition
Released: 1997
Quality: mp3 CBR 256
Size: 128 MB