TRACK OF THE DAY - Shanker Ganesh

Jo Basile (1963) -Paris With Love

Artist: Jo Basile
Album: Paris With Love
Released: 1963
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 55 MB

Various Artists (2007) -The Answer to Everything: Girl Answer Songs of the 60's

Artist: various
Album: The Answer to Everything: Girl Answer Songs of the 60's
Released: 2007
Quality: mp3 CBR 192
Size: 103 MB

”An astounding number of "answer" songs have been recorded in response to big hits in the history of the recording industry, though the phenomenon is more popular at some points than at others. This CD collects no less than 28 such items from 1959-1966, most of them from the early '60s, and all but one (Bertell Dache's "Not Just Tomorrow, But Always") sung by a woman vocalist or female group. As you'd expect, virtually all of these are novelties of sorts, and virtually none of them are in the same class as the songs they're answering. Nor were many of them successful in the marketplace, though a few of them (especially Jody Miller's "Queen of the House," fired off in response to Roger Miller's "King of the Road," and Jeanne Black's "He'll Have to Stay") were actually big hits in their own right, and a few others managed to reach the lower regions of the national charts. All that considered, this is actually more listenable than many skeptics might expect. The production is usually good, the rewrites usually reasonably witty, and the performances usually enthusiastic, even if in their heart of hearts everyone involved knew it was a long shot that these things were going to be smashes.” ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi

Bryan Ferry (1999) -As Time Goes By

Artist: Bryan Ferry
Album: As Time Goes By
Released: 1999
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 105 MB

Bryan Ferry invests considerable time and energy in cover albums (he should, considering that they compose a good portion of his solo catalog), treating them with as much care as a record of original material. He's always found ways to radically reinvent the songs he sings, so it's easy to expect that his collection of pop standards, As Time Goes By, would re-imagine the familiar. Instead, As Time Goes By is his first classicist album, containing non-ironic, neo-traditionalist arrangements of songs associated with the '30s. That doesn't mean it's a lavish affair, dripping with lush orchestras -- it's considerably more intimate than that. Even when strings surface, they're understated, part of a small live combo that supports Ferry throughout the record. He's made the music as faithful to its era as possible, yet instead of rigidly replicating the sounds of the '30s, he's blended Billie Holiday, cabaret pop, and movie musicals into an evocative pastiche. Ferry is at his best when he's exploring the possibilities within a specific theory or concept; with As Time Goes By, he eases into these standards and old-fashioned settings like an actor adopting a new persona. Since Ferry has always been a crooner, the transition is smooth and suave. He makes no attempt to alter his tremulous style, yet it rarely sounds incongruous -- he may sound a little vampirish on "You Do Something to Me," but that's the rare case where he doesn't seamlessly mesh with his romantic, sepia-toned surroundings. On the surface, it may seem like a departure for Ferry, but in the end, it's entirely of a piece with his body of work. True, it may not be a major album in the scheme of things, but it's easy to be seduced by its casual elegance.~ by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

Shankar Jaikishan & Rais Khan (1968) -Raga Jazz Style

Artist: Shankar Jaikishan & Rais Khan
Album: Raga Jazz Style
Release Date: 1968
Quality: FLAC (tracks)
Size: 262 MB

Shankar Jaikishan are probably the most versatile duos that hailed the music of Bollywood during the Golden Age of Indian Cinema, the 40s, 50s and 60s. The golden era of Indian film music can be associated with the musical giants of different capabilities and specialisations.
They had composed music in almost 200 films in a tenure of around 22 years.2 So great was the impact of their creative genius that it had a lasting impact on the music of the Hindi films. Shankar-Jaikishan understood the taste of the masses, were able to cater to them, as well as moulded their tastes. No wonder then that during their tenure as music directors, they were exceedingly popular and 75 per cent of the films for which their scores were everlasting hits – many have celebrated silver jubilees.
The team of Shankar Jaikishan consisted of Shankarsingh Raghuwanshi and Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal. Shankar (October 15, 1922 – 1987) was born in Punjab and trained under the famous Husnlal Bhagatram. He later settled down in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. Jaikishan (1929 – 1971) hails from Panchal, Gujarat, India.
They were honored with the maximum number (nine) of Filmfare awards in the Indian film industry. In 1968, Shankar Jaikishan released an album, “Raga Jazz Style : Shankar Jaikishan with Rais Khan.”

Dead Combo (2011) -Lisboa Mulata

Artist: Dead Combo
Album: Lisboa Mulata
Release Date: 2011
Quality: mp3 FLAC (tracks) / mp3 CBR 320
Size: 266 / 108 MB

TRACK OF THE DAY - Коммунизм

Коммунизм on ICE-10

Samsara Blues Experiment (2011) -Revelation & Mystery

Artist: Samsara Blues Experiment
Album: Revelation & Mystery
Date of release: January 13, 2012
Quality: mp3 CBR 192
Size: 67 MB

”The record should be listened to without any interruption anyway. Running over 45 minutes, you can listen to it attentively without getting bored at all. If you are, you did something wrong. Samsara Blues Experiment again definitively did not: An intense bastard of a psychedelic record, which has to be part of every good collection.” READ FULL REVIEW

Tom Waits (2011) -Bad As Me

Artist: Tom Waits
Album: Bad As Me
Date of release: October 24, 2011
Quality: mp3 CBR 192
Size: 63 MB

A new Tom Waits album is an event and his seventeenth outing released after a few years is no let down. It starts with the gravel voiced troubadour yelling ‘all aboard’ and instantly you are transported into his fantastically surreal world of strange characters, pounding rhythms and clanking sounds as Waits hollers about a magically seedy underbelly of a long lost America of tattooed tear brawlers, snake oil charmers, broken hearted losers and faded grandeur, a world of seedy dance halls and long lost smoky bars.

The songs are, as ever, of the highest standard- squeezing melody from the stoniest of terrains, finding heart breaking tunes in the most clanking of soundscapes, there is dark humour and hollering blues, heart breaking ballads and zig zag wandering blues madness. Waits is king of all he surveys, every song is 3D, a movie on it’s own, close your eyes and you’re on a trip. FULL REVIEW

Various Artists (2011) -Those Shocking Shaking Days

Artist: various
Album: Those Shocking Shaking Days. Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock And Funk: 1970 - 1978
Released: 2011
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 175 MB

”What are we grooving on when we listen to these myriad and multiplying rock/psych/funk/soul/gonzo compilations gathered from the nether-regions of the non-Western world? Is it the universal grok? Is it the self-satisfaction that our counterculture not only resonated, but also penetrated and incorporated every thing it touched? Whatever it is, we can rest assured that, instead of the hundreds of Midwest punk compilations that used to fill the “V/A” bins at our local record stores, which taught us state capitals never memorized in middle school, we now will finally stumble upon geographical truths beyond the usual reasons Americans learn the names of foreign countries: their genocides, our wars and cough syrup recalls.
The high-caliber re-mastered tracks compiled here just hint at a trove of music from the period, and one benefit of such excursions is that it allows us to rethink our own founding countercultural myths. To wit: the 1970s were also the high point of American minimalism, as Reich, Glass, Riley, Adams et al borrowed tone and temporality from the Gamelan orchestras of Bali and Java. But the well-known kebyar style of Gamelan, with its rapid dynamism and virtuosity present even in its name (byar = “flare”), is not the timeless Southeast Asian art form many suppose it to be. Waves of foreign encroachment, from Islam to Portuguese and Dutch usurpers, forced musicians from Java to flee to the Balinese kingdom for patronage. Out of this frothy cross-island mix, a slow, courtly style of Gamelan, gong gede (large gongs), became prominent from the 16th century onwards. After the Dutch finally conquered Bali in the early 20th century, court revenues were limited, funds for art support declined, and many gamelan ensembles were melted down or given to neighboring villages. In conjunction with new flows of money, tourists and eager Western patrons looking for that “traditional” Oriental fix, northern Balinese villages developed the kebyar style around 1915, and it quickly spread due to its faster tempo, wilder dynamics, and tempestuous dance choreography. All of the original 78-speed recordings of gamelan music in the 1920s, which aroused the interest of Margaret Mead among others, were in the kebyar style. According to musicologist Michael Tenzer, kebyar both “posed a strong challenge to the hegemony of court aesthetic” but also acted as “the vehicle for a musical renewal encompassing the courtly past within its domain.” Ditto the 1970s, I would argue, as this compilation exhibits both aspects of Third World “freedom rock” — selective use of Western popular music to frame and pursue local dreams and passions, while also critiquing the ham-fisted authoritarianism usually propped up by these very same Western powers.

What about us, though? Why do we go to such lengths to seek out something so familiar? The story of the early 20th century gamelan switcheroo perhaps tells us that, to paraphrase Clifford Geertz’s notes on Balinese cockfighting, the most recent iteration of our love for Third World Rock is fundamentally interpretive: It is a contemporary Western reading of Western history and experience, or, more bluntly put, a story we tell ourselves about ourselves. read full review by Kevan Harris

Dusko Goykovich (2009) -Summit Octet

Artist: Dusko Goykovich
Album: Summit Octet
Release Date: 2009
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 120 MB

For the new album “Five Horns & Rhythm”, however, Goykovich assembled a somewhat smaller band, an international octet of masterful individualists. For them he arranged a bunch of his own tunes as well as a selection of so-called “standards”, among them Sam Jones’ “Unit Seven” and Jay McShann’s “Back At The Chicken Shack”. Partly familiar from his earlier albums (“Soul Connection”, “Bebop City”, “Samba Do Mar”, “Samba Tzigane”), Goykovich’s own tunes range stylistically from blues and bop to ballad and samba.

It is fun to hear some of Dusko’s best tunes played by this well-chosen band of musicians from eight countries, namely Australia, Bosnia, France, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, Serbia, and the USA. A summit meeting of sorts, this studio recording combines great solos, thrilling tunes, earthy grooves and nice arrangements set up for an unusual instrumentation. Dusko’s new album is a must for all friends of timeless high-quality swinging jazz. also released as ©

Various Artists (2006) -Joe Meek's Freakbeat: 30 Freakbeat, Mod And R&B Nuggets

Artist: various
Album: You’re Holding Me Down - Joe Meek's Freakbeat: 30 Freakbeat, Mod And R&B Nuggets
Released: 2006
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 161 MB

”Joe Meek is most famous for the records he made in the early to mid-'60s, even the best of which usually matched futuristic, one of a kind production with quaint, silly (if sometimes quite catchy) tunes. This has led many critics to charge, with some justification, that trends were passing him by as British Invasion groups with grittier, more creative material overran the globe. It's sometimes overlooked, however, that he made quite a few records with the new generation of self-contained, tougher mod/R&B-oriented British bands in the final two years or so of his life, even if these experienced little commercial success. A whopping 30 such sides from 1964-1966 are assembled on this quite interesting and occasionally thrilling (if uneven) compilation. Many of these tracks, incidentally, have previously shown up on other collector-oriented anthologies, going all the way back to the special British edition of the Pebbles series, Pebbles Vol. 6. But they're presented here with better sound quality, and certainly better liner notes, than those compilations often featured.” more info by Richie Unterberger, allmusic.com

TRACK OF THE DAY - The Dirt Daubers

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The Dirt Daubers on ICE-10

The Dirt Daubers - 2 albums

Artist: The Dirt Daubers
Album: The Dirt Daubers / Wake Up Sinners
Released: 2009 / 2011
Quality: mp3 VBR ~160 / CBR 320
Size: 88 MB

”J.D. Wilkes is a man of many talents: He’s helmed the Legendary Shack Shakers for the last decade-and-a-half, played harmonica with the likes of Merle Haggard, and earned the title of Kentucky colonel. Apparently, though, he didn’t feel like he was busy enough already, so he went ahead and created the Dirt Daubers in 2009. It’s a project that satisfies Wilkes’ more traditionalist side; whereas the Legendary Shack Shakers deal more in psychobilly and punk-blues, the Dirt Daubers—Wilkes, his wife Jessica, and Shack Shakers standby Mark Robertson—stick to a more rootsy bluegrass sound.”MORE

Renaud Garcia-Fons (2011) -Mediterranées

Artist: Renaud Garcia-Fons
Albums: Mediterranées
Released: 2011
Quality: FLAC (tracks)
Size: 393 MB

French double bass master Renaud Garcia-Fons has just released his new album, Mediterranees, in the U.S. The 18-track album is an exploration of the music of the Mediterranean, which Garcia-Fons attributes to his Spanish and Italian roots.
“There’s nothing ethno-musical or touristy about this project,” the bassist explains, “Simply a desire to be carried on a passionate thread of a script propelled by inspiration that places melody in a central space. After all, the uniting factor of all these different Mediterraneans is the taste for melody!” Renaud is no stranger to playing melody, as he is renowned for his arco work in thumb position and beautiful compositions.. (c)

Various Artists (1998) -60's Brit Girls

Artist: various
Album: 60s Brit Girls
Quality: mp3 CBR 192
Size: 95 MB

TRACK OF THE DAY - Кола Бельды

Various Artists - Time For Teenagers – Sweat Sounds For Young Dutch Dreamers

Artist: various
Album: Time For Teenagers – Sweat Sounds For Young Dutch Dreamers
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 162 MB