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Artist:
Various
List Price: $17.98 |
Our Price: $4.12 |
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Artist:
Steve Erquiaga
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Oystein Sevag
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Paul McCandless
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Michael Manring
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Nightnoise
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Will Ackerman
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Barbra Higbie
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Mike Marshall
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Modern Mandolin Quartet
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Various Windham Hill Artists
In 1993, Windham Hill Records released its fourth album of seasonal music recorded by the label's artists and unavailable in any other collection. Only a few of the tracks on A Winter's Solstice IV lend credence to the label's unfair stereotype as the home for new age background music. Many of the musicians come from such respected jazz bands as Oregon and the Freddie Hubbard Quartet, and from such respected folk bands as the David Grisman Quartet. Several tackle such classical pieces as Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze" (the Modern Mandolin Quartet), Purcell's "Trumpet Tune" (solo guitarist Alex de Grassi) and Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" (the Turtle Island String Quartet). From Liz Story's "Carol of the Bells" to Nightnoise's "Wexford Carol," this is rigorous instrumental music for the most part, no matter how quiet and pretty it may seem at first listen. --Geoffrey Himes
List Price: $9.98 |
Our Price: $4.88 |
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Artist:
Natacha Atlas & the Mazeeka Ensemble
2008 release recorded with the Mazeeka Ensemble, Ana Hina is new direction for Middle Eastern music icon and singing sensation Natacha Atlas. The album finds Natacha exploring a more traditional roots world, again infusing Oriental and Western music but looking to the past to uncover a rich history of musical collaboration. Working with top British musical director and arranger Harvey Brough, the band features outstanding musicians from around the globe and from different musical backgrounds. In the specially created arrangements, locked in the embrace of this exciting band, Atlas's voice is heard as never before, a priceless jewel in a rich and eclectic setting. World Village.
List Price: $19.98 |
Our Price: $13.65 |
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Artist:
Various Artists
Bright pennywhistles, lonesome fiddles, mysterious flutes, strumming guitars, the brushed and pounding bodhran sounding like a horse at gallop over snowy roads, and female voices so clear and focused they might be angels calling out through the ether of time. All these elements combine to shape Celtic Christmas III. Among the more sterling tracks are David Agnew and David Downes's "Wexford Carol" and the original compositions by Lisa Lynne ("Circle of Joy," "Home") and Brian Dunning and Jeff Johnson (the vivid "A Raven in the Snow"). --Martin Keller
List Price: $9.98 |
Our Price: $4.96 |
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Artist:
Brian Eno
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David Byrne
Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts appears downright visionary. With its "found" vocals, cut-and-paste arrangements, funked-up rhythms and embrace of influences from all around the globe, the duo's controversial work anticipated the creative cross-pollination and technological innovation of contemporary dance music, world music, hip hop and alternative rock. You can hear echoes of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in the anthems Moby built around vintage vocal samples, in the outrageously exotic beats of Missy Elliot and Timbaland, in the Middle Eastern accented chill-out tracks of Thievery Corporation or Bjork's otherworldly soundscapes.
List Price: $18.98 |
Our Price: $13.44 |
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Artist:
Moby
Those who have followed Moby's career are familiar by now with his deep convictions and spiritual connection. On his 1999 release, Play, he celebrates his faith in a masterful, unobtrusive way, channeling gospel and other inspirational samples through beats so earthy they could grow grass on a cement dance floor. It's impossible to separate the joy of the message from the joy of the grooves. --Beth Massa
List Price: $13.98 |
Our Price: $7.87 |
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Artist:
Various Artists
The songs are familiar carols, but A Windham Hill Christmas retains the Windham Hill Winter Solstice series tradition of unusual arrangements and performances that evoke the mood of the season, especially if your take on that mood is a Northeast, snow-covered landscape, like that depicted on the Hallmark card-like cover. The usual bevy of Windham Hill sampler artists are all here, but it's some of the secondary cast that give the most innovative performances. Tracy Silverman & Thea Suits reinvent "Silent Night." With his pizzicato-delay violin, Silverman lays down a 6/8 rhythm while abstracting the familiar hymn across his bowed violin and Suits's flute, turning it into an ethereal instrumental chorale. Barbara Higbie re-ignites "In Dulci Jubilo" as a Celtic reel, overdubbing herself on piano, violin, Celtic harp and synthesizer. And W.G. Snuffy Walden lays some rustic acoustic guitar across a chamber reading of "The First Noel." There's a few clunkers, notably George Winston inflicting his Vince Guaraldi infatuation on us again; Jim Brickman with a rote reading of "O Holy Night"; and an uncharacteristically saccharine arrangement of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear"...
List Price: $9.98 |
Our Price: $5.94 |
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Artist:
Various Artists
Since the Windham Hill imprint's Winter Solstice series was born in 1985, the concept has gone through some changes, bottoming out with 1999's abysmally kitschy Winter Solstice on Ice. With this Silver Anniversary Edition, Dawn Atkinson, who produced the first Winter Solstice disc, has gone back to her original concept of nontraditional seasonal music and novel arrangements of Christmas classics. She's also brought in some old standbys, soliciting works from Paul McCandless, Barbara Higbie, Will Ackerman, Philip Aaberg, and Liz Story. Much of this new Winter Solstice turns on classical themes. Ex-Kronos Quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud teams with guitarist Steve Erquiaga on an airy Handel piece, and McCandless adapts Orlando Gibbons's "The Silver Swan." Others explore traditional carols, including Erquiaga's double-guitar filigree on "Greensleeves." As with past titles in this series, the best compositions are usually the originals. Keyboardist Tim Story, a Winter Solstice stalwart, unfolds another gorgeously melodic ambient chamber piece called "What Comes December." Tracy Silverman and Thea Suits turn in a wistful duet for electric...
List Price: $9.98 |
Our Price: $5.99 |
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Artist:
Various Artists
List Price: $9.98 |
Our Price: $3.89 |
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Artist:
Porcupine Tree
This starkly beautiful elegy on the numbness, apathy, and isolation brought about by the constant barrage of television, video games, advertising, prescription drugs, sex, and violence of everyday life is emphasized by the symphonic arrangement of metal guitars, synthesizers, fat basslines, and virtuosic drumming.
List Price: $15.98 |
Our Price: $11.18 |
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