Electric Light Orchestra

Unavailable for over 10 years, Zoom, has been remastered and features a brand new, unreleased studio track as an added bonus.

At the time of its original release in 2001, Jeff Lynne hadn't released an Electric Light Orchestra album since 1986's Balance of Power. He called upon notable friends for a little help, enlisting contributions from longtime ELO member RICHARD TANDY as well as good friends GEORGE HARRISON and RINGO STARR. The result is an album rich in that distinct ELO sound classic Lynne melodies and songwriting, foot-stomping rock anthems and sweet, sexy strings.

Import

Here Lynne has artfully revisited and re-recorded the greatest hits of Electric Light Orchestra, and actually improved on some of the most classic and beloved recordings ever.

The result is, in effect, a kind of showdown between Jeff Lynne today and his extremely illustrious past, and thanks to improved technology and recording artistry, wouldn't you know Lynne somehow comes out on top again.

So too do all of us who get another fresh chance to hear these extraordinary songs sounding quite literally better than they ever have before.

Equally flush with cutting-edge synthesizers as well as up-front guitar mastery, Secret Messages is quintessential, world-class techno pop-rock. Jeff Lynne's eclectic collection of self-written, self-produced songs (including the international hit Rock 'N' Roll Is King) ranges from raucous to romantic, all the while maintaining ELO's peerless musicianship.

Telephone Line might be the best Lennon-McCartney collaboration that never was, lyrical and soaring in a way that manages to echo elements of Revolver and the Beatles without ever mimicking them. The original LP's second side opened with So Fine, which seems like the perfect pop synthesis of guitar, percussion, and orchestral sounds, embodying precisely what Lynne had first set out to do with Roy Wood at the moment ELO was conceived. From there, the album soars through stomping rock numbers like Livin' Thing and Do Ya, interspersed with lyrical pieces like Above the Clouds (which makes striking use of pizzicato bass strings).

Looking On is the third album by The Move, released in December 1970 and is their first LP to feature Jeff Lynne.

With Wood's use of cello and woodwinds and Lynne's piano in addition to their usual guitars and vocals, anticipating the work they would later pursue in The Electric Light Orchestra, whose debut album they were starting to record at around the same time.

The Move was effectively a dead band walking when Lynne joined in February 1970 after fronting (and producing) The Idle Race. Wood had wanted to launch a new group with Lynne that would feature rock and strings, to pick up, in theory, where the Beatles' I Am the Walrus had left off. Brontosaurus was eventually covered by Cheap Trick and Feel Too Good was later featured on the soundtrack of the movie Boogie Nights as well as in the pilot episode of the UK series Life on Mars.

Now, at almost 70 years old and half a century after he penned the archetypal rock lyric Hope I die before I get old , Townshend has created a classical version of one of The Who s landmark albums Quadrophenia for a symphony orchestra, opera singer and choir.

The new symphonised version of Quadrophenia, an album originally released by The Who in 1973, was orchestrated by Rachel Fuller, a professional composer, orchestrator and singer-songwriter in her own right and also the partner of Pete Townshend.

It will be released by the Deutsche Grammophon label, internationally renowned for its repertoire of classical and opera music, and launched next summer with a world premiere concert at the Royal Albert Hall, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and London Oriana Choir.

The project is the latest chapter in Townshend s lifelong mission to break the three-minute mould of the traditional pop song and take rock music to a higher artistic level. In the 1960s he defined the concept of the rock opera with Tommy, taking it a stage further with Quadrophenia.
Conceived and written by Townshend in 1973, Quadrophenia went on to become a feature film and a theatre production, and was performed in its entirety on The Who s most recent live tour. For the last three years Townshend has worked closely with Rachel Fuller on brand-new arrangements for orchestra, soloists and choir.

Recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in October 2014 at London s legendary Air Studios, the new incarnation of this classic rock opera is conducted by Robert Ziegler and features popular British tenor Alfie Boe on vocals, with Townshend himself on electric guitar and performing cameo vocal roles. Townshend will reprise his roles at the live world premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 5 July 2015, alongside the RPO, Ziegler, Boe and other star guests.

The rock superstar began work on the project as part of his plan to leave a legacy of all his work arranged for orchestra as sheet music, for future generations to enjoy. Townshend hopes the new work will go on to become a regular part of the orchestral repertoire and boost attendance at classical concerts.

A lot of major symphony orchestras are in trouble because their audience is getting old and the younger audiences prefer softer stuff, such as film soundtrack music, he explains. I think that Quadrophenia would reinvigorate their audiences and bring in people who might not otherwise go to see a symphony orchestra perform without lights and fireworks and a movie screen.

Rachel Fuller, who was born in the year Quadrophenia was first released, admits she had never heard The Who s album until several years after she first met Townshend in a London recording studio, while he was rehearsing for The Who s 1996 tour of that album and she was working with Ute Lemper.

I loved it as soon as I heard it about ten years ago, she says. For me it's been an act of love to orchestrate it for Pete. It's also been a joy to work on because it is very orchestral by nature, even as a rock album, so it was very easy to arrange for an orchestra. And I've remained really faithful to the original tracks because he's the composer and I want to honour his work.

- Heather Phares (All Music Guide)

180-Gram Audiophile Vinyl

Includes Insert

25th Anniversary Of Ringo's 10th Album

Includes The Singles Weight Of The World And Don't Go Where The Road Don't Go

Featuring Jeff Lynne, Brian Wilson, Harry Nilsson, Andrew Gold (Wax), Jeff Baxter (Steely Dan), Mark Hart (Supertramp) & Many Other Guest Appearances

When The Beatles were formed in 1960, Ringo Starr was a member of another Liverpool group, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. After achieving moderate success with that band, he quit and joined The Beatles in August 1962, replacing Pete Best. Starr played key roles in The Beatles' films and appeared in numerous others. After the break-up in 1970, Ringo Starr released several successful singles including the It Don't Come Easy, Photograph Back Off Boogaloo and You're Sixteen.

Ringo Starr achieved commercial and critical success with his 1973 album Ringo, which was a top ten release in several countries. He has been featured in a number of documentaries and hosted television shows. Since 1989, he has toured with twelve variations of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band.

Time Takes Time is the tenth studio album by Ringo Starr, released in 1992, his critically acclaimed comeback album. His first studio album since 1983's Old Wave, it followed a successful 1989-90 world tour with his All-Starr Band. Time Takes Time features several celebrity guests including Brian Wilson, Harry Nilsson and Electric Light Orchestra front man Jeff Lynne.

Many critics considered Time Takes Time Starr's best album since 1973's Ringo. Rolling Stone magazine wrote, The drummer's most consistent, wide-awake album since Ringo, from 1973.

Hot on the heels of the release of Ringo's latest album Give More Love, 2017 also marks the 25th anniversary of Time Takes Time. The album is now finally available again on vinyl.

Recorded In Quebec By Greg Norman (electrical Audio)

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra (SMZ) has traced a barbed-wire arc of
genre-defying protest music since its inception in 1999. Formed by Efrim Menuck, with
Thierry Amar and Sophie Trudeau, the initial iteration of the band was a predominantly
instrumental trio that forged a more intimate and ragged chamber-punk than Godspeed
You! Black Emperor, in which group all three founding SMZ members also played (and
continue to play). Through seven albums from 2000-2010, SMZ expanded its line-up and
shifted towards an increasing use of lead and group vocals, with Menuck penning politically charged lyrics to anchor long-form multi-movement compositions that juxtaposed electrified
guitars against a 4-piece string section of violins,cello and contrabass.

Most recently, SMZ has pared back to five players, with Menuck's massive spectrum spanning electric guitar sound emerging as the spine around which two violins, bass (now
more often electric than acoustic) and drums are deployed. SMZ have managed a handful
of short tours in the past couple of years (in the gaps between GYBE commitments) and
as anyone who has seen the band in its recent incarnation can attest, their current sound
is more honed, laser-guided and bone-rattling than ever, melding hardcore, blues, garage
and dark metal influences that have nothing to do with anything so quaint as "post-rock"
(a tag the group has always and rightly rejected).

Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything is the first definitive document of
the band's newfound sound and style as a quintet. It's also their first single LP-length
work since the band's debut record as a trio almost 15 years ago, and features road tested pummeling rock-outs "Fuck Off Get Free (For The Island Of MontrÉal)", "Take
Away These Early Grave Blues" and "What We Loved Was Not Enough" alongside the
previously unheard lullabyes/minuets "Little Ones Run" and "Rains Thru The Roof At Thee
Grande Ballroom (For Capital Steeze)" and the album centerpiece "Austerity Blues" with
its closing lyric "Lord let my son live long enough to see that mountain torn down"
sung in varying incarnations throughout the second half of this 14-minute epic.

This lyric in many ways encapsulates Menuck's unflinching take on a world replete with
shabbiness, greed and injustice, seen through the lens of parenthood, mortality, endurance
and defiance. There are few other musicians who deliver social critique with the courage
and honesty of lines like "All our cities gonna burn / All our bridges gonna snap / All our
pennies gonna rot / Lightning roll across our tracks / All our children gonna die". Feel-good
music this is not; but neither can it reductively be tagged apocalyptic or world-weary.
Fuck Off Get Free rages with scorn and with hope, utterly passionate but pointedly
unromantic. Thee Silver Mt. Zion once again demonstrates, like few other bands working
today, that there is much to fight for and against, and plenty more fight songs to sing.

Produced by 2016 Producer of the Year Grammy-nominee Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton), the album features eleven new songs, including the lead track "Something Tamed Something Wild. Of the song, Rolling Stone praises, " beautifully sums up where she's been and sets the stage for what's yet to come 'Something Tamed Something Wild' and indeed the entire new album finds the songwriter at her most thoughtful and also at times sweetly whimsical, perfectly capturing the buoyant spirit of her early successes and also serving as a reminder that she remains one of the most grounded, sentient songwriters of her generation."

The Things That We Are Made Of was recorded at Nashville's Sound Emporium and Low Country Sound studios during the spring and summer of 2015. In addition to Carpenter (vocals, electric/acoustic guitar), the album features Cobb (electric/acoustic/gut string guitar, percussion, Moog, Mellotron), Annie Clements (bass), Brian Allen (bass), Chris Powell (drums, percussion), Mike Webb (piano, B3 organ, reed organ, Mellotron, Fender Rhodes) and Jimmy Wallace (piano, B3 organ).

Of the album, Carpenter comments, "Working with Dave felt great from the first day of our sessions. He is always willing to try something new, believes that 'yes' is the only answer, and surrounds himself with wonderfully talented and generous musicians; by the end of the project, I felt as if I was a part of a new family." Cobb adds, "I wanted to work with Mary Chapin because very few people can cut with words like she can. She's an absolute poet and legend. I was so happy to collaborate on this album together."

Over the course of her acclaimed career, Carpenter has recorded 14 albums and sold over 14 million records. With hits like "Passionate Kisses" and "He Thinks He'll Keep Her," she has won five Grammy Awards (with 15 nominations), two CMA awards, two Academy of Country Music awards for her vocals and is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Most recently, in 2014, Carpenter released her acclaimed debut orchestral album, Songs From The Movie. Arranged and co-produced by six-time Grammy winner Vince Mendoza, the record is comprised of ten previously recorded compositions including "Between Here and Gone" and "Come On Come On." Since it's release, Carpenter has performed alongside the New York Philharmonic, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the London Concert Orchestra, the L.A. Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra among many others.