BLUE GRASS HITS - 16 Greatest Original

Sometimes in this world of techno beats and zig zag computer aided vocals a person can forget what music with real heart and soul sounds like. Wow this fantastic CD will certainly remind you. This is bluegrass at it's best. 

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:VG+

Vinyl Disc:VG+
Insert:Plastic sleeve
Label & Pressing:1977 Gusto Records/USA
Price:SOLD

AMERICA - Holiday

This is the perfect blending of America with george Martin and the result is a very fine album that has aged well. The lush string orchestration will remind many folks form my era (the 1960's) of the Beatles. But George Martin had to have something to work with didn't he, and I don't think he would have taken on this new band in the 1970's unless he felt there was something there that was worth his efforts. Sure, everyone loved Tin Man and Lonely People, but this album has so much more. Another Try is one of the very best songs the group ever perfomed, and Glad to See You features George Martin's fine orchestration. Mad Dog, Old Man Took and Hollywood are fine songs. I'd personally rate this as a tie with their second album right behind their first. I also like Hearts and Hideaway, but this one is a little better, in my opinion.

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:VG

Vinyl Disc:VG+
Insert:Picture/Lyrics sleeve
Label & Pressing:Warner/USA
Price: SOLD

NICK DRAKE -Complete Studio Albums

A VERY RARE & HARD TO FIND MASTERPIECE

"Of all the albums I ever made, the two I produced by Nick are the ones I'm most proud of. I listen to them often because he was extraordinarily good - nothing he ever did was less than striking, and he had the gift of writing melodies of incredible beauty".

    Joe Boyd, producer of Nick's first two albums

Five Leaves Left

"The first strong memory I have of Nick was at the second or third session for 'Five Leaves Left'". Richard Hewson, a well known arranger, and a fifteen piece orchestra had been brought in to arrange Nick's songs. "Nick started getting hotter and hotter under the collar. He was very young and he had struck me as a person you could push about. Some people in a recording session will do whatever you tell them. But he was getting quietly more and more aggravated, and in the end he dug his heels in and dismissed the arrangements. He said he'd get this friend at Cambridge, Robert Kirby, he thought would be much more sympathetic to what he was doing. Robert had never before done anything in his life in a recording studio. But two weeks later we booked him together with a bunch of musicians- a smaller bunch than the fist time, I remember... We were flabbergasted. He was so good"

    John Wood, sound engineer for Five Leaves Left

Bryter Layter

"It's very rare that you wouldn't want to change an album, but it's the only one I wouldn't change, or feel I could have done better"

    John Wood, sound engineer for Bryter Layter

Pink Moon

 "He arrived at midnight and we started. It was done very quickly. After we had finished I asked him what I should keep, and he said all of it, which was a complete contrast to his former stance. He came in for another evening and that was it. It took hardly any time to mix, since it was only his voice and guitar, with one overdub only. Nick was adamant about what he wanted. He wanted it to be spare and stark, and he wanted it to be spontaneously recorded."

    John Wood, sound engineer for Pink Moon

"He didn't want any more songs. He had no more material, and he thought that was part of the deal. And he was right. I wouldn't want to hear anymore before turning it over. If something is that intense, it can't really be measured in minutes".

    John Wood, on the album that clocked in at just under half an hour

For more info about Nick Drake, log on to;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Drake
http://www.nickdrakefilm.com/

Condition:Used/Original/180g
Cover:NM (Gatefold)
Vinyl Disc:EX
Insert:Paper sleeve
Label & Pressing: UK SV
Price:SOLD

JOY DIVISION - STILL (1st Press UK)

"Still collects outtakes and rarities along with a live set recorded on May 2, 1980, just over two weeks prior to Ian Curtis' death. In addition to the atmospheric "Glass" and the haunting funeral march "Dead Souls," the studio sides include four leftover tracks from the sessions for Unknown Pleasures, while the concert set includes performances of seminal tracks such as "Transmission," "Isolation" and "A Means to an End." Although neither as cogent nor as indispensible as the band's two studio records or the Substance compilation, Still is nonetheless a valuable chronicle of Joy Division's remarkable evolution, a growth charted by the inclusion of an early live cover of the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" to the only recorded version of the hypnotic "Ceremony," the ultimate Ian Curtis composition which later resurfaced as the first single from New Order. "

Double lp gatefold original -  factory records, fact 40, uk, 1981, double lp, thick grey cloth boards with white embossed lettering, thick grey inners, excellent shape, light normal edgewear, gatefold, grafica industria, printed by garrod and lofthouse with

"THE CHICKEN WON'T STOP" matrix etch!

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:NM (Gatefold)
Vinyl Disc:NM
Insert:Thick grey cloth jacket sleeve
Label & Pressing:1981 Factory Records/ FACT 40/UK
Price:MYR320

DAVE GRUSIN - Mountain Dance

This LP is a stroke of genius! Grusin puts together an assembly of musicians that are arguably the in the world at his particular instrument and the outcome is phenomenal! "Rag Bag" and "City Ligths" are my favorites, but there's not a disappointing track on this piece. There's nothing far fetched with musicains trying to "find themselves" which sometimes happens with jazz musicians. It's just good old fashioned, talented musicians putting together a masterpiece of melodic sounds. 

It's a must have for jazz enthusiasts! 

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:VG+ (Gatefold)
Vinyl Disc:VG+
Insert:Plastic sleeve
Label & Pressing:1979 JVC/Japan
Price:SOLD

THE DOORS - Morrison Hotel

The next-to-last Doors album, recorded prior to Jim Morrison's still mystery-shrouded death in a Parisian bathtub, eschewed much of the band's previous penchant for baroque musical, poetic, and philosophical pretensions (this was, after all, the back-to-roots era of the Beatles' Let It Be, the Stones' Let It Bleed, and Dylan's Nashville Skyline). Instead, the Doors circa 1970 wisely seeped themselves in a bluesy, no-frills approach that might have hinted at creative exhaustion in a lesser band. Instead, the Doors of "Roadhouse Blues" and "Peace Frog" reinvented themselves into arguably one of the greatest bar bands ever, with Morrison's well-documented demons frolicking in a welcome new ambience. "Waiting for the Sun" and "Ship of Fools" may hearken back to the band's cabalistic and Kurt Weill leanings, respectively, but framed in an edgier, more effective way.

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:NM (Gatefold)
Vinyl Disc:NM
Insert:Plastic sleeve
Label & Pressing:Elektra
Price:SOLD

THE FLAMING LIPS - The Soft Bulletin -OOP

With every truly good rock band, they hit their peak in a stunning, magnificent album that leaves people breathless.

For the Flaming Lips, that album is "The Soft Bulletin," their 1999 opus -- a trippy, epic, ingeniously strange collection compiled of only good songs, with a mind-bending epic quality that never lets up. It's enchanting, soft, bittersweet and undeniably sunny in its beauty -- a real experience.

It opens with a glorious Mellotron wave, which is deliberately just a little off, at the start of "Race For The Prize (Sacrifice Of The New Scientists)." "Two scientists were racing/For the good of all mankind/Both of them side by side/So determined," Wayne Coyne croons. With, of course, offbeat echoes and electronic wavers and whispers layered over the indierock melody. It's hard to find a given album that is entirely made out of excellent, listenable songs. There's usually at least one bad (or mediocre) apple -- including on most other Lips albums. "Soft Bulletin" has none. It has a unique kaleidoscope effect, with shimmering psychedelic music and hopeful, philosophical songwriting.  

"Soft Bulletin" is probably the best album the Flaming Lips have ever made -- musically rich, lyrically uplifting, and thoroughly enjoyable to listen to. A modern classic. 

Condition:Brand New/Opened seal wrap
Cover:M (Gatefold, Double 180g LP)
Vinyl Disc:M

Insert:Original paper sleeve
Label & Pressing:Warner Bros/USA
Price:MYR285

DIRE STRAITS

By the mid-'80s Dire Straits were a platinum band dismissed in their native England as safe, yuppie rockers, yet the original quartet's lean, guitar-driven music struggled to find a label home when first recorded in 1978. Mark Knopfler offers craggy vocals, literate blues-based songs, and sinuous, virtuosic guitar work. He melds keening solo lines and rapidly picked fills and dodges the synth washes and postpunk power chords of then-competing new wavers; he relies on atmosphere, character, and pure musicianship intead of heavy irony or pop fashion. "Sultans of Swing," codifies this stance, a galloping paean to aging jazz musicians playing for the sheer love of the music. This became a major hit and has endured as a radio classic. The album itself has proven equally sturdy thanks to cinematic imagery and the tightly wound arrangements of "Down to the Waterline," "Six Blade Knife," and "Water of Love."

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:VG

Vinyl Disc:VG
Insert:Picture/Lyrics jacket sleeve
Label & Pressing:1978 Warner Bros/USA
Price: SOLD

LED ZEPPELIN III

Led Zeppelin III is the third album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin. It was recorded between January and July 1970 and was released on 5 October 1970 by Atlantic Records. Composed largely at a remote cottage in Wales known as Bron-Yr-Aur, this work represented a maturing of the band's music towards a greater emphasis on folk and acoustic sounds. This surprised many fans and critics, and upon its release the album received rather indifferent reviews. Although it is not one of the highest sellers in Led Zeppelin's catalogue, Led Zeppelin III is now generally praised, and acknowledged as representing an important milestone in the band's history.

As noted above, Led Zeppelin III marked a change in focus for the band from late 1960s hard rock to a more folk rock or electric folk and acoustic inspired sound. These styles had been present to a lesser degree in the band's first two releases, but here it was the main emphasis—and one that would remain prominent in some of the group's later albums. This development endeared the band to many progressive rock fans who would never have listened to Led Zeppelin's established blues and rock repertoire. With Led Zeppelin III the group's songwriting dynamic also changed, from Page's domination of the first two albums towards a more democratic affair in which all four group members contributed their own compositions and ideas. 

It's a remarkable piece to have.

Condition:Used/Original
Cover:NM (Gatefold)
Vinyl Disc:NM
Insert:
Label & Pressing:1977 Atlantic/USA
Price:SOLD

*There's a 0.5cm crack on the vinyl rim, losing some seconds on the first track of each side.

  The rest plays really good.

PINK FLOYD - The WALL 1979 UK Harvest

Pink Floyd's the Wall is arguably one of the most intriguing and imaginative albums in the history of rock music. Since its release in 1979, and the subsequent movie of 1982, the Wall has become synonymous with, if not the very definition of, the term "concept album." Aureally explosive on record and visually explosive on the screen, the Wall traces the life of the fictional protagoinst, Pink Floyd, from his boyhood days in war-torn England to his self-imposed isolation as a world-renownedrock star, leading to a climax that is as questionably cathartic as it is destructive. 

From the outset, Pink's life revolves around an abyss of loss and isolation. Born to a war-ravaged nation that takes his father's life in the name of "duty," and an overprotective mother who lavishes equal measures of her love and phobias onto her son, Pink chooses to build a mental wall between himself and the rest of the world so that he can live in a constant, alienated equilibrium free from life's physical and emotional troubles. Every incident that causes Pink pain is yet another brick in his ever-growing wall: a fatherless childhood, a domineering mother, a country whose king signs his father's death certificate with a rubber stamp, the superficiality of stardom, an estranged marriage, even the very drugs he turns to in order to find release. As his wall nears completion, each brick further closing him off from the rest of the world, Pink spirals into a void of insanity, cementing in place the final brick in the wall. Yet the minute it is complete, Pink begins to realize the adverse effects of total mental isolation, helplessly watching as his fragmented psyche coalesces into the very dictatorial persona that antagonized the world during World War II, scarred his nation, killed his father, and thereby defiled his own life from birth. Culminating in a mental trial as theatrically rich as the greatest stage shows, the story ends with a message that is as enigmatic and circular as the rest of Pink's life. Whether it is ultimately viewed as a cynical story about the futility of life, or a hopeful journey of metaphorical death and rebirth, the Wall is certainly a musical milestone worthy of the title "art."

*It's hard to find a very nice condition of this album around. This is one flawless piece.

Condition:Used/Original/2 LPs
Cover:NM (Gatefold)
Vinyl Disc:NM
Insert:Card board jacket sleeve
Label & Pressing:1979 Harvest/UK
Price:SOLD