Passion
Artist: Peter Gabriel
Community Score: 8.22

Passion is in actuality Peter Gabriel's soundtrack to the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ, retitled as a result of legal barriers; regardless of its name, however, there's no mistaking the record's stirring power. Like much of Gabriel's solo work, the album is a product of his continuing fascination with world music, which he... Read More

BBC Radio 1 in Concert
Artist: Be Bop Deluxe
Jet-Propelled Photographs - FUEL 2000
Artist: Soft Machine

The latest available CD version of a title which has been repackaged and retitled several times over the last 30 years. Recorded in London in April 1967 and produced by the legendary Giorgio Gomelsky, these nine demos feature the original Soft Machine lineup of Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Mike Ratledge, and Daevid Allen. Although not intended for... Read More

Sunburst Finish
Artist: Be Bop Deluxe

Adding keyboard player Andrew Clark to make Be Bop Deluxe a quartet, Bill Nelson finally found a balance between his virtuosic guitar playing and the demands of pop songwriting. The arrangements were still busy, but the humor of Nelson's music was on display as never before, and the songs frequently were catchy. For the first time, it began to... Read More

Wish You Were Here
Artist: Pink Floyd
Community Score: 8.33

Pink Floyd followed the commercial breakthrough of Dark Side of the Moon with Wish You Were Here, a loose concept album about and dedicated to their founding member Syd Barrett. The record unfolds gradually, as the jazzy textures of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" reveal its melodic motif, and in its leisurely pace, the album shows itself to be a... Read More

Passion Sources
Artist: Peter Gabriel
Those Who Know History Are Doomed to Repeat It
Artist: Henry Kaiser

Guitarist Henry Kaiser manifests at least three distinct personas: the free improvising musician coming out of Derek Bailey, the indefatigable ethnomusicologist discovering obscure musics and demonstrating their relationships to the blues and other forms, and the imaginative cover artist. This last is one of his most successful guises and is on... Read More

Devil in the Drain
Artist: Henry Kaiser

Like Frank Zappa, guitarist Henry Kaiser spent a good portion of the mid-'80s fascinated by the sonic wonders offered by the synclavier keyboard. Devil in the Drain, essentially a solo recording, documents some of his early experiments with it and suffers a bit from the dated quality it confers. He often uses it to generate percussive patterns,... Read More

With a Heart in My Song
Artist: Allan Holdsworth & Gordon Beck
Metal Fatigue
Artist: Allan Holdsworth
Community Score: 7.17

Criminally unknown and underappreciated, Allan Holdsworth is one of the greatest musicians ever to pick up the electric guitar. Here, on 1985's Metal Fatigue, everything finally comes together for him. For the majority of this record, Holdsworth is joined by bassist Jimmy Johnson and drummer Chad Wackerman, and these two musicians, virtuosos in... Read More

How High the Moon: Live at the Viper Room
Artist: Masters of Reality

Even though they play hard rock, the Masters of Reality's sensibilities have always been more in line with the improvisatory nature of late-'60s blues-rock than the plodding chords of late-'70s arena-rock. Consequently, it shouldn't be a surprise that How High the Moon: Live at the Viper Room captures the band at their best, running through... Read More