• Music

    Birdsongs of the Mesozoic – The Iridium Controversy

    Cuneiform Records offered this album as a half-price release this weekend, and though I already had the album, I thought it would be good to note what an amazing album this was back in its prime. Birdsongs of the Mesozoic are a band from Boston, Massachussets who have been active for well over 40 years now, and are perhaps America’s best representative of avant-progressive rock, having no difficulty straddling the lines of aggressive prog rock with classical music, much like their European contemporaries Art Zoyd and Univers Zero, among others.

  • Music

    The Claudia Quintet +1 with Kurt Elling & Theo Bleckmann – What Is The Beautiful?

    Cuneiform Records offers a very generous program where a release from their back catalog is offered for $5 ($7 for a double album release), and they don’t skimp on the quality of these releases. Drummer John Hollenbeck’s The Claudia Quintet released this disc in 2011, and as a Rock-In-Opposition / Avant-Progressive / Spoken Word release, it holds together beautifully.  Collaborating on this album are Kurt Elling, one of America’s finest jazz vocalists, and Theo Bleckmann, one of Germany’s finest singers. From the Cuneiform Bandcamp site: For their sixth album, What Is The Beautiful?, The Claudia Quintet brings together the acclaimed…