Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp

La Cantina (Narada, 2006) is an album by Lila Downs. Lila Downs (born 1968 in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca) is a Mexican-American singer. She performs her own compositions as well as tapping into native Mesoamerican music of the Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya and Nahuatl cultures. She was also heard in the soundtrack to the Julie Taymor movie Frida in a song, Burn it Blue, that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song. Other songs that she performed on the soundtrack are "Benediction And Dream," "Estrella Oscura," and "La Llorona." Other movies with a Lila Downs song are Tortilla Soup, Real Women Have Curves and Fados by Carlos Saura. Downs is currently based in Coyoacán, a borough of Mexico City. On September 2, 2008, Lila Downs released Shake Away (Manhattan Records), an album of new material as well as a few cover songs, including "I Envy The Wind" by Lucinda Williams and " I Would Never" by the Blue Nile. Downs also collaborates with artists like La Mari from the band Chambao and Enrique Bunbury from Héroes del Silencio.

Ethereal Reverberations

Top/ Lovetune For Vacuum (Pias, 2009) is Soap & Skin 's debut album. Boomkat's album review reads: "Eighteen-year old Austrian chanteuse Anja Plaschg makes a startling debut with this set of complex, often very maudlin goth-folk experiments. As you can see from her cover photo, Plaschg has a bit of a Tess Of The D'Urbervilles vibe to her, and based on this image and the presence of ghostly ballads like 'Extinguish Me' and 'Sleep' it would be all too easy to start suggesting she's a European equivalent of Marissa Nadler, but far from it, tracks like 'Turbine Womb' and the wonderful 'Marche Funebre' are far more experimental, bringing to mind a cross-pollination of Antony & The Johnsons' most sonically ambitious material and the electronic carve-ups of AGF. 'Cry Wolf' supplies another clearcut highlight, casting abstract, clockwork percussion alongside piano and woodwind, while the vocals howl in a fashion that's every bit as lupine as the title would suggest. Highly recommended."
Bottom/ Resist (Moksha Recordings) is the 2001 debut album from Kosheen, a British trip hop, drum and bass and rock group based in Bristol, England. The name of the band is a combination of the Japanese words for "old" (古, romanized transliteration ko) and "new" (新, shin). Resist was heavily promoted in the 2002 edition of the Nokia Game. A short loop of "Harder" could be heard from all parts of the game's virtual world. Their third album, Damage, featuring the single "Overkill", was released in 2007.

French Kissin' in the USA

Top/ Sonic Clinique is a series of exclusive DJ-sets unleashed last summer in New York by Music Curator Max Chavanne of Sonic Nurse. Fat mixes woven throughout the Nurse's August 2008 residency at midtown Manhattan's Cafe 50 West blended genres in a typical Sonic Nurse fashion, ranging from "A Spoonful of Sugar" from Mary Poppins to XL Recordings' Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned by electronic act The Prodigy (middle). Highlights included TV on the Radio, the White Stripes, LCD Soundsystem, Santogold, Interpol and Stereolab, among others. On August 14, along with Coltrane-meets-Radiohead saxophonist Martin "MKellz" Kelley trio performing live, Sonic Clinique #3, dubbed "Purple Hayes," paid tribute to the late, great Isaac "Shaft" Hayes (1942 — 2008). Max Chavanne has described the Sonic Clinique sets as a "sensual counterpoint to the glitterball glamour of The City". While Cafe 50 West is located right in the heart of the Flatiron district between 5th and 6th Avenues, he claimed that the inspiration for the soundscapes came from "mostly hanging out in the Lower East Side, Brooklyn and Coney Island," mixed with "picking up what The City is laying down," including "visions of the infamous King Khan and the Shrines [note: a Berlin-based garage rock and psychedelic soul band] throwing bananas at the audience at the McCarren Park Pool Parties in Williamsburg" and "endless strolls along the Hudson Riverwalk with Golden Doodle puppy Deuce", with "healthy doses of glitch and IDM thrown in the mix". One insider at the National Underground called the Sonic Clinique series of events "always right-on, often beautiful, sometimes haunting and occasionally kick-ass". More Sonic Clinique events are rumoured for 2009 in NYC, although no dates are confirmed yet. Bottom/ Back of Sonic Clinique flyer reads: "The In Sound From Way Out! Sonic-Nurse brings his clinic to Cafe 50 West. Come get a shot of his Audio Adrenaline and expose yourself to his healing sounds!" Limited edition B&W flyer courtesy onclicknyc. Design by Laura Weber, Berlin. Cafe 50 West, 50 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10010

Pumping On Your Stereo

Bottom/ "Diamond Hoo Ha Man" is the first single from English rock band Supergrass' sixth album, Diamond Hoo Ha (Parlophone, 2008). Middle/ Including "Pumping on Your Stereo", Supergrass' eponymous third LP Supergrass (Parlophone, 1999) was nicknamed the "X-Ray album" because of its cover which featured layered X-ray images of the band members' heads. The band's main musical influences are Buzzcocks, T.Rex, the Jam and The Kinks. Characterized by fast, three-chord, guitar-based, catchy tunes, Supergrass's jubilance and musicality have influenced many new artists such as Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs and The Vines. Top/ "Hush Boy" (XL Recordings, 2006) is the first single from Crazy Itch Radio by critically acclaimed UK electronic dance music duo Basement Jaxx.

Guided By Voices

Medúlla, meaning "bone marrow" in Latin, is an album by Icelandic singer/songwriter/musician Björk (One Little Indian, 2004). It is almost entirely a cappella and constructed with human vocals. However, the vocals are sometimes processed or sampled. Medúlla features beatboxing, choral arrangements and throat singing, and appears in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

"Like Some Enormous Music"

Minimalist composer Philip Glass reaches new heights with the soundtrack to the Paul Schrader film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Elektra/Nonesuch, 1985), following his score for the 1982 cult film Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance, directed by Godfrey Reggio. In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means 'crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living', and the film implies that modern humanity is living in such a way.

Ballads Of Living And Dying

Songs III: Bird on the Water is Marissa Nadler's third full-length album, released in March 2007 on Peacefrog Records. Marissa Nadler (born April 5, 1981) is an American dream-folk artist based in Boston. She is known for her dreamy, atmospheric music, that although rooted in folk traditions, is more ethereal than earthy. Her music was recently described as "ethereal reverberations" in the New York Times. Some describe Nadler's songs as having American Gothic leanings; her stories often take place in an imagined, idealistic time with a cast of characters of her own creation. Her links to American Gothic are reinforced by "Annabelle Lee," the last song on her debut album, Ballads of Living and Dying (Eclipse Records, 2004), which puts the poem of the same title by Edgar Allan Poe to a musical backing. Singing in a haunting mezzo-soprano, the foundation of her songs are her delicate acoustic guitar, often accompanied by a variety of instruments, ranging from organ to theremin to electric guitar. Marissa Nadler's fourth full-length record, Little Hells, was
released March 3, 2009.

Juju Space Jazz

Bottom/ Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics (EG/Polydor) is an album by Brian Eno and Jon Hassell, released in 1980. "Fourth World" is a term used by trumpeter Jon Hassell to describe a style of music employing modern technological treatments and influenced by various cultures and eras. He wanted the music in this album to be "future primitive", or "a coffee-coloured classical music". Hassell had studied Indian classical music with singer Pandit Pran Nath, and later applied the vocal techniques to his trumpet playing. Together with Eno, he melded the sounds from his instrument with digital delay, echo, and electronic effects to produce a unique blend of ambient and world music. The "Fourth World" is the current world according to the Hopi belief system and Maya mythology; the coming age is the Fifth World. Eno took what he learned from making this album and put it to use in his collaboration with David Byrne, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Top/ Recorded over the course of three days, immediately after the end of the Woodstock Festival, Bitches Brew (Columbia Records, 1970) was a turning point in modern jazz. American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis had already spearheaded two major jazz movements – cool and modal jazz – and was about to initiate another major change. Some critics at the time characterized this music as simply obscure and "outside", which recalls Duke Ellington's description of Davis as "the Picasso of jazz." Original gatefold cover art by Mati Klarwein.

Foretold in the Language of Dreams

Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916–September 8, 1999) better known as Moondog was a revered pioneer on the Avant-Garde/Minimalist scene. His revolutionary attitude towards composition and melody was lauded by such eminent notables as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, while his style and attitude drew comparisons to Harry Partch. His influence can be seen in the music of Stereolab and Moonshake among others. A blind American composer, musician, cosmologist and poet, Moondog also invented several musical instruments, including a small triangular-shaped harp known as the "Oo", another which he named the "Ooo-ya-tsu", and (perhaps his most well-known) the "Trimba", a triangular percussion instrument that the composer invented in the late 40s. Although these achievements would have been considered extraordinary for any blind person, Moondog further removed himself from society through his decision to make his home on the streets of New York for approximately twenty of the thirty years he spent in the city. Indeed, he was known for much of his life as 'The Viking of 6th Avenue'. Moondog had a particular interest in Native American music. He partially supported himself by selling copies of his poetry and his musical philosophy. Because of his street post's proximity to the famed 52nd Street nightclub strip, he was well-known to many jazz musicians and fans. Moondog's music took its inspiration from street sounds, such as the subway or a foghorn. He released a number of 78s, 45s and EPs of his music in the 1950s, as well as several LPs on a number of notable jazz labels, including an unusual record of stories for children with actress Julie Andrews in 1957. For ten years no new recordings were heard from Moondog until producer James William Guercio took him into the studio to record an album for Columbia Records in 1969. The track "Stamping Ground", with its odd preamble of Moondog saying one of his epigrams, was featured on the sampler double album Fill Your Head with Rock (CBS, 1970). The melody from the track "Bird's Lament (In memory of Charlie Parker)" was later sampled by Mr. Scruff as the basis for his song "Get A Move On", which was then used in commercials for the Lincoln Navigator SUV.

We Want The Airwaves

Top/ Rocket to Russia (Sire) is the third album by the Ramones. Released on November 4, 1977, the album incorporates surf rock and other influences. It includes some of the Ramones' best-known songs, including "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker", "Teenage Lobotomy" and "Rockaway Beach". Formed in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, the Ramones were an American rock band often regarded as the first punk rock group. In the early 1970s, a new music scene emerged in New York when many bands started to play in clubs on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, such as Max's Kansas City and most famously CBGB's. The songs the Ramones played were very fast and very short; most clocked in at under two minutes. The Ramones' minimalist, loud, fast musical style was influenced by pop music that the band members grew up listening to in the 1950s and 1960s, such as The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Ronettes, the Rolling Stones as well as what are now known as proto-punk bands like The Stooges and the New York Dolls. Touring virtually non-stop for 22 years, the band's three founding members —Joey Ramone, Johnny Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone— died within eight years of the break-up in 1996. Bottom/ Recorded in 1993, towards the end of the Ramones' career, the album Acid Eaters (Radioactive) is often set apart from other Ramones releases in that it is entirely composed of covers. Unlike other punk bands of their time, such as the equally popular Sex Pistols or Blondie, the Ramones embraced some of the music from their childhood and welcomed it into their own unique sound. Acid Eaters forms a musical tribute to the Ramones' 60s favourites.

Accept The Signal

Bottom/ Verve Remixed is a series of albums released by Verve Records centered on the concept of classic Verve tracks, remixed by contemporary electronic music producers and DJs. The series has proven to be very popular, both with fans of the original recordings and with younger generations of music listeners, many of whom are exposed to the classic jazz and blues artists for the first time. Middle/ Below the Waste (China Records, 1989) is Art of Noise's fourth full-length original album, and their last album for China Records before Anne Dudley reformed with ZTT's Trevor Horn and Paul Morley for The Seduction of Claude Debussy (1999). The album saw them experimenting with world music, collaborating with Zulu group Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens. The African singers provide a heavy layer of mostly non-English vocals. The "Emphasis Speakers" on the album cover were designed by Morton V. Warren for B&W Speakers. Top/ Treats from The So Called Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah (JDub, 2005), by genre-bending Canadian rapper and producer Josh Dolgin, aka Socalled, include "Passout for Passover". Known for his eclectic mix of hip hop, klezmer and other styles, Socalled has worked with a variety of acts, ranging from clarinetist David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness!, to Feist collaborator Chilly Gonzales and funk trombonist Fred Wesley. Dolgin's Socalled collective and guests recently celebrated the Jewish Festival of Lights with the seasonal concert "Hip Hop Hanukkah".

Where The Wild Roses Grow

Bottom/ Amélie (Virgin, 2001) is the soundtrack to the French Academy Award- and Golden Globe-nominated motion picture Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie). Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet chanced upon the largely accordion and piano driven music of Yann Tiersen while driving with his production assistant who put on a CD he hadn't heard before. Greatly impressed, he immediately bought Tiersen's entire catalogue and eventually commissioned him to compose pieces for the film. The soundtrack features both compositions from Tiersen's first three albums, but also new items, variants of which can be found on his fourth album, L'Absente, which he was writing at the same time. Beside the accordion and piano the music features parts played with harpsichord, banjo, bass guitar, vibraphone and even a bicycle wheel at the end of "La Dispute" (which plays over the opening titles in the motion picture). Prior to discovering Tiersen, Jeunet was primarily considering composer Michael Nyman to score the film. "Les Jours tristes" was co-written with Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy. The English language version also appeared on Tiersen's L'Absente. "Comptine d'un autre été: L'après-midi" is a piano piece composed by Yann Tiersen, best known from Amélie but also used in the German movie Good Bye Lenin!, for which Yann Tiersen also composed the soundtrack. Top/ Featuring Einstürzende Neubauten member Blixa Bargeld on guitar, Henry's Dream (Mute Records, 1992) is the seventh album released by Australian post-punk dandys Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Come Find Yourself

Bottom/ Livin' in the City (Sanctuary) is an album by the Fun Lovin' Criminals, released in 2005. This was very much a love letter to New York with many songs, just like in their debut album, extolling the virtues of the Big Apple. The title track itself has the repeated lyric "I love livin' in the city, give it up for New York City!". The Fun Lovin' Criminals are an American alternative rap / alternative rock group from New York City. Their musical style is eclectic, covering such styles as hip hop, rock, blues and jazz. Their songs are often gritty or existentialist in nature but are just as often humorous or satirical. Come Find Yourself, the band's first album, was released in 1995 by Capitol Records and included Scooby Snacks, the band's biggest hit single to date. It features samples from films by Quentin Tarantino, interspersed with rap verses and a sung, anthemic, chorus. The album is very New York-centric, including tracks about the L-train (Bombin' The L), Coney Island (Coney Island Girl) and Mafia crimelord John Gotti (King Of New York), with many smaller references in other songs. Top/ On her third album Impeach My Bush (Beggars XL, 2006), Peaches invites Joan Jett and one-time roommate Leslie Feist. Merrill Beth Nisker (born 1966 in Toronto, Ontario), better known as Peaches, is an electronica musician whose songs are concerned mainly with sex. Her songs have been featured in movies such as Mean Girls, Waiting..., Jackass Number Two, and Lost in Translation. Her music has also been featured on television shows such as Showtime's The L Word and Ugly Betty, and has been used for the promotion of Dirt. Peaches performed guest vocals on Pink's album Try This, and on the Chicks on Speed album 99 Cents, on the song "We Don't Play Guitars".

Tape Hiss Orchid

Bottom/ Sound Affects (Polydor) is a 1980 album by British group The Jam. This release, their fifth album, is frequently considered the closing point of The Jam's artistic peak begun on their third LP, All Mod Cons and carried through on its follow-up, Setting Sons. The most salient influence on this album is '60s British psychedelic pop, such as The Beatles' Revolver, The Who's The Who Sell Out, and The Kinks' The Village Green Preservation Society. The psychedelic overtones run throughout the album. Other obvious influences are post-punk groups such as Wire, Gang Of Four, and Joy Division and, particularly evident in Rick Buckler's drumming, Michael Jackson's Off the Wall album. Indeed, singer/guitarist/songwriter Paul Weller said at the time that he considered the album a cross between Off the Wall and Revolver. The group would later explore the "Britfunk" sound in earnest on their next and final album, The Gift. Middle/ Nouvelle Vague is a French musical collective led by musicians Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux. Their name is a play on words referring simultaneously to their "Frenchness" and "artiness" (the '60s new wave of cult French cinema), the source of their songs (all covers of punk rock, post-punk, and New Wave songs), and their use of '60s Bossa nova-style arrangements. On their first album, Nouvelle Vague, the group resurrected classics from the New Wave music era, and reinterpreted them in a bossa nova style. The songs were stripped back to acoustic arrangements with lithe shaker rhythms achieved by gathering a parade of chanteuses from all over the world to cover bands including XTC, Modern English, The Clash, Joy Division and The Undertones. Their second album, Bande à Part (Peacefrog, 2006), includes versions of tracks by Buzzcocks, New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen and Blondie. Top/ Deerhunter is a five-piece self-described "ambient punk" band from Atlanta, Georgia, consisting of lead singer Bradford Cox, Moses Archuleta, Josh Fauver, Whitney Petty, and Lockett Pundt. Cryptograms is the second album from Deerhunter, released through Kranky on January 29, 2007. The album received critical praise and was followed by an EP titled Fluorescent Grey. Cryptograms is a more "subdued and introverted" record than its predecessor. The album contains themes of death and isolation,
and has five instrumentals, all of which are ambient in sound.

Over The Hills And Far Away

Bottom/ The cover of Siren (Virgin Records, 1975), fifth album by British art rock group Roxy Music, featured Bryan Ferry's girlfriend at the time, model Jerry Hall. Top/ The cover art for Houses of the Holy (Atlantic, 1973), the fifth album by English rock band Led Zeppelin, was inspired by the ending of Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End. It is a collage of several photographs taken at the Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland, by Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis

Wonders Never Cease

Bottom/ "Aftermath" taken from The Orb's Bicycles & Tricycles (Cooking Vinyl, 2004) Middle/ Brooklyn goth cellists Rasputina quit the forest with The Lost & Found (2nd Edition) (Instinct Records, 2003). It consists of covers of songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Pink Floyd, Marilyn Manson, Pat Benatar, The Velvet Underground, and Led Zeppelin, as well as a rendition of Mother Goose's nursery rhyme "This Little Piggy." Top/ Whimsy and eclectic, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra's self-titled second album (E.G. Records, 1981) is widely considered as their critical best. The cover painting was by Emily Young. The PCO was a loose assembly of musicians headed by classically-trained guitarist, composer and arranger Simon Jeffes (Sussex, England, 1949-1997). Its sound does not fit easy categorization, but has elements of exuberant folk music and a minimalist aesthetic occasionally reminiscent of Philip Glass

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

The Crying Light is Antony and the Johnsons' third studio album and the follow-up to the band's widely-acclaimed second LP, I Am a Bird Now. The album was released on January 19, 2009, and preceded by lead single, "Another World", released through Secretly Canadian. The Crying Light features orchestrated string arrangements by Antony and Nico Muhly. The album's cover artwork features a 1977 photograph of famed butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno, by Naoya Ikegami. Antony said of the image: "The Crying Light is dedicated to the great dancer Kazuo Ohno. In performance I watched him cast a circle of light upon the stage, and step into that circle, and reveal the dreams and reveries of his heart. He seemed to dance in the eye of something mysterious and creative; with every gesture he embodied the child and the feminine divine. He's kind of like my art parent." Antony and the Johnsons is a Mercury Prize-winning music act from New York City. One theme explored in the band's music is aspects of transgender life. This is expressed in songs such as "For Today I am a Boy", in which a young boy dreams of growing up to be a woman. Antony appeared as a prison inmate, performing an acoustic version of the song "The Rapture" in Steve Buscemi's movie Animal Factory. He also made an appearance in the Sebastian Lifshitz movie Wild Side performing the song "I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy". In the Wachowski brothers' screen adaptation of V for Vendetta, the main characters dance to Antony's "Bird Gerhl" from I am a Bird Now as it plays on V's illicit Wurlitzer. Antony gave a break-out performance in the 2006 concert documentary, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, a star-studded tribute to Leonard Cohen that was later released on DVD along with an accompanying soundtrack. Antony's interpretation of "If It Be Your Will" was considered one of the highlights of the show. Antony is also involved in visual art outside of music. Their early live shows were often opened by Dr. Julia Yasuda, an intersex person,
who performed the welcome in Morse code.

Bring Me The Disco King

Bottom/ Soundtrack to Pedro Almodovar film High Heels by Ryuichi Sakamoto, formerly of synthpop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra. Ryūichi Sakamoto (坂本 龍一 Sakamoto Ryūichi, born January 17, 1952, Nakano, Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese musician, composer, producer and actor, based in New York and Tokyo. He was ranked at number 59 in a list of the top 100 most influential musicians compiled by HMV. Following the disbanding of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto released a number of solo albums in the 1980s. While primarily focused on the piano and synthesizer, this series of albums boasted a roster of collaborators that included David Sylvian, David Byrne, Thomas Dolby, Nam June Paik, and Iggy Pop, among others. Sakamoto would alternate between exploring a variety of musical styles, ideas, and genres, ranging from traditional Japanese and Okinawan songs to electronica with bossanova, to solo piano, to "post-techno", to avant-garde DJ set under the stage name DJ Lovegroove. 1999 saw the long-awaited release of Sakamoto's 'opera' entitled LIFE. It premiered with seven sold-out performances in Tokyo and Osaka. This ambitious multi-genre multi-media project featured contributions by over 100 performers, including modern dance choreographer Pina Bausch, Bernardo Bertolucci, José Carreras, His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Salman Rushdie. Top/ David Bowie stands tall on the cover of electronica-influenced album Earthling (BMG, 1997), sporting the Union Jack frock coat he co-designed with Alexander McQueen. Lee Alexander McQueen (16 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was an English fashion designer known for his unconventional designs and shock tactics. McQueen worked as the head designer at the French Haute Couture House Givenchy for five years, succeeding John Galliano, before founding the Alexander McQueen and McQ labels. McQueen's early runway collections developed his reputation for controversy (earning the title "l'enfant terrible" and "the hooligan of English fashion"), with trousers aptly named "bumsters", and a collection entitled "Highland Rape". McQueen's dramatic designs, worn by celebrities including Rihanna, Björk and Lady Gaga, met with critical acclaim and earned him the British Designer of the Year award four times.

Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind

NeveroddoreveN (Dharma Records, 2003) is an album by the British Electronic music group I Monster, comprising Sheffield based producers Dean Honer and Jarrod Gosling. Capitalization of the final letter in the album's name is suggested by the typography of the original cover art. The title is a palindrome, a sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction. The album was re-released in 2004 by Instant Karma as NeveroddoreveN: Remodeled with different album artwork and a revised track list appealing to the label's perception of popular demand. While the word Remodeled does not officially appear on the album, it is often used to help distinguish it from the original. "Hey Mrs." was replaced with a remix that gained popularity through use in advertisements, including commercials for Absolut Vodka and the television series Eureka. "The Blue Wrath" was expanded, and "The Backseat of My Car" was also remixed. I Monster and their label, Twins of Evil, are both named after horror films. They are currently producing the follow up to Neveroddoreven to be titled "Beware The Eyes That Paralyze!" and are finishing the album's first single, "Sucker For Your Sound".

Dig Out Your Soul

Bottom/ Fight for Your Mind (Virgin) is a 1995 album by Ben Harper, following his well-received debut, Welcome to the Cruel World. It was his last solo album before adding The Innocent Criminals to his line-up. Reviews were generally very positive, praising Harper's fusion of multiple genres, from folk and folk rock to Black Sabbath-style riffing heavy metal ("Ground on Down") and politically-charged reggae ("Excuse Me Mister"). On this, his second album, Harper added a more refined sense of his own intense spirituality, such as on the gospel-influenced album closers, "Power of the Gospel", "God Fearing Man" and "One Road to Freedom". Top/ Music from the original soundtrack to Kundun (Nonesuch, 1997) by American classical music composer Philip Glass. Kundun is a 1997 film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the life and writings of the Dalai Lama, the exiled political and spiritual leader of Tibet. While Dalai Lama means "ocean of wisdom", the name "Kundun" is a title by which the Dalai Lama is addressed, literally meaning "presence". Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is considered one of the most influential composers of the late-20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the American public (along with precursors such as Richard Strauss, Kurt Weill and Leonard Bernstein). His music is described as minimalist, however he wishes to distance himself from this label, describing himself instead as a composer of "music with repetitive structures". He describes himself as "a Jewish-Taoist-Hindu-Toltec-Buddhist", and a supporter of the Tibetan cause. In 1987 he co-founded the Tibet House with Columbia University professor Robert Thurman and the actor Richard Gere.