The Ugly Ducklings were probably the best-known Canadian garage rock group of the mid-'60s. Formed in Toronto's famed Yorkville area in 1965, the band flourished in the many coffeehouses around the Yorkville district as a Rolling Stones cover band before becoming the Ugly Ducklings and attracting the attention of the local independent Yorktown Records label. The band recorded a single, "Nothin'," which became a Canadian hit, and opened for the Rolling Stones in 1966 when the Stones played Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. The bandmembers were quickly becoming local heroes, and in 1967 the album Somewhere Outside was released on Yorktown. The album contained nine original compositions as well as two cover songs…

The blues of Lurrie Bell comes from a turbulent place, but there's no denying the man can play. This album brings together tracks from three different sessions, the bulk being held in 1997. Supported by a spartan rhythm section, Bell sprays kamikaze guitar licks over a bevy of old standards like "Five Long Years," "Who Do You Love," "Mean Old Frisco," and "You're the One." The last four songs on the album are the real treat; cut in 1995 at the Mercurial Son sessions, this is just Lurrie and his electric guitar running through raw, soulful, and sometimes whacked-out versions of everything from "Rollin' and Tumblin'" to "If I Had a Hammer." If you've wondered what all the fuss is about, grab this CD and turn on to the blues world of Lurrie Bell.

The tracks that make up Straight Life had been sitting in the Blue Note vaults since they were recorded on June 22, 1961, representing the only recorded output that year by Jimmy Smith and his trio of the era, which included guitarist Quentin Warren and drummer Donald Bailey. Somehow these ten songs got lost in the shuffle between the 1960 Blue Note date Crazy! Baby and Smith's leap into the national spotlight with his first Verve release, Bashin', in 1962. The trio swings along on six standards and three originals "Straight Life," "Jimmy's Blues," and two versions of "Minor Fare." Although not in the same league as Midnight Special or Prayer Meetin', it's great to hear this long lost hard bop session from the master of the Hammond B-3.

Even though Vladimir Ashkenazy is most often celebrated for his brilliantly virtuosic interpretations of Romantic repertoire, his skills in playing works of the Classical era are just as worthy, as proved by this 10-disc set from London of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano concertos. These performances span a period from 1966 to 1988, capturing a youthful and vigorous Ashkenazy playing and conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard, in approved Mozartian fashion. All of the keyboard concertos are here, including the official 27 concertos for piano and orchestra, the Concerto for two pianos in E flat major, K. 365, the Concerto for three pianos in F major, K. 242, as well as the two Rondos K. 382 and K. 386. Ashkenazy's elegant playing has been highly praised by critics and placed on a level with his esteemed contemporaries Murray Perahia, Daniel Barenboim, and Alfred Brendel, all past masters of Mozart's primary medium of expression.

Recorded at Relight Studios in the Netherlands in March 1977, the album was the band’s second for the recently established Oyster Records (formed by Deep Purple member Roger Glover).
The album starts off promisingly with the moody and expansive "Burning for Me"; Dave Cousins sings with restraint over a somber repeating theme on piano and strings, and it ends with a hint of a Moog solo. Alas, later numbers like "Keep on Trying" turn out to be a limply insincere sort of "positive pop," which is all the more grating given the sincere moodiness of the band's earlier work. "Back in the Old Routine" is a patronizing mimicry of the working bloke, a sort of folky watering down of their old hit "Part of the Union." Cousins at least gets back a bit of his old bile in "Alexander the Great," where he gives a sour kiss-off to music critics - who, at this point, probably weren't listening anyway.

Coming almost three years after their excellent, unexpected, and infectious LP Electric, 2016's Super is the second album where the Pet Shop Boys call themselves "electronic purists," holing up in the studio with returning producer Stuart Price and a mess of PCs, drum machines, and synths. The musical landscape is the same and still, it's not a sequel or a very proper follow-up. It feels confident, loose, and free like a swaggering epilogue, like the smaller Quantum of Solace following the epic Casino Royale. At first, everything is in its place, as nostalgic single "The Pop Kids" acts as this album's "Being Boring" with alluring house music and quintessential PSB lyrics ("I studied History while you did biology/To you the human body didn't hold any mystery"). "The Dictator Decides" is this album's "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously" with focus shifted to the 2016 political landscape ("My facts are invented, I sound quite demented")…