The music on "Elemental" is certainly Boddy's most structured set of pieces for quite some time. The 8 tracks run in a continuous set merging into each other via ambient cross fades. The first, "Never Forever" and last tracks, "Elemental" have a grandiose, chordal character that nicely bookend the album. Four of the other tracks are strongly rhythmic and include hefty bass lines and intricate percussion overlaid with beguiling and subtle melodic themes. The remaining two tracks are in a more atmospheric, ambient vein and provide aural resting points in what feels like a musical journey. However "Elemental" doesn't have a spacey feel as found on his last two releases but exudes a more organic, down to earth approach.

A significant name of the German krautrock scene, Thirsty Moon were found in Bremen in 1972 and started as a 7-member band. By the same year their eponymous debut was already recorded and released by Brain Records. It consists of four short tracks and one epic jam,clocking at over 20 minutes (+ bonus track on this CD edition). The album follows the typical German mode of krautrock with strong interplays, long jamming and a lot of space for endless improvisational musicianship.
Saxes are everywhere played by Willie Pape and ranging from smooth passages to abstract heavy parts. There is also some lovely percussion work throughout the listening, featuring also nice organ and groovy electric pianos. Vocals are English with a rough edge, which fit very much to the band's style…

The Nelson Riddle Orchestra was always great enough to play music for film and television soundtracks, and accompany the greatest of stars, including Louis Jordan, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, and Antonio Carlos Jobim, among many others. For the band to back up the 1963 version of the Oscar Peterson trio with bassist Ray Brown and drummer Ed Thigpen might have created some tension, with Peterson always wanting to cut loose and go over the top as opposed to the silky smooth sound Riddle favored. Fortunately, Peterson strikes a balance between playing it cool and lettin' 'er rip on this collection of standards with the dinner hour in mind. Though not exclusively subtle and romantic, Riddle and Peterson strike a golden bipartisan compromise in rendering these well-known American popular songs into quietly burning embers of pure delight…

Countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic has emerged as a new star of the specialty partly through fearless programming, and this collection of Arie Napoletane, Neapolitan arias or arias from Naples, is no exception. There really isn't a "Neapolitan school." Rather, Naples was on the musical cutting edge in the second quarter of the 18th century, and the arias here represent both a classic opera seria style, in the pieces by the massively prolific Alessandro Scarlatti, and music by the composers who pointed the way toward the melodically simpler future of Gluck and eventually Mozart, like Leonardo Leo and Leonardo Vinci. These latter are hardly household names, and Cencic, offering several recorded premieres, renders a valuable service simply by finding and choosing the deliberate and sensuous arias heard here. Moreover, the album's stylistic contrasts play to Cencic's strengths.