Valery Afanassiev on “WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART” Today we are too fond of clear-cut solutions and exhaustive explanations. Writers and film directors are supposed to shed light even on those nooks and crannies which should remain dark for the sake of perspective. And readers as well as cinema goers should remain in the dark about this and that for the sake of the same perspective, the same space, the same labyrinth. Alas, there are no more dark ladies either in sonnets or in novels. We have forgotten the aroma of unanswerable questions.

A characteristic trait in Allan Pettersson’s music is the use of strong contrasts – shifts between an enormous intensity and calm relaxation, between complex and violently dissonant passages and peaceful, simple melodies and harmonies. This certainly applies to both works recorded here by the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Christian Lindberg – the composer’s Fifth and Seventh Symphonies. Premièred in 1963 and 1968 respectively, these two symphonies contributed substantially to Pettersson’s public standing during the 1960s.

Guitarist Steve Tibbetts exploded our view when ECM introduced the world to the adroit textures of Northern Song. He did so again with “Test,” the doorway onto the enlightening path that winds through Safe Journey. Don’t let its initial stirrings fool you into slumber, for you are sure to be jolted by a guitar that seems to scrape the walls of its harmonic enclosure and expose the burnished paneling within. From humble genesis to almost frightening expanse: this is Tibbetts’s MO. With a minimal assortment of instruments in his coterie, he excavates eras’ worth of sediment.

With this release, Steve Tibbetts turned a new leaf in his cartographic imagination. The album’s title betrays its creator’s humility, acknowledging the incompleteness of any landscape, which is never more than a cultural possibility. We see this the moment that signature slack-jawed guitar and worldly percussion paint for us a big map indeed in “Black Mountain Side.” And what’s this? A Led Zeppelin tune, artfully arranged and wrapped in a sparkling bow as only Tibbetts can tie it.

Rose of Cimarron is the ninth studio album by the American country rock band Poco, released May 1976. Former Loggins & Messina sax/fiddle player Al Garth joined the band to record this album, but left shortly after due to internal conflicts. The title track became one of the band's signature songs, and was later recorded by Emmylou Harris on her album, Cimarron. The band's old label, Epic Records, released Poco Live just one month before Rose of Cimarron, causing confusion among listeners and helping sales of the former at the expense of the latter.