Souvlaki is the second studio album by the English rock band Slowdive. Recorded in 1992, it was released in the UK on 17 May 1993 by record label Creation, then on 8 February 1994 in the US.

Piano Magic
决定用一整篇去介绍一个乐队，因为知道他们会占据整个版面，再多的文字都不足描述这个奇怪的乐队，看看吧，先是它的风格，后摇，实验摇滚，独立电子，氛围流行，民谣，哥特，舞曲。。。如果单纯以风格评论一个乐队的话，他们赢定了，这是无可厚非的。
这支来自英国的乐队从出道至今已经有十张专辑了（包括EP，以及精选），从1999年开始算起。
1999：
第一张专辑叫做<low birth weight>，第一次听着张专辑，完全沉浸在厚重的电子迷幻音乐之中，伴随着女声半透明的嗓音，脑海中有一种掩面而泣的冲动。专辑的主题是snowfall soon，看过歌词才明白，人们对美好事物都是患得患失，既有得到的渴望又有失去的担忧，人性的弱点，让人生在彷徨中蹉跎。推荐歌曲： <snowfall soon><i am the sub>
第二张叫做< mort aux vaches>，这应该算是一章EP，好多旋律片断都在以后的专辑中都出现了，例如<bird>中饱含了<you and jonh are birds>，<triky>包含了<a return to the sea>。
2000：
这也许是他们最棒一张了<Artists' Rifles>，主题是一战期间一个艺术家上了战场，和爱人的那些事，有点悲的基调。不过个人认为专辑里面最好听得要数<a return to the sea>，听完很有光着脚，踏着细沙，慢慢走入大海的冲动。。。。。另外<artists' rifles>和<you and jonh are birds>也很推荐，很好听的男声。
2001：
这又是他们的一张大碟，<son de mar>，这是他们加入4AD的第一张专辑，没有4AD阴冷的感觉，全是大海的味道。
推荐第二首和第三首。歌名我也不知道。。。因为他们没有写，第三首非常的特别，前奏和结尾都是钟表的声音。
这一年还有一张精选集< Seasonally Affective>，忽略之。。。
2002：
首先推出了一张<writers remixed ep>，之后不久迅速的出了<writers without homes>，整体感觉节奏比前几张专辑要慢一些，而且要阴冷一些（可能是在4AD待太久的缘故），喜欢<certainty>，钢琴加上女声的独白，简单实用。
2003：
<the troubled sleep of piano magic>，主题是死亡与离别，挺悲的，从第一首<saint marie>就是这个调子。说实话，没有什么印象太深的歌。
2004：
<Saint Marie Ep>又是EP，同样基调沉重加印象不深，直接忽略。
2005：
在这一年中，Paino magic转投了Darla，估计在4AD呆的时间太长，人都变态了，哈哈哈哈，4AD的fans不要打我。
同年新专辑就出炉了<disaffected>，终于有点摆脱阴冷的感觉，<love and music>竟然有点舞曲的意思，被无数职业乐评人所不齿，不过好听就成。专辑的好听程度基本回归了2000-2001年的水平，每一手拿出来都可以听一阵子。由于空间有限，仅推荐
<You Can Hear The Room><Night Of The Hunter>

真正奠定Cocteau Twins日后风格的是1983年的专辑Head Over Heels，这时的WILL已经离队，乐队找来了新的贝司手SIMON RAYMONDE。专辑中那迷离缥缈，迷乱沉重的伤感氛围和低调复古的音乐路线形成了Cocteau Twins日后真正的取向。Head over Heels成功打入了英国独立大碟榜的首位。同年EP作品Sunburst And Snowblind也成为细碟榜的冠军作品。无论在演奏技术和录音技巧上，乐队都越来越趋于成熟。Fraser从此开始发挥她得天独厚的嗓子天赋，虽然歌词吐字模糊，但声音变得婉转动听，而且音乐的层次也变得丰富。

Cocteau Twins' classic 1983 album, remastered from the original analogue tapes. 180g vinyl. The new sleeve artwork is printed on heavyweight 350g double white board, picture labels and heavyweight inner bag.

2003 4AD reissue of 1983 album remastered by guitarist Robin Guthrie.

离开4AD以后的Lisa Germano终于还是无法割舍自己对音乐的热爱，在2003年推出这张Lullaby For Liquid Pig，继续着她以往的迷幻呓语风格，仍旧不变的主题是人们心中最细腻脆弱的部分，关于人与人相处的微妙感受。
Lisa总是特别的敏感，但她的歌总是能打动我，不管什么时间地点，下午或者是深夜，家里抑或是街上，只要有她的声音相伴，总觉得心门敞开着，但又无比孤独。或许是经历上的相似性，听了很多年的音乐了，也认识无数这样的歌手，也只有她的东西是我不太愿意去分享的，她的音乐也是如此自我，像Small Heads那首歌唱的“The world revolves around you,but it revolves around me too,so how could we see the same one?It's a lonely life,what a lonely life,it's a lonely life!”曲调总是美到窒息，在听不懂歌词的情况下（她低沉的声音，总是像梦话一样）也同样感受到她音乐所表达的东西。然而也许正是因为她的东西总带有类似于“自传”的成分，注定她并不是那种每个人听了以后都能找到自己影子的作品，她坦白诚实的歌词完全剖析了她的为人方式，她就像她的歌写的那样，很孤独，但是将自己的热情狂野用音乐的方式展现出来。
她曾在某个采访中讲到这张专辑，她回顾她的音乐生涯，从担任John Mellencamp专辑的小提琴手为自己赢得声誉，90年代初发行第一张专辑On The Way Down From The Moon Palace，从加入4AD公司到合同期满，在好莱坞的Book Soup工作，从帮助Neil Finn，David Bowie等歌手制作专辑到这张专辑的问世，她的音乐主题并没有随着生活经历的改变而改变：她唱的一直是她困惑而有兴趣的内容，即使很多人认为这张专辑是在探讨她本人的嗜酒问题，她说她一开始也以为Lullaby For Liquid Pig是关于酒鬼的，后来发现事实并不是这样，Lullaby For Liquid Pig是一张在深夜里听的专辑（也许因为这些歌曲的创作都是在她每天从Book Soup下班后完成的，或者她本来就属于黑夜的静谧安逸），尽管她本人并不喜欢热闹，却也写出了It's party time这样的歌曲，还有Paper Doll，依然是在讲支离破碎的人际关系这个对于她来说的永恒主题，少了Experts From A Love Circus的自嘲和Slide的华丽柔美，这更像是催眠曲（不是摇篮曲），她觉得生活即使是这样她依然可以用她的方式去反抗，抵触，但这又同时是一种小打小闹式的享受，她还是很快乐的。
还记得头一次听到她的声音是在Underworld的电影原声里，因为本来就是偏爱女歌手，所以基本上买那张CD就是为了她（当然还因为有David Bowie,他们还是好朋友），那张专辑里收录的From A Shell同样来自这张Lullaby For Liquid Pig，我当时就被她的声音吸引了，给人太多平静，Bring Me The Disco King的这个混音版本里，Bowie毫无疑问是主角，但她的钢琴和低吟也太有魅力。她的歌无论什么时候听，给人的感受都像是头次接触时的那样，像很醇厚的美酒，也像怎么也醒不来的梦境。
她在和OP8合作的那张Slush里有首歌叫It's A Rainbow，我猜那才是写酒鬼的，但是听的时候真的感觉看到彩虹一样:Feel the bottle，In my stomache，Alcoholic, Alcoholic，That's a word my friends call it...那种感觉总是想去回味，而不是去遗忘。
Lisa Germano's music has always had an out-of-time quality to it, but never more so than in the current musical climate, where toughness and a jaded attitude dominate almost every style of music. The almost complete lack of hardness — both sonically and lyrically — in Germano's work is both a blessing and a curse, perhaps limiting her audience but making an indelible impression on those she does reach. Her fans won't be disappointed by Lullaby for Liquid Pig, a concise but evocative album that sounds all the sweeter due to her long absence from the music scene. Once again, though, the strangely timeless quality to her music makes the long gap between Slide and this album irrelevant — Lullaby for Liquid Pig is very much of a piece with the rest of her gently brave, individualistic work. While her music has never chased trends, the weightless, shimmering sound that Germano has pursued since Geek the Girl still manages to sound much fresher and more innovative than that of artists who reinvent their sound with every album. Like Geek the Girl, Lullaby for Liquid Pig is something of a concept album, revolving around addictions of all kinds, not just the alcoholism that the album's title obliquely alludes to. It's not so much the addictions themselves that Germano explores as the desires and delusions behind them, which she expresses beautifully on "Dream Glasses Off" and "From a Shell," a pair of songs that melt into each other and repeat the phrases, "someday someone is gonna love you" and "it's the buzz, it's the buzz," as desperate mantras. Whether it's love or alcohol, the album says, it's the same addiction to hoping that someone or something is going to save you from yourself. While Lullaby for Liquid Pig's subject matter is typically dark, on the whole the album is more like the bittersweet meditations on Excerpts From a Love Circus and Slide than the truly tormented-sounding Geek the Girl, although in the topsy-turvy world Germano creates here, the superficially happy-sounding songs carry more danger than the brooding ones. The weirdly loopy "Candy," with its bright and hazy textures, and "It's Party Time," which sounds like bubblegum pop that's been broken and reconfigured and alludes to the Troggs' "Love Is All Around" and Neil Diamond's "Red Red Wine," have a disturbingly woozy quality that sounds like sinking into a blissfully ignorant narcotic cocoon. Conversely, the album closes with a few dark yet oddly hopeful songs like "Into the Night" and "...To Dream" that suggest that some kind of happy ending is still within reach. Imparting its wisdom and melodies in fits and flashes, Lullaby for Liquid Pig is nevertheless one of Lisa Germano's most accessible works yet; with any luck more fans of challenging but beautiful music will catch up with her this time around.

Artist：The Big Pink
Album ：A Brief History Of Love
Date ：2009.09.22
Label ：4AD
Style ：Indie、Alternative、Concrete
Myspace：
Website：
Members：ROBBIE FURZE & MILO CORDELL
今年，NME杂志力捧了一组伦敦新晋乐团The Big Pink，音乐听来就像厄运般的乌云一样黑暗，但却充满迷人的气息。乐团在传奇厂牌4AD底下发行的首张专辑《A Brief History Of Love》，透过迷幻吉他音墙与电子声响的堆砌，勾勒出一首首具有动听旋律的歌曲。

Taken from the Slowdive/Mojave 3 vocalist's 2004 debut solo album 'Waves Are Universal'. This five-track EP features two album cuts, 'Plucked' & 'Sleepless In Tooting' along with three non-album tracks, 'Flying With Gene', 'Stickin' With Grace' & 'Come Re

喜欢4AD民谣乐队Mojave 3的朋友肯定很容易就认出Rachel Goswell的名字了，并且肯定对她空灵的嗓音有深刻的印象，听这张SOLO可以更好的欣赏她的美妙嗓音。
因为个人偏爱女声，所以只要是女声就会找来听听，更何况是来自4AD这个民谣女声基地，这张专辑也秉承了4AD一贯的传统，另类，忧郁，凄美的民谣，加上梦呓一般的女声，绝对是张优秀的作品。（虽然还是更喜欢Lisa那个年代...）

Taken from the Slowdive/Mojave 3 vocalist's 2004 debut solo album 'Waves Are Universal'. Includes the album track 'Plucked' and 4 non-album versions - 'Coastline' (Ulrich Schnauss Vocal Mix & Ulrich Schnauss Instrumental) plus 'Plucked' (Names On Records Mix 1 & 2). 4AD. 2005.

The National is an American rock band of Cincinnati, Ohio natives, formed in Brooklyn, New York City in 1999. The band consists of Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner, Scott Devendorf and Bryan Devendorf.

""Before Today" was recorded in part in Encino at the House of Blues (once Tito Jackson's home studio) with Sunny Levine (Quincy Jones' grandson) and Rik Pekkonen (Bill Withers, Seals & Crofts, Bread) as well as at the band's home studios. The result is a beguiling mix of glam rock, West Coast funk and Merseybeat harmonies with a high-production sheen; a contrast to the corroded bedroom recordings that have fomented a fervent cult following over the past decade." - 4AD.COM

Deerhunter's new album Halcyon Digest is coming September 28 from 4AD. As previously reported, the band announced the album's existence to the world by putting up a poster on their website and asking fans to print it out and post it in places where the unsuspecting public could find it.

The National乐队在发行了2007年大卖的专辑《Boxer》（该专辑包含了奥巴马用作竞选现场配乐的民谣《Fake Empire》）后，The National乐队的成员利用一系列具有攻击性的旋律来提升他们的歌曲音质。这张新的专辑从Bon Iver乐队的Justin Vernon和Sufjan Stevens身上获得灵感。《Blood Buzz，Ohio》和《L.A. Cathedral》是其中两首深受影响的单曲。Dessner说：“专辑里的歌曲大多以庄严高雅的节奏开始，以劲爆激动的旋律结束。现场演唱的效果会很棒”。

来自英国牛津的清新乐队，以苏格兰西部群岛的小城斯托诺韦为名。那被大海滋润着的一方水土，养育着一方朝气蓬勃的年轻后生。听到第一首Zorbing开始，就喜欢上这支可爱的乐队。歌词所描述的陷入爱情后按耐不住的激动深深感染着我。那由键盘弦乐管乐打击乐器组成的大杂烩，并在背景时不时响起的四重唱，让他们的音乐无时不刻都显露着歌者活泼欢闹的个性。自行制作编辑加上简单的录制和抽象的封套设计，则彰显了4AD厂牌低调简约和唯美的独立精神。如果在炎夏下午感到困倦的话，听一听Stornoway,再好不过了