In 2020, British YouTuber and saxophonist Laurence Mason's cover of the Stranglers' "Golden Brown" (from 1982) was viewed over a million times, leading to a commercial release via Amazon and iTunes and as a vinyl single under the title "Take Vibe EP". The vinyl release stayed two weeks in the top 40 of the Official Vinyl Singles Chart, peaking at No. 24. By 2025, the video had received more than 11 million views.



The video shown here is actually of Laurence Mason's band playing "Take Five", with Golden Brown edited in. In any case, it's an incredibly convincing and well done rendition, that makes you think that it was an old jazz instrumental that the Stranglers wrote lyrics to.

It was a month ago, on March 31, 2025, on the last day when the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art in Sakura city, known for its collection of 20th century art, was open for the last time, when Ikuru Suto played his harp in the museum’s garden, upon which a swan approached and listened intently for a long time. It's a very relaxing scene. I hope that all goes well for the swan.



DIC Corp., a Tokyo-based chemical manufacturer, opened the museum in Sakura, Chiba Prefecture, in 1990, as a societal contribution. The museum has a collection of 754 works of art, mainly by modern artists such as Marc Chagall, Frank Stella and others. The room filled with Mark Rothko’s paintings, called The Rothko Room, is especially popular.



Unfortunately, DIC has been operating at a loss partly due to the museum’s location of being far from central Tokyo. Following the museum's closure, the museum’s board members will consider whether to downsize or relocate, without ruling out the possibility of completely closing down, and selling off all their assets. It is expected that they will finalise their decision by the end of this year.





Source: japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/culture/museum/20241006-215020/

Creation, by WaltR Melody



Remastered in Multi-Dimensional Surround Sound



Nice, cool, trance track.

"Popcorn" (first version "Pop Corn") is an instrumental song composed by Gershon Kingsley in 1969 for the album 'Music to Moog By'. It was performed on the Moog synthesizer and released on the Audio Fidelity label. The name is a combination of pop for pop music and corn for kitsch. The song became a worldwide hit in 1972, when it was covered by Hot Butter, an American pop band. Since then, multiple versions of the piece have been produced and released, including this recent one by Enzo Margaglio.

Juliette, produced by artist AM 1984, released in 2020. The music video has footage from the following films:





Private School (1983)

Girls Just Want To Have Fun (1985)

Valley Girl (1982)

Heavenly Bodies (1984)

Model Behavior (1982)

Pink Project - Amama (1982)



A nice rare space italo-disco track, from the original vinyl double album Domino.

The worldwide number 1 hit "Magic Fly" was released in 1977 by Space. The band Space went on to record 4 albums, which sold over 10 million copies, before disbanding in 1981.

Rachel Flowers Plays The Endless Enigma -- Tribute to Keith Emerson



This orchestrated Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP) piece could easily have been placed in the Rock section, but equally so here.



Moving, to see blind Rachel Flowers brought to tears playing Keith Emerson's creation from the album Trilogy, someone who she had known in real life.



Sadly Keith, together with other ELP member Greg Lake, died in 2016, leaving just drummer Carl Palmer as the only surviving member. Keith died from a self inflicted gunshot wound, Greg of cancer. RIP guys!

Aram Khachaturian - Adagio -Spartacus.



Long time ago, in the days of black and white TV, some of you, if you are as old as I am, might remember this piece as the theme of The Onedin Line (TV series).