Yet again, Lucinda pulls out all the stops with another double album full to overflowing with her quirky, sly take on life, love, death and virtually everything in between.  Each of her previous two albums seem to have been sideshoots leading up to this offering where she again writes with extraordinary power and vision, depth and assurance, each of the 14 tracks seamlessly earning its place in the evocative and emotional mix.

A dozen tracks of complete hokum, as it clearly says on the album cover, from one of the USA's finest hoaxers and hoary frontmen. This guy is not just a comic with a challenging sense of humor, he's also one helluva singer/songwriter with an at times decidedly jaundiced eye on the skewed social and political world of modern America. I have to declare an interest from the very off with this offering: I absolutely love it. It makes me laugh out loud and the sheer inescapable mastery of the full-tilt, Stax-like horny (pun intended, as Barnes would expect) musical backing makes for totally irresistible stuff.

'Meet Me In The Bottom' is the first release for some years from New Jersey acoustic picker Fotusky. With echoes of his first album, 'Teasin' The Frets', Fotusky positively rips along here with simply stunning guitar mastery and an eclectic mix of material opening with Bo Carter's 'Who's Been Here', moving through Jelly Roll's classic 'Windin' Boy Blues', some Robert Johnson, Leroy Carr, Willie McTell, Gary Davis, among others, and the album title track from Bumble Bee Slim. Fotusky also includes a handful of self-written originals to good effect.

This is without doubt a top-dollar album, bursting at the 13-track seams with superb old-style acoustic ragtime-blues fretwork on both six and twelve-string guitars, and fine vocal accompaniment. Make no mistake, this guy is one Helluva guitar picker and this is an album that works really well in every way and at every level.

Praised for her “sensitive and passionate artistic interpretation”, Christine Vanderkooy performs extensively as a solo pianist and collaborative artist. She has completed the Young Artist tour as winner of the Ontario Registered Music Teacher’s Association Competition, a recital tour of Canada in 2007 as a SSHRC grant recipient, and a solo recital tour of Europe in 2008, also as a SSHRC grant recipient, performing in Ireland, England, and Spain. Christine has performed at the Eckhardt-Grammaté National Piano Competition, the Gaudeamus International Competition in the Netherlands, and was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall in the Dietrich Fischer Dieskau Workshop (before he cancelled!). Recent performances include solo recitals atBishop’s University, the JS BachHaus in Ontario, SUNY Oswego in New York, and the Regina Musical Club.