I'm still in Oktavism Wonderland, so I'm saying merry Christmas to all of you with a passage from Rachmaninov's St. Chrysostom with some truly amazing basses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bk30x-Dybg

Every Valley by Public Service Broadcasting was the best album of 2017!

Clock DVA, Cabaret Voltaire, Kraftwerk, Pere Ubu, Jack Dangers (Meat Beat Manifesto), Bill Nelson, Plasticland, Associates, Raymond Scott.

I'm still in Oktavism Wonderland and I still don't care if everybody else thinks I'm crazy. Should anybody find my marbles, please keep them. Life is so much better without

The Male Choir of St. Petersburg featuring the late Vladimir Pasjukov, with Chesnokov's Cherubic Hymn

This album by the Optina Pustyn Choir has become one of my favourite albums of all times:

https://www.optina.ru/audio/songs/spb_2/

two of my favourite pieces:

https://www.optina.ru/audio/spb_2/20.mp3

https://www.optina.ru/audio/spb_2/21.mp3

Greetings from Lonely Dreamer, still crazy & in Oktavism wonderland

Shocking Blue, an old Dutch group. See to get a best of in trying to avoid all the fillers. One of my fave songs: California Here I Come.

I just found this video on youtube, I had searched for it for hours some years ago and couldn't find it, now I've found it again

It's a short snippet of Bowie with Tin Machine doing an accoustic cover of "If There Is Something", the video quality is horrible, the song is much too short, but it's absolutely fantastic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HutQouFo-LU

Does anybody know if they ever released an accoustic version of this? (Honestly I'm not too big a fan of their regular studio and live versions of ITIS...)

Hidden gem:

Dusty Springfield: Girls Can`t Do What The Guys Do (and still be a lady)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWtLgXDuQ1Y

Indeed. love that, thank you. Sorry for the late reply, I didn't look into this thread for a while.

Another one I like (nothing Russian for once):

Iyeoka - Hum The Bassline / Poem For Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRA7yMGqnzI

Members who read my posts will know that I am a fan of The Kinks, Toto, Robert Palmer, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Manhattan Transfer and a lot of others who can be found in my 2.000 CD shelf ...

But I always had a particular liking of Alternative/Indie bands, such as Belle + Sebastian, Beautiful South, Deacon Blue, Travis or Prefab Sprout. "Mr Prefab Sprout" Paddy McAloon was born near Newcastle as far as I know like so many good musicians of our time including our hero. McAloon has an instinct for perfect melodies and good lyrics and is still working - here a video from 2017 - hope you enjoy it :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jbdjD6a-xw