"This is the greatest record I've made in my entire life. We gave our souls to this record."
—Astor Piazzolla

"This album holds some of the most compelling, emotionally complete music ever made..."
—Ted Drozdowski, Boston Reporter Feb 1987

"By breaking every tango convention, Astor Piazzolla reveals some essence of the tango-the sense that, at any moment, a gust of strong emotion can rip through any form, any artifice... To hear Mr. Piazzolla's tangos as musical marvels is beside the point. As edgy lines and long-breathed tunes defy and embrace one another, the tangos suggest that even in the modern world, romance survives."
—Jon Pareles, New York Times 5/25/86

"One of the ten best records of the year (1986)"
—Fernando Gonzalez; Elijah Wald, Boston Globe

" Sex, drama, romance, accordions-Astor Piazzolla's music contains nearly everything worthwhile life has to offer... Piazzolla's Argentine "New Tango" fusion brazenly combines structural ploys from contemporary classical music and the improvisatory daring of jazz, heating the mix with swooping dynamics worthy of rock & roll... Its reissue is a cause for celebration..."
—Rolling Stone, December 1988

*...True semi-pop, dance music for the cerebellum, with the aesthetic tone of a jazz-classical fusion Gunther Schuller never dreamed."
—Robert Christgau, Village Voice, 6/2/87

"...Emotional landscapes that shift suddenly from tightly structured romantic figures to wildly dramatic and sexually charged crescendos. The net effect is something like the sound track to an illicit love affair, full of passion and rage, tension and release... In the hands of Piazzolla, tango is dangerous music, and this record is so hot it should come with a Surgeon General's warning..."
—Joe Schick, Taxi, September 1987

"…The power of {Piazzolla's} music forces us to listen, forces us to think and feel... take our word for it-if you have any musical interests at all beyond the boundaries of rock and roll, this is one album you don't want to miss..."
—Keyboard, March 1987

"…This album is like the soundtrack to a knife fight: abrupt, teasing, arrogant, sentimental, brutal...It's a musical equation as thrilling and enchanting as the Modern Jazz Quartet or REM in their own ways, though, be warned, Piazzolla aims straight for your vitals...."
—Jerome Wilson, Option, March 1987
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"…A remarkable and driven performance that deserves to be heard by all fans of music."
—Billboard, 12/6/86

"The tango doesn't begin with Astor Piazzolla and it certainly won't end with him, but for more than 40 years he's been the Duke Ellington, the Bob Marley, the Hank Williams of tango, the one who has given the sound a voice and who's given the voice a face, an image: a troubled man with grey hair, a thick grey moustache, and a wine-drinker's faraway stare, bent over a dark, beautifully inlaid bandoneon...In reshaping the tango to his needs and his vision, he's kept his tangos supple and dangerous while adding a rich harmonic tension stretching the strings of heartbreak until they snap with a sound that is larger than music...{Tango:Zero Hour} really is extraordinary, almost too good to be the first tango album you hear..."
—Brian Cullman, Spin, March 1987

***** "In a sense, the attentive listener can almost discern the aural equivalents of such filmic devices as cross-cut fade, dissolve and pan.  Shadows and lights, silence and sound, spaces and faces... Desire demonstrates that Hanrahan's vision is clearly in tune with the times."
-Gene Kalbacher, Jazziz

"Bruce sings like his heart and soul are at stake... Incessant, occasionally urgent, counter- and polyrhythms permeate all four sides..."
- Spectator Magazine, Raleigh

"Highly Recommended...Jackpot!  ...This record demands your attention."
-Editorial staff, Progressive Media New Music Report

"Desire is a tuneful and triumphant record that bridges the corporeal - intellectual schism that exist for many listeners just as it shatters the music industry commandment that the ghettos of rock, jazz and ethnic music cannot be desegregated.  Hail, Hanrahan!"
- Goldmine Magazine

"a multidimensional corps of rhythm, voice and emotion.  This EP plus LP deserves everyone's close attention."
- Ann Arbor News

"an enthralling two-record album ...a monumental work ...the accent is on rhythm -and it never lets up."
-Lee Hilderbrand, Pulse Magazine

"One of the 100 most important records of the century."
-Telerama (France), 1999


"One of the 60 jazz records of the 20th Century for people who think they hate jazz...  These albums changed me..."
- Actual (France)

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