Sola Translatio is a collaborative work between the italian ambient sound master Alio Die (best known for his previous collaborations with ambient & experimental artists like Robert Rich & Vidna Obmana), and younger Italian newcomer Opium(Matteo Zini). The music moves on abstract drones, minimal rhythms, and "found sounds," rather than being spooky or boring, spreads a calming layer of gentle sound over the listener. It has a nocturnal but serene quality, and feels like the soundtrack for long quiet hours in an elegant Oriental country retreat. It evokes a place one would like to return to, rather than a nightmare from which one struggles to wake. Its a tapestry of mesmerizing low-rumbling melodies/frequencies for a deep listening, where the sounds of nature are always present.

The release is an important jazz event: While Ayler’s freewheeling performances at the Fondation Maeght on July 25 and 27, 1970, were excerpted on the albums Nuits de la Fondation Maeght (Shandar Records) and Live on the Riviera (ESP-Disc), presented in inferior sound, they have never been released in their entirety until now. Remastered audio by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, transferred directly from the original OrtF stereo tape reels, including over 2 hours of previously unreleased music. The is an official release by Elemental Music Records in partnership with the Albert Ayler Estate & INA France.

Bach on the piano raises no eyebrows, but it’s still quite rare for harpsichord music by other Baroque composers, particularly French ones, to be updated in that manner. However, Pavel Kolesnikov’s collection of Louis Couperin is totally convincing, with a modern piano bringing out different colors and an infinite range of shades and tones. These dance movements are wonderfully light on their feet, elegant, and vivacious, but emotionally rich as well. Kolesnikov has chosen his own order of movements to create a program of range and variety, but one unified by his vivid sense of poetry and magic.

When a twenty-minute piece takes two weeks to rehearse is an audience robbed of some of the richness of their experience by not witnessing that creative journey? For 48 Hours, Vonnegut Collective worked collaboratively with composer Tullis Rennie. Together they documented the trajectory of the rehearsal process and the motivations of the performers as the group tackled their most challenging work to date - Thomas Adès’s Piano Quintet. Recordings from rehearsals and interviews with players are woven through improvised interpretations of a new graphic score for the quintet, combined with trumpet and electronics. In 48 Hours, Rennie and the Vonnegut Collective play with perspective, observation and interpersonal experience, providing the listener with a unique insight into contemporary music making.

In 2017 MAZE gave a stunning interpretation of Jitterbug at the Tactile Paths Festival in Berlin, full of subtle detail and fluid energy. That they have returned to the work now - and have also created this beautiful realization of bayou-borne, for Pauline - is something for which I am deeply grateful.

Eileen Farrell is quite possibly the best of the female operatic stars who have made serious efforts to cross over to pop and jazz. That is because she truly understands the jazz and standards idioms and the technical principles required to perform such works. Some great sopranos, such as Price, for example, just don't get the difference or at least the techniques adjustments required for authentic performance; that is, superb voice alone doesn't sell a song or ballad any more than it sells an aria - it all has to fit. As one of many distinguished Metropolitan Opera stars who joined the voice faculty at the estimable Indiana University School of Music, Eileen Farrell was unique in her consideration that the vocal artistry required for jazz or broadway standards and similar songs was not "inferior," but, rather, just different and in turn required total, not superficial adjustments - and commitment - on the part of singers…

Well known for her creative compositional style and distinct singing, Björk's recording career began in 1977 at the age of 11, when she released (as Björk Guðmundsdóttir) her first album, while studying piano and flute at music school. Although the album became platinum, she refused to make another disco-folk follow-up and, at the age of 13, formed her first short-lived punk band, all-girl alliance Spit and Snot (Saliva and Phlegm), where she played the drums. Later on she was involved in projects such as Exodus and Jam 80, all of which without known record releases…

It's easy to dismiss Knocked Out Loaded out of hand, considering it an extension of the slick professionalism of Empire Burlesque, only not written completely by Dylan. He collaborates with everyone from Tom Petty to Sam Shepard, relying on recordings cut at various times in the mid-'80s, which makes its scattershot effect perhaps not so surprising…

With These Days, Bon Jovi firmly established themselves as an adult contemporary act. They still have their fair share of rockers, but they seem half-hearted and incomplete…

Although I Puritani was performed during the Metropolitan Opera's first season in 1883, it had not been seen there for decades until this production by Sandro Sequi was unveiled in 1976. It was one of the greatest triumphs for the partnership of Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti, and it is to the credit of all concerned in this recent revival that one soon forgets names from the past and enjoys what is a spirited attempt to evoke mid-19th-century style.

Peter Rosendal relishes his own musical unpredictability. Difficult to pigeonhole, he doesn't object to being called unorthodox as a musician, composer or arranger. Or, in his own words: 'I like to pull the rug out from under the listener.' On Trickster, Rosendal juggles with 22 instrumentalists in an ensemble created for the occasion by pairing The Orchestra with folk group Trio Mio. Born in 1976, Peter Rosendal arranged all of the music heard here and composed most of it, creating a complex, whimsical and - true to the Rosendal spirit - humorous programme, drawing inspiration from the island of Fano off the west coast of southern Jutland in Denmark to Belo Horizonte in Brazil and beyond. Often labelled as a jazz pianist (which he is), Rosendal is much more than that. He is a member of award-winning folk trio ULC alongside Trio Mio and has written for Denmark's famed musical collective The Orchestra. The results on Trickster are constantly imaginative, striking and absorbing.

Cruel Summer is a 1998 album by Swedish pop group Ace of Base, released as the band's third album in North America on 14 July 1998 and in Japan on 25 August 1998 by Arista Records. Flowers was the group's third album worldwide, but Arista Records decided to release a different version of the album in North America, Japan, and Latin America, retitled Cruel Summer. This version of the album featured the new track "Everytime It Rains" and many new versions of songs that were first featured on Flowers. As executive producer, Clive Davis enlisted collaborators including production team Cutfather & Joe and songwriter Billy Steinberg. While primarily a pop album, Cruel Summer explores the genres of euro disco, Motown, and dance. Cruel Summer received generally favorable reviews from music critics, who complimented its production and viewed it as a superior version of Flowers.

Clearlight Symphony is a progressive rock album released in 1975 on Virgin Records in the UK. It is the first in a series of albums by a project led by pianist Cyrille Verdeaux with the participation of other musicians, including in this case three members of Gong on one side, and two other French musicians, Gilbert Artman (of Lard Free and later Urban Sax) and Christian Boulé (formerly with Verdeaux in the band Babylone, and a later Steve Hillage sideman) on the other. Primarily psychedelic, but also serving as a forerunner of new-age music, the album's musical style manages to blend seemingly contrary elements: the symphonic rock concept is flexible enough to permit extensive jamming in both rock and jazz fusion styles.

After a relatively quick turnaround, German metal masters Rammstein added another highlight to their discography with eighth album Zeit. Like many other artists around the world, a postponed tour during the COVID-19 pandemic forced the band back to the studio to funnel their creative juices into a new album, erasing any fears that it'd be another decade before hearing a follow-up to 2019's Untitled. Much like that catalog triumph, Zeit is yet another step forward in artistic growth and maturity; it might even be Rammstein's most thoughtful and poignant record to date. Yes, even with a song titled "Dicke Titten" ("Big Tits"). The title track is a towering accomplishment of power and restraint, an unexpected meditation on time and aging that finds hulking frontman Till Lindemann contemplating mortality against a swelling backdrop of angst and drama provided by guitarists Paul Landers and Richard Z. Kruspe, bassist Oliver Riedel, drummer Christoph Schneider, and keyboardist Flake Lorenz.

Nikolai Lugansky and Sakari Oramo conclude their Rachmaninov cycle with the Second and Fourth Concertos, generally matching the proficient (though somewhat generic) standards characterising earlier releases in this series. The Second’s ample rubato and incisive climaxes are far better judged than in the recent, horrifically indulgent Lang Lang/Gergiev recording (DG, 4/05). And although Lugansky’s piano dominates in the mix, the first movement’s rolling arpeggios do not pull focus from the orchestra who, of course, have all the thematic material. In the slow movement I’d prefer a firmer, chamber-like profile between the pianist and first-desk wind soloists. You’ll also glean more ferocity and shapely characterisation from Stephen Hough, Krystian Zimerman, Sviatoslav Richter and Julius Katchen throughout the finale, but this is not to disparage Lugansky’s fleet, assured and world-class fingerwork.