Following 10 years of studio silence in the wake of his recent return stint with Accept and his ongoing solo efforts, Herman Frank’s original flagship project and long-running hard rock meets heavy metal icon Victory returns with a fresh lineup and coat of paint to match…

The tenth lineup of Yes features Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Tony Kaye, Chris Squire, and Alan White. Talk makes some effort to get away from the group's indulgent art rock pretensions, at least to the extent of using a spare, spacious production full of closely miked drums and sharp guitars…

Nuova Generazione Jazz 2021 winner and Maastricht Jazz Awards finalist Francesca Remigi is a polyhedric drummer and a visionary composer known for her international collaborations with Steve Lehman, Joachim Florent, Kris Davis and John Patitucci, with appearances at EFG London Jazz Festival 2020 and Panama Jazz Festival 2021. Her first album Il Labirinto Dei Topi was released in January 2021. The album "Il Labirinto Dei Topi" draws its inspiration from some socio-political concepts theorized by writers such as Noam Chomsky, Zygmunt Bauman, Roberto Saviano, Samuel Huntington, and aims to express some of the controversial topics and poisonous paradoxes of our time, such as the liquidity of social relationships, the decadence of the concept of “society” as perceived nowadays, the capitalist free market- based economy’s failure, the evolution of mafia-like criminal organizations, the weapons’ trade growth, the development of an almighty and unbridled individualism…

In 1994, explains the booklet that accompanies Morimur, Professor Helga Thoene made the surprising discovery that the monumental "Ciaccona" from Bach's Partita in D minor for solo violin was built around various chorale themes hidden in the music. From the texts of these "secret" chorales and other symbolic musical devices, she deduced that the "Ciaccona" was an epitaph for Bach's wife, Maria Barbara. The revelation might have remained an intriguing (and touching) footnote to Bach scholarship if baroque violinist Christoph Poppen hadn't had the bright idea of taking Professor Thoene's discovery off the library shelves and placing it triumphantly in the concert hall. On this disc, his performance of all five movements of the whole Partita (BWV 1004) is interspersed with the various chorales hidden inside the "Ciaccona," sung with breathtaking precision by the Hilliard Ensemble.

MABERN PLAYS COLTRANE IS A VIBRANT LIVE RECORDING of the late, great Harold Mabern performing the music of John Coltrane featuring an all-star sextet with Eric Alexander, Vincent Herring, Steve Davis, John Webber, and Joe Farnsworth.

The Hania Rani (piano) and Dobrawa Czocher (cello) duo stands as living proof that purely instrumental music has its rightful place on the contemporary music scene and is able to draw an increasingly broad spectrum of listeners. The genre of these ladies‘ music can be described as the more and more prominent “modern classic“, represented by artists such as e.g. Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds or Max Richter.

Artists and audiences alike felt a deep sense of loss when the pandemic put a sudden end to live performances last year. The ability to enjoy digital concerts online was some consolation, but as nothing can quite match the magic of direct contact between performer and audience, the few live concerts that were able to go ahead during this period were particularly meaningful. Set for release on 3 December, Live from Salzburg documents two such remarkable events, featuring mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča’s appearances at the Salzburg Festival in the summers of 2020 and 2021 with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Christian Thielemann.

Fourteen years is a long time to spend with one label, especially for jazz and fusion groups. Azymuth celebrated 14 years with the United Kingdom's Far Out label in 2008. Butterfly is their eight record for the imprint and their first new studio album in four years. The original trio – Jose Roberto Bertami (keyboards/vocals), Alex Malheiros (bass/guitars/vocals), and Ivan Conti (drums/percussion/vocals) – is still together after 35 years. Here jazz, funk, fusion, and elegant samba are woven together seamlessly. The disc was produced by the trio with David Brinkworth (Harmonic 33). "Butterfly," the album opener, is a sultry, breezy cover of the classic Herbie Hancock track, originally on 1974's Thrust. The elegant sound of gorgeously arranged strings (by Arthur Verocai no less), warm rolling Rhodes piano, Conti's breaking drums that walk the line between lithe funk and samba, and a pronounced but languid bassline gradually and deliberately build the space, stopping at interludes to reinsert the sensuous mood in the melodic line. Certainly it's an auspicious way to begin, but it's only one of the many highlights on this set.