Among the many types of compositions in which Berio excelled, his solo outings, entitled Sequenzas, are perhaps his most famous. He began the composition of the Sequenzas in 1958 with Sequenza I for flute and ended with Sequenza XIV for violoncello in 2002, completed a year prior to the composer’s death at 77. Each 'Sequenza' is a virtuosic tour-de-force for its instrument—a study in the different ways of producing sounds with the instrument, and in the slight differences in pitch when a single note is produced with several different fingerings. Berio's writing is, of course, unconventional, feeding off serialism and making complexity sound friendly. Yet Berio envisions these works as suggestive of polyphony in their architecture and impact, which is to say that the aggressive juxtapositions within a solo work fool the ear into believing that the soloist is a small ensemble. The melodies get multiplied, from initial statements into transfigurations and harmonic variations, making the pieces at once tremendously complex and demanding but also totally inviting. Pierre Boulez' Ensemble InterContemporain are the ideal exponents for this music, committed together and separately to music which makes great demands of both players and listeners.

When I first heard of this "supergroup", which consists of drummer Billy Cobham, keyboardist George Duke, guitarist John Scofield, and bassist/Stick player Alphonso Johnson, my expectations were high. While not exactly a grand-slam of an album, I was hooked from the first listen.
This album contains, on most tracks, a blend of funk, rock, R&B, and jazz. This is demonstrated best on the instrumental tracks "Hip Pockets", "Ivory Tattoo", "Sweet Wine", and "Juicy". These four songs are what really make the album special to me, the band just gels so well together that it amazes me how short-lived this group was. These instrumentals show the group in full democratic mode when it comes to soloing and overall representation on each track…

This is an extremely important recording in many ways. It is the most complete recording of the Sequenzas and nine connected pieces for solo instruments. The famous recording with soloists from Ensemble InterContemporain on DG, will remain important, but it was made in 1998, before some of the pieces on this set were even written. For example, we have here the first recordings of the legendary Sequenzas for cello. They are performed by Rohan de Saram, to whom they were dedicated. Berio conferred with de Saram as he wrote, sounding out his ideas with the cellist to see how far the technical process could meet the musical imagination. Furthermore, this set includes spoken performances of Sanguinetti’s poems before each piece as was Sequenza performance practice. The DG set has them printed in the booklet, but that’s not the same thing. Far from interrupting the music, the short aphorisms enhance overall atmosphere, for Sanguinetti and Berio were artistic twins, fertilising each others' work. Sequenzas can, and are performed as stand-alones for obvious reasons, but on a recording when they are played together, the recitation acts as a connecting thread. All the performances here were recorded separately, as were those in the Ensemble InterContemporain set, and even in different countries. The concept fits in well with Berio’s panoramic, international world-view.

Blank & Jones continue their double life with the release of the latest installment to their original chillout series, Relax 4. By day (as in sunny hours, not their "day job") they craft hazy, lazy downtempo beach music, such as is presented here. By night, they bring their brand of high-energy electronic music to the clubs, drawing equal inspiration from the trance scene, electro movement, and more beat-oriented tracks from early techno days. The Relax series has morphed a bit over time. When it started, it was a mostly seamless collection of chilled out original tracks and remixes meant to accompany your nap on the beach. Now, the series is presented as a day time/night time set.
Disc One is subtitled "Sun" and is the more laid back of the two. Stylistically, this disc finds itself somewhere in between a very slow, Balearic chill sound and something that occasionally approaches down-tempo. It's one of their most placid offerings, to be sure, but also is a bit out of genre. "Face a la Mer" starts things off, and is a breezy, flamenco guitar-led instrumental number. A reworking of Laid Back's "Happy Dreamer" follows, and already brings the pulse of the set down a notch. And by the time we get to "Nuits Blanches" - which harkens back to the first track in terms of style - things seem to have stalled out a bit into… I'm just gonna go ahead and say it: easy listening.
The emphasis on this Margaritaville-hammock-style of chillout seems to be taking them to the edge of what would actually be considered "chillout," as opposed to just "really slow." And its this emphasis on the first disc that finds the group faltering. Where before there had been generous doses of this mixed in with some other ambient trance elements, or after-hours lounge, now it has come to the fore as the overriding theme.
Things pick up a bit with their first effort at a title track for the series, "Relax (Your Mind)," which is a pleasant vocal number that brings up the tempo just enough. This carries nicely into "Chilled Cream," delivering more of a definite laid-back groove. "Try Again" features Keane and starts off as a very nice slow vocal cut, before injecting a rhythmic break during the mid-point. This second triptych of seconds feels more like the heart and soul of this first disc, and easily trumps the first set of songs.
The second half of the disc finds itself oscillating between these two styles, with the two vocal tracks featuring Vanessa Daou ("Heart of Wax" and "Consequences") as well as "Up 2 You" being definite highlights. The more "elevator" tracks certainly aren't bad, especially when considered individually, but do feel out of place given the level of prominence that they have throughout the disc. The fact that the set is unmixed only serves to highlight these contrasting styles all the more.

Pulse Of Life is the result of a music production that started in March 1989. The musicians on this recording are some of the most talented artists living in Austria. I want to thank all of them for their positive energy that made it possible to record this album.
Christian Radovan

It's been said by Stockhausen that Klavierstücke were his "drawings". In the short span of ten years between the ages of 24 and 33, Stockhausen was stimulated by such eclectic subject matters as “electronic music”, “pointillistic music”, “spatial music”, “group form”, “chance”, “silence”, “noise”, “notation”, “statistical composition”, “musical processes”. These were Stockhausen’s pioneer years, wherein many of these elements were meticulously applied to his music which brought him world-wide recognition. The first cycle of the Klavierstücke, numbers I-IV, are ascetic miniatures written in Paris in 1952-3 when Stockhausen was studying with Messiaen. During this time he was evolving from “point” music to “groups” – or gruppen. “VI” exploits factors largely outside the control of composer or musician, its overall structure governed by the natural periods of sound decay and reverberation. “XI” displays Stockhausen’s first thorough-going application of aleatory principles, the score comprising irregularly distributed groups of notes which the pianist plays randomly within certain parameters: the pianist decides what order to play the groups in, but the score contains instructions in each group which affect the way that the next, whatever it might be, is realized.

Jean-Pierre Rampal performs his own flute transcriptions of Vivaldi's Four Seasons (originally for violin), accompanied by Janos Rolla and Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra.

For Miles Davis, the six year layoff between the release of PANGAEA and THE MAN WITH THE HORN was marked by isolation, physical pain and dependency…a sense of inertia. At points on THE MAN WITH THE HORN you can hear him straining to get his chops back up, although ultimately, his musicianly instincts served him well during odd passages of rope-a-doping, and for every broken note there is a blast of vintage Miles.

THE MAN WITH THE HORN introduces yet another striking band, featuring future leaders such as reedman Bill Evans, guitarist Mike Stern, bassist Marcus Miller and drum innovator Al Foster. The opening "Fat Time" combines Miles' love for the flamenco airs and melodic gravity of Spain with a contemporary hard funk style. Evans and Stern act as virtuoso foils, a la Coltrane and Hendrix, the latter's influence apparent in Barry Finnerty's boiling clouds of distortion on "Back Seat Betty" (which settles into a coy, laid back blues vehicle for Miles' muted horn), and a rivetting "Aida," in which Miles reprises the rhythmic tumult of his mid-'70s band with dramatic give and take between his horn and a fiery guitar-driven vamp, as Al Foster thunders away underneath.