The arrival of a new Andrew Chalk album is always a cause for celebration. Following 'A Light at the Edge of the World' (a single piece), the sequel, out on his Faraway Press imprint, finds a new collection of 19 pieces sequenced in story-like chapter and verse from memories and melodies of a nostalgic past. Played more in thoughtful focus and with a lyrical narrative. In recent years, Chalk's recordings have reconfigured away from the static drama of high minimalism and into collections of miniatures - intimate, languid, sometimes haunted, always lovely snatches of sonic ephemera that could be pieced together as a koan of lost memory and forgotten landscape. An evanescent echo and artfully accreted drone trickle throughout the album, all of which are swimming in illumined, golden baths of hallowed light. The album closes with a solstice in midwinter.

Drummer Dennis Chambers is a first-call session ace who is comfortable within a variety of settings and/or genres. He has also evolved into one of the most admired drummers on the globe due to his high-powered polyrhythmic funk beats and supercharged sense of swing. In short, he's a dynamo! With his second solo release, he enlists his former boss, guitarist John Scofield, amid jazz superstars such as brothers Michael (sax) and Randy (trumpet) Brecker among others. Here, Chambers drives it all home via his now infamous attack, consisting of complexly woven tom fills and snappy, funk-drenched rhythms. Much of the credit should be directed towards arranger/producer/keyboardist Jim Beard, who once again demonstrates his prowess for achieving the desired effects.

David Reece has seen a lot in his career. In addition to his solo albums, he gave bands like Accept, Bangalore Choir, Bonfire and most recently the Sainted Sinners the special magic of his voice. He brought Andy Susemihl into the band for his latest masterpiece. Under the motto "Ex-Accept meets Ex-U.D.O." fans can look forward to a concentrated metal experience. Reece and Susemihl complement each other perfectly on "Cacophony of Souls". This is passion that's skill, this is metal! Together with Malte Frederik Burkert on bass and Andrea Gianangeli (drums) twelve great songs were created, including the "Metal Voice", which was composed especially for a US radio show.

Coheed and Cambria’s ninth studio album returns to the narrative confines of the emo-prog titans’ Amory Wars saga, a dense sci-fi conceit involving viruses and anti-terrorist agencies that they took a brief break from on 2015’s The Color Before the Sun. But you don’t need a decoder ring to enjoy the group’s latest, which finds frontman Claudio Sanchez and his virtuosic bandmates applying post-hardcore’s burn and progressive rock’s intricate song structures to epic-sounding melodies and passionate grandeur. “Toys” and “The Pavilion (A Long Way Back)” are as catchy as they are technologically flashy, and the album’s sighing final suite—especially the lush piano skyscapes of “Old Flames” and the plaintive balladry of “Lucky Stars”—serves as a tender and hopeful coda to C&C’s latest opus.

Allusion to the digital world though it may be, there's a sweet, elegiac undercurrent to the title of Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full, an acknowledgement that it was written and recorded when McCartney was 64, the age he mythologized on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released almost exactly 40 years before Memory…

Crumb now release Jinx, their first full-length album and best distillation to date of their singular blend of psych-rock and jazz. On Jinx, Ramani continues to helm the songwriting, with Aronow, Brotter, and Gilad each bringing distinctive ideas to match her ethereal, intimate vocals and luminous guitar lines. Informed by two years of nearly non-stop touring, the songs sweep and swell to capture the beguiling live spirit of Crumb shows, while taking listeners one step further down the band’s dizzying, hypnotic path.

From the name of an ancestral wind transporting every grain of sand from the Sahara to the mountains of the Alps, the Fœhn Trio takes you on a musical journey filled with emotion and bond. Melodic and current, Fœhn's music invites the public from the first notes to enter into its singular imagination, oscillating between acoustics and amplification, between intimacy and power.

Ronnie Dyson was a Broadway star before making records. He was born in Washington D.C., but grew up in New York, taking to the stage in 1960s and ultimately voicing one of the decade's best known show tunes, Aquarius. He was just 18 when he joined the cast of Hair with a lead role in the show. Ronnie also featured in a movie Putney Swope in 1969 before signing to Columbia Records the following year. The albums we present here were Ronnie's third and fourth for the label and represent the complete set of songs recorded by the artist produced by Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy.

This vivid film of Wagner's romantic opera succeeds in conveying what famously been called "the wind that blows out at you whenever you open the score", including Daland's boat anchoring against the Sandwike cliffs, the red-sailed phantom ship, and the ghost crew rising from the dead. "Scenes that recall classic horror films… Brilliantly successful" (Nürnberger Nachrichten). "Captures the work's essence" (Süddeutsche Zeitung). With a superb cast; conducted by Wagner authority Wolfgang Sawallisch.

On their fifth full-length album, Stronger, Cool Million continue to deliver classic-sounding grooves fronted by strong vocalists with warm melodies and enticing lyrics. Some selections stick to the template of at once retro and modern polished soul arrangements underscored with R&B- and disco-fueled tracks—which they’ve been noted for since 2008. The production duo, however, also delves into the electro-funk realm on several cuts, while exploring the slow-jam quotient more widely than on previous efforts. Furthermore, unlike most of the preceding sets, the focus here shifts from longstanding vocalists to up-and-coming artists.