Since Varese's 18-track 1995 collection The Best of Donna Fargo has gone out of print, MCA's 20th Century Masters from 2002 stands as the best collection of her classic Dot material currently on the market. At 11 tracks, it's considerably shorter than that collection, but it does hit all of her big hits on ABC/Dot, including all of her Top Ten hits: "The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.," "Funny Face," "Superman," "You Were Always There," "Little Girl Gone," "I'll Try a Little Bit Harder," "You Can't Be a Beacon (If Your Light Don't Shine)," "U.S. of A.," "It Do Feel Good," and "Don't Be Angry."

Red Sea is the second album by English hard rock band Warhorse. The CD reissue has six previously unreleased bonus tracks, including a live version of "Ritual" (a song from the first Warhorse album) and five demos of Nick Simper compositions that do not appear on the two Warhorse LPs. Warhorse were a band formed by former Deep Purple bassist Nick Simper. He had left Deep Purple in 1969 and joined Marsha Hunt's backup band. Not long after, Nick Simper replaced her backing band with Ged Peck on guitar and Mac Poole on drums. While this was going on, Simper would play in an extracurricular band along with Ged and Mac, with singer Ashley Holt.

HK Gruber (b.1943) is one of the more refreshing of contemporary composers. His music is widely performed today, but since it takes time to become a household name many people have yet to make his acquaintance. Some background material is thus in order. This is how he presents himself on the Internet: 'Composer, conductor, chansionnier and double bass player HK Gruber (Vienna, 1943), is one of the most well-known and well-loved figures on the contemporary music scene, and yet he remains something of an enigma.

Having bought this cd as a complete blind purchase [usually not, i have to admit, a successful venture] i was pleasantly surprised. it is a daring, envelope-pushing guitar cd, and mats bergström's executes the difficult repertoire with finesse and panache. The music is all 20th century [none of your romantic spanish guitar here…], including steve reich's 'electric counterpoint' [originally written for pat metheny and reproduced here in all its chattering, cascading glory] and toru takemitsu's characteristically difficult but rewarding 'all in twilight'.

This disc is a perfect example of what a quartet recording, especially of standard repertoire, should do. It is fresh and invigorating and invites us to reexamine the work of a composer whom we think we know very well. In this second volume of its Mendelssohn series, the Eroica quartet simply dazzles–the ensemble's previous foray (which was its debut recording) clearly was no fluke. As far as the Eroica quartet is concerned, Mendelssohn's quartets are the equal of any of his larger-scale works, and these players show that they can generate the muscle and power to match their conception. The first movement of the third quartet is marked "Molto Allegro vivace".

One of the most prolific men in music, Bill Laswell doesn't release albums under his own name as often as he once did, which makes Book of Exit, the fourth in his "Dub Chamber" series, especially worthy of attention. While the previous "Dub Chamber" releases leaned more toward hard Jamaican-style dub music, with instruments dropping in and out and plenty of reverb and delay, this is altogether a different beat, in large part due to the vocals of Ethiopian singer Gigi. And what Laswell, Gigi, drummer/tabla player Karsh Kale, and percussionist Aiyb Dieng end up with is really ambient dub - something lighter and more flowing because it adapts itself to the vocals. And Gigi is in excellent form, possibly better than on her own debut, whether on "Ethiopia" or the memorable, beautiful "Jerusalem," which mixes a slight R&B inflection with dub for something outstanding, beautiful, and ethereal…

This recording of chamber works by Ravel performed by Renaud and Gautier Capuçon and Frank Braley may not be the most electrifying, but it has a richness of feeling and movement that draws the listener along for a thoroughly enjoyable ride. The opening of the Piano Trio is delicately ethereal and atmospheric, but then it builds to grand heights. The second movement sways and flows in continuous waves, and the third arcs in a way similar to the first movement.

Until quite recently, the Faroe Islands were much better-known as a remote archipelago lost in the icy Arctic waters rather than a musical nation. Some may recall a Faroese tune used by Grainger in Let’s Dance in Green Meadows for piano duet and by Nielsen in his atmospheric, though rather slight An Imaginary Journey to the Faroes. Now, thanks to the tireless vitality of a Mighty Handful of Faroese composers (Kristian Blak, Atli Petersen, Pauli í Sandagerđi, Edvard Debess and Sunleif Rasmussen) whose music placed the Faroes on the contemporary musical map, things have changed considerably.

Mari Takano, from the standard publicity photograph she uses, looks like a soccer mom ready to go out on a date with her husband, taking a phone call in the kitchen before she heads out the door. Nothing in the photo would give you the impression that Takano is a venturesome and fiercely original classical composer who has studied with Brian Ferneyhough and György Ligeti.

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Mark’s debut solo release Golden Heart in 1996, a new box set, Mark Knopfler - The Studio Albums 1996-2007, will be released on 1st October Worldwide, and 10th December in the US.
Gathering his first five post-Dire Straits solo albums (not counting film scores), and a bonus disc of B-sides titled The Gravy Train, this collection is as sleepy and nonchalant as an old friend’s affable shrug. Knopfler does what he does, blending folk, blues, country and rock into a tension-free take on Americana that’s faintly personal but more about delivering a carpet atmosphere of reflective rumination.
The audio of each album has been newly remastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios in London.

Tom Waits has said: "I like a beautiful song that tells you terrible things. We all like bad news out of a pretty mouth." When it comes to the material on Blood Money, I don't know if I can call Waits' mouth pretty, but he certainly offers plenty of bad news in a very attractive, compelling way. Released simultaneously with Alice, a recording of songs written in 1990, Blood Money is a set of 13 songs written by Waits and Kathleen Brennan in collaboration with dramatist Robert Wilson. The project was a loose adaptation of the play Woyzeck, originally written by German poet Georg Buchner in 1837. The play was inspired by the true story of a German soldier who was driven mad by bizarre army medical experiments and infidelity, which led him to murder his lover - cheery stuff, to be sure. Thematically, this work - with its references to German cabarets and nostalgia - echoes Waits' other Wilson collaborative project, Black Rider…

As ornate as the sonic tapestries she weaves, Enya's first ever box set is a four-disc marvel of gold and velvet that culls 51 tracks from her first five albums, including B-sides. All of the obvious cuts are here, from her breakthrough single "Orinoco Flow" to "May It Be" from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. The 48-page booklet is bursting at the seams with photographs, illustrations, and track-by-track commentary from lyricist Roma Ryan. The enhanced fourth disc includes a video performance of "Oíche Chiúin (Silent Night)" from a 1996 BBC special. This is an excellent gift for fans of the lauded Irish singer.

Roel Dieltiens is a Baroque cellist par excellence and the modest size of Ensemble Explorations (seven players including continuo) suits these works admirably. Vivaldi poured some of his finest music into his numerous concertos for bassoon and cello‚ both dualregister instruments for which he had obvious affection – to which the affecting slow movements richly testify. Dieltiens’ superb bow control and his natural empathy with style and emotional aura make these memorable musical experiences.