The fourth studio album from the Ventures, 1961's Colorful Ventures was the first in a long line of releases the band built around album title themes. Here the theme is colors, and so listeners get such songs as "Blue Moon," "Yellow Jacket," "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White," and so on. Conceptual themes aside, the album featured more of the group's recognizable instrumental rock & roll, surf rock, and country twang.

Orphans is the most unwieldy Tom Waits collection yet. Packaged in a Cibachrome-tinted box are three discs containing 56 songs total. It claims 30 new tunes, but a mere 14 can be found on other records - six others have to be hunted for while the remainder have shown up in various incarnations. This crazy thing began as a collection of outtakes, rarities, soundtrack tunes, and compilation-only cuts - some of which survive here in new form, including tracks from the Ramblin' Jack Elliot tribute, the Bridge benefit, and two Ramones covers, to name a few. In other words, the first conception was as a hodgepodge collection of attic material. Waits checked out the tune selection as it was and said something like "nah, bad idea; this would suck." So, he did what any self-respecting artist with a head full of ideas, two stomping, shuffling feet, and itchy fingers - and time on his hands - would do: he recorded new songs and re-recorded others…

It was inevitable, especially considering her recent albums, that Dolly Parton would eventually go all the way back to the mountains with a bluegrass project. A child of the southern Appalachians, Parton would have absorbed this music straight through her skin during her formative years. And, indeed, her performance on this CD is impeccable, as is her choice of material. Producer Steve Buckingham has taken care to bring together a group of accomplished bluegrassers to accompany Parton. Alison Krauss, Stuart Duncan, Dan Tyminski, Jerry Douglas, Rhonda Vincent, and Bryan Sutton are major contributors, as is Patty Loveless.

Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM) is an Italian progressive rock band founded in 1970 which continues to the present day. They were the first Italian group to have success internationally. The group recorded five albums with English lyrics between 1973 and 1977. During this period they entered both the British and American charts. They also had several successful European and American tours, playing at the popular Reading Festival in England and on a very popular national television program in the United States. PFM introduced new sounds, such as the synthesizer, to the Italian musical world. They were also among the first to combine symphonic classical and traditional Italian musical influences in a rock music context. Such innovations and their longevity have earned PFM a place among the most important bands in the Progressive rock genre.

Das erstklassige Solistenensemble, der RIAS-Kammerchor und die Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin und nicht zuletzt Jacobs selbst sind Garanten für lebendige historische Aufführungspraxis, so dass diese Interpretation der h-Moll Messe von der Fachpresse entsprechend enthusiastisch aufgenommen und den wenigen Referenzeinspielungen an die Seite gestellt wurde.

These are exuberant performances, overflowing with arch character and impish brio. Lortie doesn't merely phrase responsively; he deftly teases and articulates, so that even routine passage-work lifts into scintillant repartee, wittily met by Pehiavanian and The Hague Residentie Orchestra. For salient instance, this is the first time I've heard the young Liszt's hilariously slapdash, formally sprawling Lelio Fantasy actually.

Listeners familiar with Scottish composer James MacMillan through such acclaimed works as The Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990) or the Seven Last Words from the Cross (1993) may suspect that his music is usually somber and more than a little dour; indeed, his religious and politically themed pieces are quite earnest, and have given some the feeling that it might do MacMillan good to lighten up.

The good news keeps on coming from the bow of Italian-Scots youngster Nicola Benedetti, who takes on the king of all the warhorses, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, for her second album, and delivers a fresh, well-worked-out interpretation. Benedetti, with expert support from the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields under James MacMillan, avoids any overwrought quality that might have been brought on by the pressures of making a high-profile recording in a shrinking major-label classical environment.

2006 two CD compilation series from the team that brought you the Blue Series, the biggest selling Jazz series ever. These compilations will all cover distinct historical and stylistic phases of the label's history, gathering together tracks that are rarely anthologized alongside some of the more well known cuts. Each one will then be housed in a distinctive sleeve that looks like a Blue Note compilation that was done at the specific period covered by the release. Sharp Shades & Finger Snaps features 19 tracks including cuts from Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Hank Mobley, McCoy Tyner, Grant Green, Lee Morgan and others.

The World Of Krautrock Vol. 1 (1997). Once upon a time, all fairy tales start. And gave the recollections of the time as it still Kreidler motorbikes and wild music also 'Krautrock' called. The artists on the CD are represented, also at that time for good tones there provided Birth Control from Berlin and Guru Guru from the Heidelberg area. They have become legends for us at least. On the CD are found beside the already mentioned groups also Witthüser & Westrup with wonderful ballads.
The World Of Krautrock Vol. 2 (2006). Two CD's, with a total of eighteen tracks, bringing to you some quite diverse artists like some of the better known acts, Birth Control, Guru Guru, Mythos and Floh De Cologne. Then there are several lesser known / more obscure bands like Emtidi, Walpurgis (two cuts by them), Holderin and Annexus Quam…