This is a splendid collection of German music from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. In under an hour, sixteen distinctive and beautifully evocative accompanied songs are performed with style and commitment by the Swedish ensemble, Oliphant (Uli Kontu-Korhonen, chant, drum; Eira Karlson, fiddle, slide trumpet; Leif Karlson, lute, symphony, percussion; Janek Öller, recorders, hümmelchen, bomba). The four person group specializes in medieval music – performed on period instruments where possible. The perform with an "edge" that's at the same time gentle, considered and highly communicative. Indeed, the acoustic on this CD is close and warm without being at all cloying. That has the result of thrusting the very essence of the words (whose articulation is clear and penetrating) and the production of the sounds – on the fiddle, for instance – to the forefront of our attention over and above any more general impression we may have as a result of the music's strong aural flavor.

This two-CD album brings together the two earliest recordings by La Petite Bande. They were made in 1973 and feature landmarks in two important French forms of entertainment—comedie-ballet and opera-ballet. Performed in 1670 at Chambord, one of Louis XIV's grandest country retreats, Le bourgeois gentilhomme was the high water mark of Lully's collaboration with Moliere and was to be the last work of its kind on which the two worked together. Moliere developed the comedie-ballet from the fashionable court ballets, working the dances and music into the body of the play with unparalleled skill. Lully, himself a dancer, proved a gifted partner as the music for Le bourgeois gentilhomme reveals.

This monumental work of French Romanticism is one of the essential landmarks in the career of any conductor. The quality of Berlioz’s orchestration and questions of timbre and the ideal instrumental forces lie at the core of the approach of Jos van Immerseel and Anima Eterna Brugge, who are increasingly drawn to French composers and especially to their precise, shimmering orchestral textures.

This is a complete re-recording of Robert Schroeder's cult classic album Galaxie Cygnus-A from the 1982.
If Harmonic Ascendant has put the name of Robert Schroeder on the map, Galaxie Cygnus-A has solidified the immense talent and creativity of the Aachen synthesist. Initially conceived for a science fiction project, the main idea behind this album was to capture the sound waves coming from galaxies with the help of a radio telescope placed in high altitude. The sound engineer in him edited and sampled these galactic tones on a music that he then performed during a big event in sounds and images, in front of a giant screen that was broadcasting images of cosmos during this concert presented within the framework of the prestigious ARS-Electronica in Linz, Austria, in 1982…

Good times have sunk into the marrow of Kenny Chesney’s bones, slowing down his metabolism, making him unlikely to kick up his tempos or turn up his amplifiers. Age slows you down but so do too many afternoons on the beach Chesney continues to romanticize, although not quite so much on 2010’s Hemingway’s Whiskey as he did on his last decade of records. Unlike its immediate predecessor, 2008’s Lucky Old Sun, Hemingway’s Whiskey isn’t simply lazy: it’s slow but it’s burnished and classy, not quite as literary as the Guy Clark title track might initially indicate, but surely handsome, its seamless weaving of guitars being the aural equivalent of high thread count sheets.

Of the program’s seven concertos, only two—one by each composer—are conventional solo concertos. Albinoni, who is credited with inventing the genre, actually wrote as many double concertos as solo concertos; two of them are included on the disc, along with a concerto grosso scored for an unlikely combination of five winds and continuo. Vivaldi, who refined Albinoni’s concept, is represented by a brace of concertos for pairs of oboes and clarinets. Therein lies the fun of this marvelous and unexpected release.

Chandos signed Karen Geoghegan as an exclusive artist in 2007 following her wonderful performances on the BBC TV ‘Classical Star’ programme. This is her fourth recording with the label, following her CD of works by Hummel, Weber, Berwald, Jacobi, Elgar and Gershwin, her CD of French music for bassoon and piano, and her contribution, in the Suite-Concertino in F major, to Noseda’s Wolf-Ferrari CD. All of these received much acclaim, and the expressive maturity and sensitivity of her playing have quickly cemented her status as a rising star.

Francesco Mancini (1672-1737) was born in Naples, and worked initially as an organist at the Cappella Reale, an institution he would direct some years later until he was replaced by Alessandro Scarlatti in 1708. Mancini composed many concertos and sonatas, and the works on these CDs were first published in London in 1724. The music contained in these sonatas displays Mancini’s gift for great expressivity and lyricism. The material is developed skillfully in ways that often lead to considerable tension and drama. The spirit of the dance is never far away from the finales and often contrast with the tense and dramatic opening movements and the long slow movements.

Can't Slow Down … When It's Live! is a live album by rock band Foreigner, released in 2010. It was recorded on March 16 the same year Nashville, Tennessee at the Ryman Auditorium except for the track "Can't Slow Down" recorded in Seebronn, Germany, on July 31, 2010. In 2009 Foreigner released Can't Slow Down, their first album of original music in fifteen years, followed by a successful tour of North America and Europe. Music from that tour has now been put into a new two-CD live album of both Foreigner classics and new songs called Can't Slow Down…When It's Live! "Can’t Slow Down is about fresh starts,” said founding guitarist Mick Jones. “For the band, it was a chance to step out from the shadow of the past and establish its own identity. Personally, the album helped me reclaim my confidence as an artist and rediscover the fun of making music again.”

In spring 1972, after the disbandment of the legendary band Quintessence, two of its members, Shiva and Maha Dev funded the short-lived outfit Kala. Beset by bizarre personnel issues, and in the hands of a record label which somehow found defeat in the jaws of what should have been a victory for all concerned, Kala nevertheless managed to release one overlooked gem of an album and a couple of blistering live tracks during its brief existence. The album featured some titles which were in a similar vein to Quintessence, with others nodding towards the popular boogie and country-rock of contemporaries like the Faces. Now exquisitely remastered by Ron Geesin, with two previously unreleased live tracks and two brand new vocal takes, this CD debut of Kala's complete works has been compiled with the full co-operation of Phil and Dave…