Decca Classics proudly announces Shostakovich & Britten, the new album from internationally acclaimed cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. Featuring Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2, performed with John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London, alongside the cello sonatas of Shostakovich and Britten, this deeply personal recording pays tribute to cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, the towering figure who inspired both composers—and Kanneh-Mason himself.

A new page in the history of the NDR Radiophilharmonie opened in 2024 with the arrival of a sought-after chief conductor, Stanislav Kochanovsky. For harmonia mundi, he has chosen to explore a repertoire that he knows inside out, the music of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russia. Here is a chance to hear an expert interpretation of the famous Capriccio espagnol alongside works by Tchaikovsky and Tcherepnin, perhaps less well-known but utterly thrilling!

The album centers around a never-before-released rendition of "Silentium," the second movement of Pärt's most famous concerto, Tabula Rasa, performed by Boston-based chamber orchestra A Far Cry. The group plays "Silentium" at nearly half the speed of the best-known version, released on ECM in 1984. The piece, known for its healing properties for the dying and often used in palliative care facilities (one patient famously called it "angel music"), is breathtaking at half speed, seemingly stilling time itself.

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release the classic album by Birmingham outfit The Dog That Bit People. Issued by Parlophone in 1971, it was the only album by the group that had evolved from the ashes of legendary band Locomotive by Bass player Mick Hincks and drummer Bob Lamb. Joined by keyboard player Keith Millar and guitarist John Caswell, the group recorded this album in 1970. This Esoteric Recordings reissue has been remastered from the original master tapes and includes the rare B-side of the band s only single as a bonus track.

The platinum-selling active rock group's tenth full-length effort, Bright as Blasphemy, sees Chevelle deliver a pithy nine-song set that pairs the band's signature blend of punchy, melodic hard rock and gritty metal with lyrics rooted in the existential angst of the digital age. Featuring the potent singles "Rabbit Hole (Cowards, Pt. 1)" and "Jim Jones (Cowards, Pt. 2)," the dark, self-produced effort marks a new chapter for the group following their departure from Epic Records and a move to Alchemy Recordings.

When Joe Pass recorded and released this first of his Virtuoso series of albums, he was 44 years old, and ready to reclaim his crown as king of jazz guitar after years of heroin abuse. As a solo artist playing only acoustic guitar in an amplified fusion era, the odds were stacked against him, but Pass boldly issued this, his most creative and improvisation-based work, to mass critical acclaim and widespread general public sales. The genius of Pass was that he was easily able to retain melodic lines of these standards while adding stretched-out, extrapolated thoughts on the top and bottom of the melodies. On every track, with each passing phrase, modified and extended line or poetic thought, Pass proves his unique style is better than all the rest…

September grew out of the short-lived super-group project Jugoslovenska Pop Selekcija in September 1975, whose members included Tihomir Pop Asanovic-organ, Janez Boncina-vocals, guitar, Braco Doblekar-percussion, congas and Ratko Divjak- drums. Charley Novak on bass and formally educated musician Pero Ugrin on electric violin and trumpet joined soon for the recording of the first album, ironically titled "Zadnja avantura" (Eng. "The Last Adventure"). The album was recorded in February 1976 in Ljubljana and released shortly afterwards but passed largely unnoticed. This is in fact a pure gem of Yugoslavian jazz fusion that lacked popularity simply because there was no single hit song on it that would draw attention of the wider public. That said, this album is probably the first complete fusion release in ex- Yugoslavia that did not rely on the blues/R'n'B fundament, going instead further into free jazz exploration in a vein of Mahavishnu Orchestra or Return To Forever…

The successful self-titled reissue of Fame-era material released in early 2004 allowed Candi Staton to make this, her first secular album in several years. Where 1999's Outside In was a way to take advantage of her unplanned return to the clubs – a couple singles released during the '90s used a vocal she recorded for a documentary about a man's struggle with life-threatening obesity – His Hands is 100 percent Southern soul. Staton involves several family members and longtime associates, including son Marcus Williams (a seasoned drummer who has played with her for years), daughter Cassandra Hightower, sister Maggie Staton Peebles, and Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section organist Barry Beckett. It might be surprising to see that Lambchop's Mark Nevers produced the session, and that Lambchop ally Lloyd Barry arranged the horns, but both men have done extensive work with Staton's peers in the gospel world.

Soundtrack to the film 'Farinelli', the 1994 biopic film about the life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time. It stars Stefano Dionisi as Farinelli and was directed by Belgian director Gérard Corbiau. Although Dionisi provided the speaking voice, Farinelli's singing voice was provided by a soprano, Ewa Malas-Godlewska and a countertenor, Derek Lee Ragin, who were recorded separately then digitally merged to recreate the sound of a castrato. Through the film the general public discovered a whole repertoire of works for a voice that can no longer be heard today. The soundtrack from the film became a bestseller, as we discovered with delight some beautiful pieces by Handel, Pergolesi, Hasse, Porpora and others, in a unique interpretation.

Jaga Jazzist, the Norwegian multi-instrumental boundary-busters, may occupy a niche, but it feels like an enduringly spacious and fertile one, where sounds that recall everything from Weather Report to big-band jazz, krautrock, Radiohead or even the Pat Metheny Group intertwine. Last year’s 20th anniversary retrospective was fascinatingly diverse, but Starfire – conceived in composer Lars Horntveth’s new Los Angeles home, rather than in Oslo – is a more densely layered and studio-dominated deployment of this band’s awesome resources. The title track is classic Jazzist: a sound like the Shadows driven by a marching-band thump skids through power-chord guitar hooks and Zappaesque melodic zigzags; the atmospheric Big City Music is a masterly balance of quickfire rhythm-section ingenuity and the instrumental diversity of guitars, keys and brass. The tunes remain quirkily dramatic and the thematic scene-shifting spectacular, but a little thinning-out would have let Jaga Jazzist’s uniquely mercurial music breathe more.