As one of the finest mallet players of his generation, Dave Samuels has treaded a wide and multifarious path. From Double Image (his gorgeous project with David Friedman) to the exciting territories of his work with the Caribbean Jazz Project (some of the best Latin jazz around), not to mention his fruitful years with Spyro Gyra, Samuels brings a signature delicacy to his playing that is comforting and domestic. His first two intersections with ECM, Dawn and Gallery, are both sadly out of print but make a flowing trilogy of sorts with 1981’s Skylight, which thankfully is still available and marks his last appearance on the label. Joined by one-and-onlys Art Lande and Paul McCandless, Samuels shows us his compositional brilliance in the airy title cut. Not to be outdone, Lande and McCandless offer two tunes apiece. Lande’s territories are more contradictory in their energies, at once twilit and dripping with morning dew, and undeniably engaging…

With 1984's Discovery, Mike Oldfield seems to be back on track, utilizing the vocal power of Maggie Reilly and the drum playing of Simon Phillips to create some rather appealing selections. "The Lake" is a simply gorgeous instrumental inspired by Switzerland's Lake Geneva, the location in which the album was recorded, while "To France" is a powerful pop/rock tune based on the life of Mary, Queen of Scots. Both Reilly and Barry Palmer share the vocal duties throughout the tracks, signifying Oldfield's subtle emergence into a more pop-infused atmosphere. "Tricks of the Light" is a wonderful instrumental that relies on the keyboard to give it energy, while even so-so efforts like the title track and "Poison Arrows" come off as upbeat and inspired. Discovery peaked at number 15 in the U.K., and even though it didn't garner much attention elsewhere, it serves as one of Mike Oldfield's most entertaining releases from the decade.

This album's color cover photo is an action shot, showing Magic Sam in the process of choking and bending his strings, a good hike up the fretboard. It isn't clear exactly what he is playing from the picture, although that certainly didn't stop dozens of pimply hippie guitar players from trying to figure it out. In the meantime, the record goes on and the first soloist out of the gate is Eddie Shaw, playing tenor sax. He is blowing over the top of an R&B riff that, although not out of the syntax of Chicago blues, would also have been quite fitting on a Wilson Pickett record. It is unfortunate that Magic Sam's recording career came to such an abrupt end, as he was one of the best artists working in the musical area between the urban blues tradition and newly developing soul music forms. This fusion was on the minds of many blues artists during the late '60s, and not just because it was aesthetically conceivable…

With this release Major Records and re-flexion start a compilation series of a special kind. Nearly all tracks are unreleased or rare club-remixesfrom your favourite artists with their official approval. The remixers did their very best to make those wonderful tracks shine in a different light and not to destroy the original magic of the songs. Some of the tracks used to be successful singles, others were album tracks originally, but they all have one thing in common: we love them!
Soft Cell, Erasure, Boytronic, Alphaville, De/Vision and many more.

The secret has been out for a while now. After nearly nine years apart, Swedish prog rock legends Beardfish are back. Songs For Beating Hearts is the first new music from Beardfish in nine years, but as its many magical moments unfold, it really is as if the band had never been away.
With strong echoes of past glories but a whole new vibe of wistful wonderment, Songs For Beating Hearts is a glowing testament to the magic that happens when these four musicians join forces. From the dreamy melancholy of the opening Ecotone and the intricate opulence of five-part sprawl Out In The Open, to the prog-friendly pastoralism of bittersweet 11-minute epic Beating Hearts, and the sobering prog-noir of the closing Torrential Downpour, Beardfish have not just made their strongest work to date, but also their most emotionally resonant…

Showbiz has been in Gwen Stefani's blood since the start of her career, which is the reason why she, unlike many '90s alt-rock veterans, can seem at home within the confines of the televised musical competition The Voice. Her very presence on The Voice, one of the last genuinely popular franchises on network television in the 2010s, guaranteed the existence of an album like You Make It Feel Like Christmas, one that's pitched directly in the mainstream. You Make It Feel Like Christmas plays upon her romance with co-host Blake Shelton, making her bouncy duet with the country singer the album's title track and first single.

"Rejoice, rejoice, up, praise the days!" - What Bach presents here cannot be summed up in criteria of masterful orchestral treatment and skilful text adaptation alone. The music-making of this opening chorus, unleashed by pithy kettledrum beats, directly grips the heart, belly and not least the legs of the listeners before any rational reflection, who want to jump up spontaneously from pews and desk chairs and do not have the slightest chance of escaping the contagious jubilation.

In Venice in the 18th century, Christmas was celebrated as only Venetians know how to celebrate: according to one account, more wax was burnt to light up the three storeys of the Procuratie on Christmas Eve, than in all the rest of Italy in an entire year. At the same time, rather than being an independent feast – and as such, the most singularly important one of the year – the Venetian Christmas was also part of the city's famous Carnevale, which at this time lasted for almost six months. This lent a rather special character to the celebrations, compared with for instance the more clerically inclined Rome.

There is some grand and characteristically sumptuous music on this record of motets and instrumental pieces that might have been heard during the feast of Christmas in St Mark's or one of the other great churches of Venice round about 1600 or a little later. A strong point in its favour, too, is the unhackneyed choice of programme: the instrumental Sonata pian' e forte, of course, is an old favourite, and the two earlier double-choir motets of Gabrieli, Angelus ad pastores and 0 magnum mysterium, are also relatively familiar; but the three remaining Gabrieli motets, all taken from posthumous publications and among his most elaborate polychoral pieces, are much less often tackled—not surprisingly, since they call for exceptional resources.

It's hard to say just what was hampering Cheap Trick's productivity in the first decade of the new millennium, but ever since they signed with Big Machine Records, they've become surprisingly prolific. Released in 2017, Christmas Christmas, the veteran band's first seasonal album, is their third full-length release in a span of just 18 months, and while many acts toss off Christmas albums with the care and enthusiasm that six-year-olds display when cleaning their rooms, Cheap Trick have offered up a full-bodied set of Yuletide rock & roll that doesn't spare the volume or the muscle. Christmas Christmas only features three original songs, but Cheap Trick have avoided many of the clichéd seasonal numbers that usually fill up these releases, instead opting for Yuletide numbers from for-real rockers.

Merry Christmas is the first Christmas album, and the fourth studio album, by American singer and songwriter Mariah Carey. Released by Columbia Records on November 1, 1994, the album features cover versions of popular Christmas tunes and original material. Merry Christmas has sold 15 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling Christmas album of all time.

An entry for the 2003 Christmas season was a natural move for Kenny Chesney after the blockbuster No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problems made 2002 his banner year. But in typical Chesney fashion, his holiday album tries to be a little more easygoing than the usual Music City rehash of tried 'n' true yuletide chestnuts. The sunny south of the border vibe that lit up the video for No Shirt's title cut is alive and well on All I Want for Christmas Is a Real Good Tan; the album's own title track is a nice, swaying number that approximates the Cascades' "Rhythm of the Rain" into its breezy Buffett feel. Like Chesney's best material, it's a contemporary country number crossed effortlessly with pop, and it's just a little bit cheeky, too. "Don't worry baby," he sings.

Acclaimed a cappella ensemble Straight No Chaser's cheekily titled 2016 effort I'll Have Another…Christmas Album is the group's third full-length holiday album since their 2008 debut, Holiday Spirits. Recorded at their original home of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, the album features a handful of beloved Christmas carols and holiday standards including "Do You Hear What I Hear?," "Joy to the World," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." As with previous albums, Straight No Chaser also apply their sophisticated harmonies to several contemporary pop classics like Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," Kenny Rogers' "The Greatest Gift of All," and more. Also included are several brand new compositions from Straight No Chaser including the buoyant "Feels Like Christmas," featuring Jana Kramer.

Domenico Sarri numbered among the composers who enjoyed great success with their operas in Naples during the early eighteenth century, but gained renown throughout the rest of Europe principally with their sacred music. This CD features two wonderful works presented by the Sächsisches Vocalensemble under Matthias Jung.

One composer damned to musty obscurity not too long ago was Eugen d'Albert; while regarded as one of history's legendary pianists, his composing activity – which spans an especially interesting period from the 1880s to the early '30s – was seen as a stick-in-the-mud retention of German post-romanticism and therefore an unnecessary pursuit. However, his 1903 operetta Tiefland never left the repertory of the German-speaking stage, and it is the Theater Osnabrück that is co-branding CPO's release Eugen d'Albert: Symphony Op. 4 – Seejungfrauen Op. 15, which features the in-house symphony, the Osnabrücker Symphonieorchester under the baton of general music director Hermann Bäumer. The Osnabrück Symphony is a notably compact band usually numbering around 45 pieces, but it has a big sound nonetheless, captured generously in this fine CPO recording.