“Not a lot of people talk about the true origins of bluegrass music, but it came from Black people. The banjo, the washtub, all that stuff started with African Americans. We were playing it before it even had a name.” - Swamp Dogg

This year marks 25 years since Oasis’ two iconic record breaking live concerts at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire on the 10th and 11th August 1996. The shows were both the pinnacle of the band’s success and a landmark gathering for a generation of young people.

South African pianist, composer, philosopher, and healer Nduduzo Makhathini travels beyond any existing notion of music-making to offer his most profound vision of creative mysticism yet with uNomkhubulwane, his stunning eleventh studio album which is his third to be released on Blue Note Records following 2020’s Modes of Communication: Letters From The Underworlds and 2022’s In The Spirit Of Ntu. The transcendent three-movement suite—which pays homage to the Zulu Goddess uNomkhubulwane and explores Africa’s tragic history of oppression—features Makhathini’s trio with bassist Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere on bass and drummer Francisco Mela. The music is both an offering and an invitation to humanity to cultivate ways of being that strive for freedom and balance.

There are many reasons why albums slip through the cracks. This one was only ever released in Japan and never made it to CD. Why? The story goes that when Vitous was nudged out of Weather Report in 1974, he allegedly sold these recordings to Sony Japan for big bucks, none of which reached the rest of the musicians involved. If true, it's a shame. Recorded in 1970, just prior to the formation of Weather Report, the session abounds in funky looseness and a diaphanous sense of space, providing a bridge between In a Silent Way and Weather Report's early sound. Mostly a trio date, McLaughlin contributes laid back guitar to just one track, and doesn't appear at the same time as Zawinul, so we're denied the opportunity to hear what Mahavishnu-Report might have sounded like. Vitous burns, though, overdubbing deep basslines with sonorous, cello-like arco. Call it a missed opportunity.

When Elliott Smith's self-titled second album came out in 1995, it was ignored by the press but championed by artists from the Beastie Boys to Fugazi. To commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Elliott Smith, the Kill Rock Stars label is releasing a special deluxe package, which includes a new remastering of the original record; a coffee table book of previously unseen photographs by JJ Gonson with handwritten lyrics, and reminiscences from Smith’s friends and colleagues; and a bonus disc documenting the earliest known recording of Smith performing as a solo act. The set is a revelatory look at an under-appreciated work by an artist whose influence continues to expand seventeen years after his death.

With a voice as powerful as Crystal Shawanda's, it's hard to imagine she would wind up performing anything other than Blues. From deeply soulful ballads to knock-you-on-your-butt R&B, Crystal's energy and love of blues and soul comes out in every performance. As a songwriter Crystal and her creative partner, producer Dewayne Strobel understand how to build a great song around her ability to wring an immersive emotional experience out of each lyric.Following her 2021 JUNO win for Best Blues Album, Crystal Shawanda returns with Midnight Blues coming out on True North Records on Sept 30. Featuring the song of the summer "How Bad Do You Want It" with 6 new original songs and 4 covers, Crystal's take on Willie Dixon's "Evil" and Buddy Guy's "What Kind of Man" twists each into a woman's point of view.

Six long years have passed since Bohren & The Club Of Gore released their last album with "Piano Nights". In 2020 the band finally presents its successor: "Patchouli Blue" is the band's eighth longplayer, the first album without drummer Thorsten Benning, who left the group in 2015. The trio has recorded eleven tracks, a unique mix of dark jazz, doom and ambient, as always instrumental, as always decelerated, another highlight in their discography.

Live in San Francisco at the Palace of Fine Arts is an six-track mini-album of the Canadian singer, songwriter, accordionist, harpist, and pianist, Loreena McKennitt. It was recorded live in San Francisco during a concert at the Palace of Fine Arts, on 19 May 1994 and released 1 year later. Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Loreena McKennitt is one of Canada's most beloved national artists, a folk chanteuse, and a new age troubadour who made her breakthrough in the mid-'80s with her literate and oft-experimental focus on Celtic-tinged traditional and original material, coupled with her haunting harp playing.

"Groove Parade Volumen Uno" (2002) is a compilation album that features a variety of artists from the genres of Latin music, jazz, funk, and electronic beats, often with a focus on rhythmic grooves and fusion styles. It is part of a series or collection of albums intended to showcase different artists and tracks that exemplify this blend of genres.

With his solo career fading, Glenn Frey got serious on his fourth album, but many of the album's sentiments sounded strange coming from him. "He Took Advantage" was subtitled "Blues for Ronald Reagan," but it came more than three years after Reagan's retirement, and Frey's 1984 song "Better in the U.S.A." could have served as Reagan's campaign song. On "I've Got Mine," Frey sang about how people in limousines don't care about "us," but when was the last time he was on the outside of a limousine looking in? Frey was out of his league going for the kind of philosophical/political territory better handled by his old partner Don Henley. So, although Strange Weather signaled a new commitment by Frey to his career, it missed the charts entirely. (The album concludes with "Part of Me, Part of You," an Eagles-like tune used in the 1991 film Thelma and Louise.)

Six CD box set. Released by the Major Minor label in 1968, the self-titled July album has long been acknowledged by genre enthusiasts as one of the classic UK psychedelic one-shots, mixing the ambition and experimentation of "Sgt. Pepper" with a lo-fi charm and endearing garage band artlessness. It is also one of the most hotly-pursued artefacts of the British psychedelic era, with an original UK copy (only graded at VG++) recently selling on eBay for around £3700. This definitive six CD overview of the band's activities includes newly-remastered versions of the album in both mono and stereo formats as well as the various single issues, including a completely different recording of album nugget 'The Way'. Disc Three contains The Second Of July, a collection of pre-album demos that appeared in the mid-Nineties to capitalize on the band's growing reputation as original copies of their LP began to sell for increasingly large sums of money. The remainder of the boxed set consists of more recent July recordings following their triumphant return to live work a few years ago. Disc Four is the aborted album Temporal Anomaly, which was recorded circa 2010 but which gains a first-ever release, while Disc 6 is the appropriately-titled Resurrection, which received a limited release in 2013. Disc Six comprises the latest July magnum opus, The Wight Album, which has been pieced together over the last few years by Tom Newman and Peter Cook at Tom's recording studio on the Isle of Wight. Now finally completed, The Wight Album - described by Tom as "the greatest July album" - brings the July story bang up to date. Housed in a clamshell box, and with a 40-page booklet containing a 7000 word essay on the band featuring new quotes and some priceless period photos, The Complete Recordings is an epic look at the studio activities of one of the biggest cults to emerge from the original British psychedelic scene.

Back to the World opens up with "This Is the Time," aka the "Theme to Karate Kid II," its very existence suggesting what exactly went right and wrong on Desert Moon. DeYoung's solo debut brought him enough success that he could score the theme song to a sequel, so there wasn't much reason to change his approach – indeed, most of the same people on Desert Moon return for Back to the World, including guitarist Tom Dziallo – but the fact that he scored with a ballad, not a rocker, means he ramps up his schmaltzy side on this sophomore set. Even when it rocks, which is primarily on the second side, there's a bit of razzmatazz that seems all the more overblown when it's filtered through stacks of synthesizers.

Time to celebrate 20 years of GOOSE with this incredible double CD! We released ‘G20SE 20Y Celebration’ on November 8, 2024: a musical journey through the past, consisting of 20 singles that shaped the band. On the 2CD you’ll find 20 songs that have defined GOOSE’s career so far. Starting from ‘Audience’ to ‘British Mode’, ‘Synrise’, ‘Words’… and many many more for you to discover.

Homosexuality has been a part of post-war popular music since its very inception. Until the early 70s, however, it wasn’t talked about openly in that world: it was coded, hidden, secret. This of course mirrored society - during the 50s and 60s, the gay community felt like outcasts: harassed by the police, demonised by the media and politicians, imprisoned simply for being who they were. This compilation spans the time before and after Bowie, reflecting both the coded nature about the topic in the 50s and 60s and the greater openness that occurred in the early 70s. It begins in late 1955, with the extraordinary success of Little Richard; continues through early-60s pop and pop art; Tamla and Soul, Glam Rock, the early 70’s funk and disco that was played in the underground New York clubs, and then moves on to the omnipresence of Disco, in the late seventies.

Remixed and Reimagined is the second entry in Sony BMG’s Legacy Remixed series. This entry features Billie Holiday recordings culled from her years on Columbia Records.