Grace Jones teamed with the great reggae production duo of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare on this 1980 album, and made the transition from straight dance and club act into quasi-pop star with reggae and urban contemporary leanings. The single "Private Life" was one of her best, and the overall album had more energy and production gloss than previous LPs that had been aimed completely at the club market. It helped that Jones seemed enthused about the session and really put herself into the songs.

Cave Of Clear Light is a 3CD Anthology that tells the story of the Underground years of the Pye record label and its Progressive imprint Dawn Records. Often unfairly seen as a poor relation to the Progressive and Underground releases by major labels such as Decca, Harvest, Vertigo, Island and United Artists, Pye Records also released many albums and singles by artists who were at the forefront of the Underground rock explosion of the late 1960 s and early 1970 s. Cave Of Clear Light re-appraises the labels output and features tracks by artists such as Donovan, Status Quo, Man, Atomic Rooster and Fruupp, also including many rare tracks by highly collectable artists such as Jonesy, David Mcwilliams, Stray, Paul Brett's Sage, Fire, Titus Groan, Demon Fuzz, Noir, Comus, Gravy Train, Writing On The Wall and many more…

Joyce Di Donato and Maite Beaumont are outstanding as the devoted couple tormented by Tiridate’s abuse of power. Their flexible and agile voices are ideally displayed in the opening scenes of Act 2 – Beaumont’s sublime ‘Quando mai’ followed by Di Donato’s powerful ‘Ombra cara’. Patrizia Ciofi is suited to the moods of the Tiridate’s long-suffering wife. Dominique Labelle is the most rounded and ideally equipped Handel soprano in the cast: the music effortlessly trips off her tongue in ‘Mirerò quel vago volto’…

Following their hugely successful cycle of Vaughan Williams’ nine symphonies, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is led by Andrew Manze in this album of the composer’s most popular shorter orchestral works. This disc features Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Fantasia on Greensleeves, The Lark Ascending and The Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, as well as the rarely performed orchestral version of The Serenade to Music.

For the upcoming 500th anniversary of the death of the great Franco-Flemish composer Pierre de la Rue (around 1460-1518), the vocal ensemble The Sound and the Fury, which specializes in early music, has recorded a selection of the composer’s artistic masses for the label FRA BERNARDO, which impressively reflect the high standard at the court of the music-loving and music-savvy Margaret of Austria. The Pierre de la Rue masses on this recording have one thing in common: they are all based on monadic models, thus in keeping with the most traditional of cyclic mass composition models, the cantus firmus mass.

When The Omega Syndicate burst onto the scene in 2004 with their exhilarating debut “Analogue Waves” they quickly made quite an impression and many friends into the bargain. In a UK scene often accused of being lacklustre and amateurish, The Omega Syndicate have flown in the face of any such criticism with their exciting and dynamic fresh sounding take on the traditional Berlin School sound. Although they are creating long tracks with synths, sequencers and Mellotrons, what they produce is wholly original and while it can be said firmly and squarely to be “Berlin School”, it doesn’t always sound like a clone of Schulze or Tangerine Dream.

With her mix of blues, soul, and rock, plus the just tangible presence of her native Mississippi gospel background, Zora Young can be a powerful performer when the material is there. On the best cuts from Tore Up from the Floor Up, her third album and second for Delmark, she shows a kind of hard-earned wisdom and an assurance in her vocals that rises well above mere shouting, and tracks like the moody, dynamic "Toxic" and the romping title tune (both of which are Young originals) show her to be a solid songwriter as well. She also turns in fine readings on a pair of covers, turning atmospheric on Muddy Waters' "Two Trains Running" and giving B.B. King's "I'm Gonna Do the Same Thing They Did to Me" a saucy, determined sheen…

The 3rd Essen Pop & Blues Festival took place in the Gruga Hall between 22 and 25 October 1970, featuring bands such as Guru Guru, Xhol, Embryo, Fotheringhay, East of Eden, Q 65, Gun, Quiver and Taste. Roland Verheyen, a staff member of promoter Konrad Mallison, recorded the entire festival directly from the soundboard. About a half of the tapes had meanwhile been used for other recordings, but a large part of the original recordings has survived. Garden of Delights has acquired the rights to these tapes. A lot of studio processing without any noticeable changes in the sound had become necessary to make the Guru Guru gig suitable for release. The 36-page colour booklet contains everything a collector might be looking for: a detailed history of early Guru Guru, an 11-page discography, reprints of covers and partly unpublished band photos.

This compilation is a tribute to the sound that characterized the 90s and it exudes the breath of this legendary era with every track! No good party without 90s sound! Feat. Captain Jack, Captain Hollywood Project, Bellini, Fragma, Bob Sinclar, Cosmic Gate, Dr. Alban and others.

Having already recorded for ECM as a member of Azimuth - the band also included her husband, pianist John Taylor, and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler - it seemed only a matter of time before Norma Winstone would contribute her fine and very original vocal talents to a solo disc for the label; hence listeners have 1987's Somewhere Called Home. It's not only a watermark of Winstone's career but, in the long line of modern vocal outings released since the romantic vocal tradition of Fitzgerald and Vaughan ended with free jazz and fusion, the disc stands out as one most original yet idyllic of vocal jazz recordings. Joined by Taylor and British saxophone legend Tony Coe, Winstone imparts equal measures of intimacy and drama to the proceedings…

After a string of hits, Unborn Child was a mistake coming from the Seals & Crofts camp when it did. Blatantly anti-abortion, it did little to help their careers and nothing in the way of chart success. But one must consider that it does hold good music in its grooves, and with today's attitudes changing, perhaps this isn't as harsh as it first appeared to be.
It's possible to hear the progression of soft rock through the music of Seals & Crofts, the duo who recorded some of the genre's perennials. Over the course of the 1970s, Seals & Crofts evolved from a gentle folk-rock duo to purveyors of slick, polished pop, two sounds that became inextricably associated with the Me Decade. Practitioners of the Baha'i Faith - at the height of their fame in the mid-'70s, they'd extol its virtues to fans - the duo were drawn to the quieter aspects of rock music, developing a signature sound distinguished by their easy melodicism and mellow vibe…

Avalon is the eighth and final studio album by English rock band Roxy Music. Released in May 1982, it was recorded in 1981–82 at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, and is generally regarded as the culmination of the smoother, more adult-oriented sound of the band's later work. It was the band's most successful studio album, reaching No. 1 in the UK (for 3 weeks) and staying on the album charts for over a year. Although it only peaked at No. 53 in the United States, Avalon endured as a sleeper hit and became the band's only million-selling record in that country, ultimately receiving a platinum certification.

Collection includes: Placebo (1996); Without You I'm Nothing (1998); Black Market Music (2000); Sleeping with Ghosts (2003); Meds (2006).

The highly personal and often chimerical piano music of Robert Schumann requires a confident interpreter who can enter the music with full awareness of the composer's quirks, yet not become so involved with their strangeness that he gets lost. For this Virgin release, the brilliant Piotr Anderszewski has chosen two works that show the extremes of Schumann's divided personality: the youthful and playful Humoresque, Op. 20, and the late, madness-tinged Morning Songs, Op. 133. In between them is the sober set of Studies for the Pedal Piano, Op. 56, which, in its serious counterpoint and controlled expressions, stands apart from Schumann's wild mood swings and emotionally turbulent music. Because these three works are seldom performed and are open to fresh possibilities, Anderszewski has free reign to explore the whimsy and sorrow of the Humoresque, the intellectuality of the Studies, and the brooding of the Morning Songs, and the range of his comprehension and expression is wide indeed.

UK archive release. An anthology of all surviving '60s recordings by The Syn, key players on the London summer-of-'67 underground circuit and the starting point for prog legends Yes. Active from late 1965 as an Action-style mod/Motown band, The Syn embraced psychedelia with some legendary theatrical shows during their Marquee Club residency and a brace of flower-power singles for Deram before slowly evolving into Yes. Those four Deram sides - 'Created By Clive', 'Grounded', 'Flowerman' and '14 Hour Technicolour Dream' - are joined by a clutch of rare recordings from the period, including a five-minute rehearsal excerpt of stage favorite 'The Gangster Opera', an earlier recording of 'Flowerman', a pre- Deram acetate of the unissued-at-the-time 'Merry-Go-Round' and two tracks by pre-Syn band The Selfs. The CD also includes some post-Syn recordings, including a brace of songwriting demos by singer Steve Nardelli, keyboardist Andrew Pryce Jackman and bassist Chris Squire as they attempted to set up a production company at the height of Squire's success with Yes. With a foreword by Phil Collins (a huge fan during their Marquee days), many previously unpublished photos and a new 5000 word essay, 'Flowerman' is an essential purchase for admirers of both vintage British psychedelia and the band Yes.